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You couldnt have missed the news: Jony Ive and Sam Altman have teamed up, after OpenAI acquired Ives company io for $6.5 billion. The plan? For Ive, and a sizable team of ex-employees from Apple, its to create a series of hardware products for OpenAI. The news alone dropped shares of Apple by 1.8% as two of the most celebrated software and hardware development teams in the modern era have combined to realize the potential of artificial intelligence and change the way we live. Hopefully for the better. The first io product, according to The Wall Street Journal, arrives in 2026. It will be a small object capable of being fully aware of a users surroundings and life. I imagine an environmental (audio, video, etc.) monitor the size of a macaron or iPod shuffle that Ive says accompanies a smartphone and laptop as a third devicewhich you can carry on your person or put onto the table. Despite the immensity of the partnership, its easy to be skeptical. After all, AI hardware has flopped thus far, due to a lack of vision and a lack of execution. And as wondrous as ChatGPT is, it still hallucinates and requires vast amounts of energy to train and operate. But within these barely explored large language models, theres still hidden potential that designers have yet to tap. As Ive told me back in 2023, there have been only three significant modalities in the history of computing. After the original command line, we got the graphical user interface (the desktop, folders, and mouse of Xerox, Mac OS, and Windows), then voice (Alexa, Siri), and, finally, with the iPhone, multitouch (not just the ability to tap a screen, but to gesture and receive haptic feedback). When I brought up some other examples, Ive quickly nodded but dismissed them, acknowledging these as tributaries of experimentation. Then he said that to him the promise, and excitement, of building new AI hardware was that it might introduce a new breakthrough modality to interacting with a machine. A fourth modality. Ives fourth modality, as I gleaned, was about translating AI intuition into human sensation. And its the exact sort of technology we need to introduce ubiquitous computing, also called quiet computing and ambient computing. These are terms coined by the late UX researcher Mark Weiser, who in the 1990s began dreaming of a world that broke us free from our desktop computers to usher in devices that were one with our environment. Weiser did much of this work at Xerox PARC, the same R&D lab that developed the mouse and GUI technology that Steve Jobs would eventually adopt for the Macintosh. (I would also be remiss to ignore that ubiquitous computing is the foundation of the sci-fi film Her, one of Altmans self-stated goalposts.) Ive written about the premise and promise of ubiquitous computing at length, having been privileged enough to have spoken with several of Weisers peers. But one idea has stuck with me the most from Weisers theories. He often compared the vision of quiet computing to a forest. In a forest, youre surrounded by informationplants, animals, and weather are all signaling you at once. And yet, despite your senses taking in all this data, youre never overwhelmed. You never find yourself distracted, or unhappy. (Perhaps its disconcerting when the storm clouds roll in, but Id still take the sound of low rolling thunder over a Microsoft Teams notification any day.) Ive never described what that fourth approach to interface looked likehe chooses his descriptors carefully and would not pigeonhole a burgeoning idea with limiting words. But for a man who planted 9,000 native trees when designing Apple Park and has expressed his own responsibility for the negative impacts of the smartphone, its hard to imagine he feels all that differently from Weiser. And that all comes to mind when analyzing the very little we know about the first io product. This first machine from io seems to be the input device needed for ubiquitous computing. I imagine the macaron will likely leverage notifications on your phone and audio in your ear to communicate with you. Down the line the partnership has teased a family of products, meaning, who knows what other UX possibilities io could dream up. [Images: Jason marz/Getty Images, Yevhen Borysov/iStock/Getty Images Plus] While we can barely say anything more specific, there does seem to be a fork in the road here philosophically. Whereas it appears that Google, Apple, Meta, and Snap are all betting on smart glasses to introduce the idea of ubiquitous computingsensors and pixels that sit in your eyes all the timeat least for launch, io is doing the opposite. All of the leaked details so far point toward io developing the quietest, most discreet computing device weve ever had. Im thinking of it as something like the silent conductor to the orchestra of the products we already own before, perhaps, one day doing more. Drafting off the smartphone The inconvenient truth for any innovator planning to disrupt consumer hardware is that theres a lot more competition than there used to be when the Walkman, iPod, or Razr came around. There are 7.21 billion smartphones in the world todaynearly one per person, adding up to a $434 billion hardware industry in 2025, according to IDC. (Do note: Almost all of them, regardless of brand, are stil designed along the lines of Ive and his teams original vision.) These supercomputing screens arent simply ubiquitous; they are essential. From 4K video social media posts that go global in an instant, to turn-by-turn GPS directions navigating us through our lives, to the infrastructure of hailing an Uber or Lyft, to the mindlessness of