Sam and Jony and Skepticism

Ever since OpenAI announced a couple of days ago that it’s integrating Jony Ive’s hardware startup, I’ve been struggling with what to write about it.

Struggling because it’s obviously an important technology topic, and needs to be taken seriously. But also struggling because I’ve seen a lot of people who think, talk and write about this stuff for a living reacting to the announcement with enthusiasm and positivity, and I just don’t feel that, not even a little bit.

And struggling because I don’t want to judge any project based entirely on the red flashing light going off in my head suggesting that it’s a load of bullshit. It’s the same light that flashed when I first heard about Quibi or the Humane Ai Pin.

So OpenAI and Apple’s legendary design lead are embarking on a journey to build some new AI-enabled hardware. They’re coy about what it will be—probably not a phone, definitely not a watch, maybe not “something you wear”—but my gut feeling is that it’ll be something we’ve actually seen before. My true prediction is that it’ll be more like the Humane Ai Pin or that AI Pendant but they’re embarrassed to be associated with those products, so they’re going to wait a little longer to let the stink clear.

I’m skeptical about OpenAI in general, because while I think AI is so powerful that aspects of it will legitimately change the world, I also think it has been overhyped more than just about anything I’ve seen in my three decades of writing about technology. Sam Altman strikes me as being a drinker of his own Kool-Aid¹, but it’s also his job to make everyone in the world think that AI is inevitable and amazing and that his company is the unassailable leader while it’s bleeding cash.

I’m skeptical about the premise that people want to give up their smartphones. Two rich guys, one of whom made a fortune by designing the iPhone, have decided that the most successful and important tech product in history is bad for you, actually, and that the solution is, unsurprisingly, a new and different tech product.

But people love their smartphones. Really love them.

Just as with the Humane pin, it strikes me as unlikely that there’s much an AI accessory device can offer that can’t already be done by a powerful smartphone and maybe some earbuds or smart glasses or a smartwatch working in concert. It’s not impossible, but it feels unlikely that there’s a space for something to unseat the smartphone given all of its advantages and the fact that people really, really like it.

I’m skeptical of the composition of the io leadership team, which features an awful lot of product designers and not a lot of hardware engineers. I’m sure there are talented engineers there too—the OpenAI announcement refers to “physicists, scientists, researchers” among the team members—but the fact remains that this is a startup whose leader and key lieutenants appear to all be designers.

Designers aren’t bad. They’re good. But designers are part of a team. You can’t make a football team out of quarterbacks or a baseball team out of pitchers. I’ve worked with some very talented designers over the years, and while they can be incredibly creative, the magic happens when they work in collaboration with the other members of a team, where their design sense can be steered by practicalities and, in turn, steer non-designers away from bad approaches.

Which brings me to Sir Jony Ive himself. Ive is undeniably one of the most famous and important designers of our lifetime. His early days at Apple were frustrating, but when Steve Jobs arrived, the two of them clicked, and the results were spectacular. We all know what they did. It’s undeniable.

I would argue that what worked about that partnership is that Jobs grounded Ive, bringing a sense of the customer and user of Apple products that perhaps tempered some of Ive’s design tendencies. When Jobs died, Apple made a great effort to push Ive to the forefront, mostly as a signal that the magic of Apple hadn’t died with Jobs, but was still alive and well, even though an operations guy was now the CEO. Ive provided Apple with cover until the rapid acceleration of iPhone sales made it unnecessary.

But in that post-Jobs era of Apple, Ive was unfettered. He was put in charge of software design, so his portfolio expanded. And who at Apple was going to say no to Sir Jony Ive? Who was going to tell him, in Steve Jobs fashion, that some of his ideas sucked? (And who is going to do that at io and OpenAI? Forgive me if I’m dubious about Sam Altman having both the skill and desire to do that.)

The post-Jobs Apple era was one of great financial success, but the design failures and bizarre dead ends are there for all to see, and it’s hard not to imagine that an unchallenged Ive was a major part of that dynamic. Solid gold watches, butterfly keyboards to meet impossible laptop design goals, removing unsightly ports on pro laptops, and the introduction of a $3500 VR headset with sparkling chrome and a luxurious 3D knitted headband and a set of outward-facing displays to “encourage human connection.” To me, all of this is the legacy of Ive’s design culture.

Meanwhile, Apple’s success made Ive a very rich man. He was knighted, did work for the King, drove fancy cars, designed a bunch of expensive jackets… it is hard not to look at Jony Ive’s last decade and a half and not wonder if he’s entirely lost touch with the part of him that collaborated with Jobs on the iMac, the iPod mini and the original iPhone. He seems to move in luxurious circles, among billionaires (like Sam Altman), with expensive tastes and interests. It felt like he was bored at Apple, and he seems to be excited about working with Altman on this new project, but are a bunch of designers who’ve been to the mountaintop and reaped the rewards really going to be tied in to the next big consumer hardware product?

I’ll say this: Never count out Jony Ive and the talented people that surround him. They’ve gotten the band back together, thanks to an enormous investment of AI money, and we’re going to find out—eventually—what they want to put into the world.

But right now, all we have are words and an awkward video of Sam and Jony drinking espresso. The words are all vague. I’ll believe whatever they’re going to release when I see it. Until then, like so much in the AI world in particular and the tech world in general, it’s meaningless hype, signifying nothing.

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