We broke down the Sam Altman and Jony Ive video
64 comments
·May 25, 2025roxolotl
prawn
It's a mystery and mysteries can be exciting. You can become invested in that without thinking you'd buy it. Have they hit on something? Is it probably underwhelming? But what if it's not. They have credibility. But do they?
I remember the Segway hype. A lot of it was intriguing because they had comments from heavyweights who in theory know how to assess a major product. But, yes, we know how that played out.
globalnode
I suspect Altman is just using the shotgun approach to getting likes (from powerful people) and when he gets one he markets it as though it was pre-ordained.
ethbr1
It's a proven approach -- worked for Theranos.
gyomu
These people are 1) unbelievably rich, and 2) their name is everywhere (the latter being easy to achieve if you have the first).
For most people, that’s enough to inspire… something.
etrautmann
I’m not sure that’s true. It’s a lot easier to turn power into money that money into power.
strangattractor
I think Altman needs a sidekick to help make him more likable. He suffers from resting Gloom face.
monkeyelite
I think that’s the plan - give open ai a better look and face.
IncreasePosts
Sam Altman is compelling to people who think accumulating as much money as possible is the point of life
lolinder
When I think of OpenAI hardware I can't help but think of Akins Laws of Spacecraft Design [0]:
> 39. Any exploration program which "just happens" to include a new launch vehicle is, de facto, a launch vehicle program.
Having a Jony Ive project on the side isn't going to do squat for OpenAI—if they're going to go into consumer hardware that's going to need to be an all-consuming strategic pivot, which their other moves suggest they're not doing. They're currently in spaghetti at the wall mode with Jony Ive as just one bet among many, which is a very bad way to approach a new piece of consumer hardware that's meant to compete with Apple.
threeseed
> if they're going to go into consumer hardware that's going to need to be an all-consuming strategic pivot
You have to build a phone.
There is no other way to get the data you need to make XR glasses, AI pebble, Rabbit etc work the way people expect without it. Because Apple and Google are well within the rights to deny the siphoning of your private data to a company like OpenAI who only exists because of large scale trademark abuse.
monkeyelite
This sounds backwards. Making a best selling phone ecosystem to get started on the AI project?
vessenes
It’s a proprietary data stream that they can control: mission critical.
conartist6
But aren't they building a necklace?
ethbr1
Necklaces have existed for a while. This is novel.
I believe the preferred terminology is "drone collar"
rl3
>0:25: A brief glimpse of Altman’s shoes, which we’ve identified as the LEGO x Adidas UltraBoost DNA, is seen as he walks through the Financial District.
Reminds me of this:
https://x.com/sama/status/1791183356274921568
Funny his shoes in the Jony Ive video share a similar aesthetic to the very Google stage he was calling out. It gets better when you consider Google's only recently begun starting to kick OpenAI's ass, and all without fake-ass coffee shop extras.
The lengths people go to try to appear "real" never ceases to amuse. Surely there's a formal term for this? Perhaps the Zuckerberg effect.
Frost1x
Impression management: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impression_management
geeunits
It's called 'Ego'.
inopinatus
ms.inopinatus saw this, her remark:
"Disappointed it doesn’t simulate the experience of stepping on a lego brick by accident"
danpalmer
> 3:23: Altman: “Jony recently gave me one of the prototypes ... and I think it is the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen.”
> We have more than five minutes left. Spoiler alert: That’s the only detail about the device that’s in the entire video. —KT
There's a lot of hype building going on for very little detail. Similar feeling to the Humane teaser videos from a year or two before they launched.
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detourdog
The referenced article sure did make these two endeavor seem out of touch. The pointlessness of the Lego Adidas integration makes me question the judgment of the wearer.
prawn
I don't buy it, but I liked the idea someone else mentioned that the prototype were the glasses Ive was wearing in the hero shot of their wedding announcement, and could infer intent from subvocal recognition and refer instruction via bone conduction.
danpalmer
This is practically just fanfiction though. The glasses obviously don't contain any compute - Ive is great at industrial design but not electronics – and subvocal mics can't work unless you attach them to your throat, otherwise there's nothing to pick up. It's a neat idea in the same way that I think teleportation would be better than cars, I wonder why we aren't doing that instead.
But also, you don't go to all the effort of preparing glasses that are 10 years ahead of the industry and wearing them in a video... only to not have a big reveal. There has to be a pay off to the marketing, and saying "one more thing, we were wearing these last year" in their product announcement doesn't get them anything.
prawn
Yeah, like I said, I don't buy it, just the concept that it was hidden in plain sight was a fun idea. Otherwise it's an even weirder photo...
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micromacrofoot
these guys aren't inventing new technologies, there are only so many combinations of components this could be
prawn
Your guesses?
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detourdog
I felt that once Jobs was gone and Ives took over the gui of the iPhone that iOS started to degrade.
throwaway-11-1
Jony literally put the guy from packaging in charge of UI, if you wonder why iOS 7 has such garish colors (white glyphs were unreadable on the green app icon containers etc) its because they're were doing design reviews on paper and the team didn't understand CMYK to RGB. It was like watching a room full of adults learn to ride a bike.
detourdog
It sure felt like that. I studied industrial design. Robert Bruner was the designer that hired Ives. Bruner gave his standard design slideshow to my class. His spiel was that he was into boxology. Which is how he described the process of finding the macintoshes form factor (after Frog Design). I always saw Ives talent in that vein.
I have been naming my iPhones since 5 or 6 soap because they are like holding a wet bar of soap. I’m not expecting earth shattering product.