checking out at stores, to the frictionless experience of riding public transit, to the necessary remote for controlling appliances, to, when all else fails, having the option to makes calls via satellites, we deeply depend on these screens in our pockets. There is no future in which the smartphone suddenly goes extinct, not because its perfect for society but because its so ingrained in the many disparate parts of our living infrastructure. A world suddenly without working smartphones would plunge us into some level of chaos. The first error of the Humane Ai Pinthe hyped AI gadget by Apple alum Imran Chaudhri, backed by Altmanwas when it claimed it could replace your phone by, more or less, simply removing the screen and sticking it on your shirt. (The second error was when it just didnt work.) The first io device seems to acknowledge the phones inertia. Instead of presenting itself as a smartphone-killer like the Ai Pin or as a fabled second screen like the Apple Watch, its been positioned as a third, er, um . . . thing next to your phone and laptop. Yeah, thats confusing, and perhaps positions the io product as unessential. But it also appears to be a needed strategy: Rather than topple these screened devices, it will attempt to draft off them. [Images: iStock/Getty Images Plus, Yevhen Borysov/iStock/Getty Images Plus] On paper, that is such a vague idea that its either dull or exhilarating, depending on your disposition. Personally, its so darn hard to realize that I wouldnt give it much attention if it weren’t for the team building it. Ive founded io with some of the greatest engineering and design talents out of Apple. He also founded his firm LoveFrom with much of his core design team from Apple. These two firms will be tag teaming with OpenAI, the most singular force in kicking off the current AI era. By comparison, as I write this, a Limitless pendant sits on my desk, fully charged, fully unused. Its an AI system that will listen to your life to transcribe everything. Designed by Ammunition, the same lauded design firm behind Beats headphones, its slick, small, and carefully realized. It clamps right onto any fabric with a magnet. But after a week with it, I still dont know when or where I should wear it. With my family? Feels weird. At work? I work remotely, so I have Zoom, Teams, Slack, and every other platform already recording me. (And at any job, theres sensitive stuff you dont want recorded.) So thats out. What does that leave? Hanging with friends? The one time in my life as a journalist thats thoroughly off the record, no thank you. How deep is too deep into your life? My concerns for this io device are many, though privacy is top of mind. I can imagine some interesting UX around opting in to being recorded, but will OpenAI go that direction or just brute force itself into our lives? I cant help but remember that despite Apples privacy-first messaging, the iPhone went from a wondrous pocket computer to the ultimate personal advertising trackera decision made at the level of its chipset and supportive APIs. However, my concerns around privacy are perhaps more existential than my personal conversations being monetized. I wonder, if theres always this AI around, will we be allowed to be private in our own thoughts anymore? Will we be afforded the privacy to draw our own conclusions? Before these artificial entities, our lives have largely been colored by the people around us. Our family, spouses, friends, and coworkers. A chance encounter with a stranger can make a day or spoil it. Its so often someones take on events that shapes our ownlike leaving a movie theater, I almost always agree with the take of my companion. Lets assume we all acquiesce to this new wave of technology where an AI companion sits alongside us all the time. Suddenly, every experience we have is being processed by a third party. Its something that will be analyzing and summarizing our actions and interactions. It will shape what we do next, a vast acceleration of how algorithms shape our experience across social media today. Even if this io product doesnt live in our eyes, the extreme subtleties with which it chronicles our lives means it may live in our hearts. If that sounds cheesy, fair! Imagine if ChatGPT summarizes your life with all of the nuance of Apples AI of todayMark, confused by menu, ordered cowboy burger. Nobody will use the thing. A system like this inherently has to go deeper to prove its utility, but in doing so it has to balance the burden of that responsibility. A subjective computer Technologists discussing AI today often draw a line between a deterministic and probabilistic interface. A deterministic interface is what weve had for the past 50 years. Buttons always lead you through the same preplanned routes to play a song or pull up an email. Every app is essentially a permutation of a calculator that always leads to a perfect end point. With probabilistic AI, however, every question is more like a wheelspin of roulette. ChatGPT spins up its responses like an infinite Rubiks Cube spinning together every piece of media ever recorded. No one knows exactly what youll get, so the argument has been that probabilistic interfaces have to be built to accommodate for the unknown. If the Star Trek computer, with its clear answers like Alexa or Siri, was a deterministic computer, then the Star Trek holodeck, with its ever-shifting invented characters and worlds, is a probabilistic one. But I want to challenge that framing as inhuman, and irrelevant for our discussion of intimate, ambient computing. Instead of deterministic versus probabilistic, I think AI is shifing us from objective to subjective. When