OpenAI to buy AI startup from Jony Ive

5/21/2025 at 5:08:13 PM

by nickthegreek

5/21/2025 at 10:00:49 PM

A while back someone here on Hacker News made a pretty insightful comment that as great of a designer as Jony Ive is, a large part of his success is owed to the fact that he had an "editor" in the form of Steve Jobs. Once Jobs passed, he no longer really had an editor.

It remains to be seen whether Sam Altman / OpenAI in general will be a good editor

by Bjorkbat

5/22/2025 at 5:00:10 AM

This is a bit of a risk for Ive, as until now he is credited with Apple's lauded design. If he does not produce an immediate success it'll be brand damaging and wobble on his reputation.

I also suspect it might go that way: post-Ive designs have been credited as being better, particularly around apple's laptops that were perceived as too heavily favouring form over function.

More realistically Apple's design is good because they take the iterative approach seriously.

by quitit

5/22/2025 at 1:58:30 PM

Jobs has been dead for almost 15 years, he's already had plenty of time to prove himself. By the time he left Apple he was known for his obsession with thinness at the cost of function (if not straight up ruining the product), such as that stupid keyboard design from the late 2010s that sucked to type on, had failure rates comparable to the Xbox 360's RRoD, and was somewhere in the ballpark of $700 to repair because the ridiculous thin construction didn't allow for individual keys to be replaced.

by hbn

5/22/2025 at 6:05:33 AM

Why does Ive need to be churning out continuous hits? There is no shame in quitting while ahead, or considering your previous success to be a tough act to follow.

I feel similar about Zuckerberg. That guy should just let the government break up his empire, let some other people run the pieces, and retire. Otherwise he just faces humiliation and being in over his head.

But I guess ego keeps these people going.

by asveikau

5/22/2025 at 1:38:27 PM

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Ive probably had to compromise a lot with Steve at the helm. It is generally regarded that (laptops especially) Apple hardware went to form over function when Ive got total control and when Apple finally reverted his vision was sidelined.

If he has an ego, he probably really wants to have something is a Magnus Opus he can claim. It'll be interesting because good design is always a dance with other stakeholders. You see this with architects and other "designers" who sometimes go to far into art and forget that buildings do need to be used.

by hylaride

5/22/2025 at 3:47:32 PM

Apple laptops were good before and after his reign of mediocrity. The butterfly keyboard and the Touch Bar were both terrible and I'm glad they're gone.

The worst part about the butterfly keyboard was that keys would stop working and fixing it would cost the same as a new laptop. I guess that's what you sacrifice when you design the laptop as thin as Ive envisioned.

by nindalf

5/22/2025 at 4:49:23 PM

good designers are obsessed with how things are used. the others are platonically wanking.

by nazgulnarsil

5/22/2025 at 11:42:21 AM

I think having a founder stay on and lead, well after they are financially independent is very respectable. It says they are interested in more than just chilling on the beach.

by osigurdson

5/22/2025 at 5:00:38 PM

But when they cease to be competent and aren't able to admit it, it's less respectable.

by asveikau

5/22/2025 at 1:15:16 PM

I still like original founders as CEO. Nothing beats the skin in the game from that.

by jdonaldson