I think Ives real talent is in materials and fabrication.
monkeyelite
Oof. I don’t know if this true but I have seen the print designer try to do digital and it’s painful. I think these designers don’t realize that a UI is a system with pieces and rules that adapt, and not a fixed drawing.
danpalmer
> because they're were doing design reviews on paper and the team didn't understand CMYK to RGB
Huh. Do you have a reference for this? If this is in a book or something I'm interested to read more about this backstory.
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dustbunny
This was the kind of video that would be appropriate as a retrospective on their career together after it's happened. Not appropriate before they've even done anything.
threeseed
OpenAI is becoming like Tesla.
Their first mover advantage is gone, they are unable to innovate on their core product and everything that is said or done is hyped to the extreme.
And now trying to move into adjacent categories where there is no clear problem to be solved and is putting them up against the biggest players in the industry.
ignoramous
> ...trying to move into adjacent categories where there is no clear problem to be solved...
Smartphones/PCs/wearables, browsers, social media, & IDEs are absolutely important to any company wanting to sell increasingly more capable models that understand our world better with each passing year (provided the scale hypothesis keeps up): For the control over both the hardware and the OS, and for the amount of data that can be fed back to the training set.
Google (and to varying extents Microsoft & Meta) can leverage their existing products or distribution advantages. Given the how frosty both their Microsoft & Apple partnership now appears, it seems natural that OpenAI are tempted to pursue consumer devices, browsers (Operator is a start), IDEs (cf Windsurf).
furyofantares
This whole thing is reminiscent of "IT" to me, when the story about this encounter was going around
> Kamen showed it to Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and John Doerr. Bezos reportedly made his "loud, honking laugh" of appreciation. Jobs said it would cause people to re-architect cities and compared its importance to the PC. Doerr likened IT in magnitude to the Internet and then invested in it.
But there were zero public details about what "IT" was. (IT was the Segway.)
https://www.forbes.com/2001/01/18/0118malone.html
Speaking of Steve Jobs, I think the reason the "sam and jony" page looks like a wedding announcement crossed with an Apple advertising -- down to the url https://openai.com/sam-and-jony (which you should visit if the only thing youve seen is the 'how we met' video TFA is breaking down) -- is because it's trying to frame Sam as Jony's new Steve Jobs.
vessenes
Arguably the first vc backed company to use guerilla marketing. (I await counter examples)
In segways case, not only was it a little underwhelming compared to the buzz, GW Bush flipped headfirst over it during a demo drive. I imagine that had some moderating impact on launch.
prepend
The Sam/Jony video reminds me of a friend who tells you how they are going on a diet. How much they spent on diet foods and supplements. And the details of all their exercise plans. And how great it will feel to be 50 pounds lighter.
It gives them the dopamine rush and adulation of the audience.
cjbgkagh
Perhaps someone with a better memory can correct me, but wasn’t ios7 the first iPhone interface where Jony Ive had free range and it was really bad?
detourdog
That sounds about right. It was really bad. I don't know that it ever fully recovered.
xt00
The fact that Sam says he would open his laptop to ask Chatgpt something is almost like he is trying to avoid saying he would use his phone.
The reality is that we likely don't need any new devices as much as people want to keep saying that. If you have airpods and a phone you could talk to chatgpt and say "show me how to fix my kid's bike with a simple video on my phone" -- it buzzes your phone and boom the video is there. Sure it is missing the ability to take a picture of the world / video -- so in that case, a pair of the meta rayban glasses would do that -- again just use your phone / cloud, it all works. Or skip the special glasses and hold your phone up to the thing you want to take a picture of. No need for magical new devices.
Having a camera staring at me while I talk to somebody -- yea I'm gonna pass on that.
DaSHacka
> Having a camera staring at me while I talk to somebody -- yea I'm gonna pass on that.
My fear is this is a choice you or I can't make; it's up to the whims of others who may choose to use these products.
Time has shown again and again that average people don't exactly value their autonomy or privacy when technology's involved, I have no doubt it'd be the same way with literal live-streaming cameras attached to people's faces.
gyomu
The most disappointing thing about Jony as a designer is how nouveau-riche he is.
Since he left Apple, he’s been designing for Ferrari, King Charles, $2500 jackets, etc.
It feels quite at odds with Jobs’ original visions of products that were beautifully designed, but still remained generally affordable for students, teachers, small business owners, and Mr/Mrs Everybody in general.
Of all his tendencies that Jobs supposedly kept in check, I think that’s the most underdiscussed one. I guess the writing was on the wall with the $10k gold Apple Watch.
ethbr1
That's the celebrity excess that architecture and industrial design encourage.
It's a weird comingling of the field trying to pretend it's more important and cool than it is + rampant imposter syndrome in its superstars.
Ergo, they must pretend they're doing Very Important Work and are The Best in the World.
... meanwhile, it's fucking curves on corners. Throw a dart and pick one.
The real work is being done by unfamous, tirelessly toiling rank and file in both industries, quietly making the world a better place, bit by bit.
detourdog
I don't think design and architecture are inherently as you describe.
detourdog
The thing that disappointed me the most regarding the Apple Watch was the innards couldn't be upgraded. The case and band I thought could be held on to like an heirloom. The digital stuff could have been designed as capsule.
ChrisArchitect
More discussion about the video and all of this:
OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive
I wish I understood how people are convinced by these sorts of displays. Assuming every word is 100% true I’d still never buy what’s being sold. Sam Altman acts like billion dollar used car salesman. Somehow many, most?, people find this compelling and convincing. I just find it repulsive.
And I appreciate that I am as easy to sell to if the thing I find trusting is being used. It just blows my mind that this is what seems to work the best.