a Fitbit counts your steps and calories burned, thats an objective interface. When you ask ChatGPT to gauge the tone of a conversation, or whether you should eat better, thats a subjective interface. It offers perspective, bias, and, to some extent, personality. Its not just serving facts; its offering interpretation. The AI companion from io needs to be the first subjective interface. And that makes it as complicated and risky as any other relationship we have. Years ago when big data was all the rage, I asked the question, Should Google tell you if you have cancer? The idea being that it could track search patterns of someone who was sick over time and predict where they would go next. So shouldnt it intervene when it spots you searching for a known pattern of disease? The io device, presumably recording and analyzing your whole life, would have a similar remit, but with all sorts of additional questions. If it followed along in a conversation, and you couldnt think of the name of that book you read . . . should it whisper that name into your ear? If it caught you misremembering, or even lying, should it call you out? Privately or publicly? When Microsoft built Cortana, it interviewed real executive assistants largely to get the systems voice right, to know what it might say or not say, and how it could respond to certain questions. That level of sophistication was fine for scheduling a meeting or asking about the weatherconversational calculatorsbut we are so far beyond that now. Consider that an AI listening in or filming a room can do more than remember where you put your keys. Research is proving that it can spot finite relationships that humans cant even identify. Archetype AI, for instance, has demonstrated that with nothing more than an A/V feed, AI can predict everything from the swing of a pendulum to whether there might be a workplace accident. An io device will be able to hear so much more than what you say. Its why, as nonsensical as this unknown product might seem to critics (Im supposed to buy this surveillance thingy?!?), I cant question the potential utility. Executed well (thats a big caveat!), it is potentially the first step in a realized vision of ubiquitous computing, a little buddy in your pocket that experiences life with you so that you dont need to explain (or input) whats going on. And as wild as the alternative other companies are pursuing areto see holograms floating in front of your facethe vision for a quieter era of computing is about as old as computing itself. Its as if we realized, from the earliest days, that our natural world was already a utopia. Now, it will take incredible creativity and restraint from OpenAI, io, and LoveFrom to enhance whats remaining of this world, rather than seize its last bits.
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E-Commerce
Warren Buffett is likely the best-known, most successful investor in the world today. The philanthropist and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway has an estimated net worth of $158 billion and is known as the Oracle of Omaha for his ability to pick long-term investments. Hes also dedicated to sharing his wisdom with everyday investors, including beginners. Here are Buffetts top three tips: Principle No. 1: Invest Only in What You Understand Buffett has famously advised, Never invest in a business you cannot understand. In a letter to Berkshire Hathaways shareholders in 1996, Buffett explained the concept of a circle of competence: Basically, these are the fields that you truly understand and are knowledgeable enough to evaluate. You don’t have to be an expert on every company, or even many, Buffett said. You only have to be able to evaluate companies within your circle of competence. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital. For example, Buffett famously stayed out of tech stocks early on because he felt he couldnt truly evaluate the investment opportunities himself. At a 2019 stockholders meeting, Buffett advised investors to try and learn as much as they can about as many businesses as possible and then figure out which ones they truly understand and have knowledge on. That, he said, would put them ahead of most other investors. If youre an investor whod like to build your own portfolio, sticking to what you know is vital. Youll be able to evaluate each business for yourself and understand the true relevance of new developments over time. Meanwhile, if youre investing in something just because someone else says its a good idea, youre entirely dependent on their judgment, which may not be as sound as they claim or believe it is. If you dont have the time or inclination to study individual businesses thoroughly enough to make these judgments for yourself, Buffett recommends investing in an S&P 500 index fund as the best option for most investors. Principle No. 2: Avoid Unnecessary Activity You dont get paid for activity, you only get paid for being right, Buffett said in 1998. Especially as a beginning investor, youll likely get the urge to react to news about the market or your individual investments immediately. Its easy to panic when an earnings announcement sends the value of your equity down 5% or more in a day. But Buffett preaches patience: If youve done your due diligence and youre investing only in stocks you have strong reason to believe will pay off in the long run, a little market noise along the way shouldnt scare you off. Inactivity strikes us as intelligent behavior,” he said in his 1996 letter. If youre sure youre investing only in strong, well-managed businesses, then you need to trade only when those qualities arent true anymore. Stocks and the market