In late September, a stakeholder in Humane received a humbled message from the startup. The Information had just broken the news that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had been secretly meeting with renowned former Apple designer Jony Ive.
The duo was dreaming up the “iPhone of artificial intelligence,” according to later reports, and had been speaking with SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son about funding their plans.
Unfortunately for Humane, the idea sounded uncannily similar to the product it had been stealthily working on for years: a wearable assistant built in part on OpenAI technology.
Even more embarrassing, Altman is a significant shareholder in Humane, according to filings the company has submitted to the Federal Communications Commission.
The previously unreported message to stakeholders, which The Information viewed, explained that Humane was not involved in the Altman-Ive project in any way.
Altman later said his plans with Ive were in a “very nascent stage,” but the news of his straying attention couldn’t have come at a worse time for Humane.
The five-year-old company had been planning to unveil the full details of its blockbuster first product, the Ai Pin, to coincide with the solar eclipse on October 14. Instead, the company quietly pushed the launch date to November 9.