tend to grow in value over time. By trading too frequently, you may find yourself reinvesting in stocks at higher prices than you originally bought them atlosing out on gains, dividend payments, and any trading fees in the processor losing out on higher long-term profits. Principle No. 3: Make Every Investment Decision Count In a speech at the USC Marshall School of Business in 1994, Charlie Munger, cofounder of Berkshire Hathaway, said that Buffett believes most investors would be better off in the long run if he could give each one a ticket with only 20 slots . . . representing all the investments that you got to make in a lifetime. The root of this advice is the same as Buffetts other investing principles: A limit of 20 investments forces you to carefully consider every move, to be patient, and to not invest in businesses you dont understand. Youd also ensure youre confident enough about each investment that its worth missing out on another investment in the future. Think about it: If you were buying a house or a car, would you buy it sight unseen, without an inspection, or on the word of some random person online? Probably not. Your investments deserve nearly as much deliberation. Buffett said in 1996 that every investors goal should simply be to purchase stocks in businesses that they are virtually certain will be earning more money in 5, 10, or 20 years. This diligence and patience has made Buffett one of the richest men in the world and could help your portfolio as well.
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E-Commerce
As the founder of a high-growth SaaS business, Evan was the quintessential entrepreneur. Ideas and innovation were his strength, and they led to his success in attracting investors and inspiring his early hires. With the infusion of investment capital, the company entered a new stage of growth. To scale successfully, the business needed to standardize operations and develop repeatable processes to reliably deliver services to its customers. But these were not Evans strengths. With a near-constant flow of ideas and a desire to resource them, he soon earned a new nickname among his team: chief distraction officer. Eventually, investors grew tired of Evans lack of focus and replaced him with a seasoned operator who had the operational capabilities necessary to grow. The skills that make founders successful often become liabilities as a business builds. As executive coach Marshall Goldsmith says, What got you here wont get you there. Here are five leadership behaviors that break at scaleand where the fixes lie. 1. Creativity over Discipline Evan was a perfect example of someone whose creativity and passion were a perfect fit for a founder. As his business progressed to the next stage of growth, the primary skill required was the ability to build out processes, to systematize the product so that it would be delivered to clients consistently every time. But highly entrepreneurial leaders often find it draining to limit their focus to only the one or two proven products. Whats the solution for the mismatch of a founders talents to this later stage of growth? The most successful ones recognize new skills are needed, have the humility to accept their own limitations, find a great COO, and get out of that persons way. 2. High Appetite for Risk When starting out, its important to take risks, try new things, learn from your mistakes, and try again. As companies scale, though, the focus should turn to building stability and predictability. Sudden shifts in strategy and focus cause uncertainty and inconsistency, which erode the trust and confidence of customers, employees, and investors. How do leaders balance the need for continuous innovation with stability and predictability? Former Google executives Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg offer a great framework for continuing to innovate as you scale: the 70/20/10 rule. The idea calls for allocating 70% of capital to the core business, 20% to emerging products and services, and 10% to the cutting-edge, higher-risk ideas. This framework ensures that innovation is always happeningbut not at the expense of the core business. 3. Command-and-Control Leadership Founders are notorious for having their hands in every decision, from product development and pricing to the paint color of the office. As the company scales, this level of involvement is no longer possible. Founders have to bring on new leaders to mobilize, motivate, and manage a larger number of employees. But bringing in leaders is the easy part: Moving to distributed leadership, where the company is truly led by a team instead of an individual, is harder. Distributed leadership calls for founder CEOs to step out of the day-to-day operational decisions, delegate, trust, and empower those on their team to drive results. Allowing others to share the management responsibilities pays enormous dividends. Beside the obvioushaving others to lean on for their knowledge and expertiseit also helps to ensure the stability and continuity of the business. Only by distributing leadership will CEOs be able to elevate their role to focus more on leading strategy. 4. Open-Door Communication Early-stage leaders enjoy the close proximity of their team and the ability to communicate in real time. It can be really challenging for CEOs to break the habit of communicating informally and directly with everyone at the company. To scale successfully, a CEO needs to shift to more measured and intentional communication. As Google was growing rapidly in the early 2000s, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin faced the challenge of shifting from being player-coaches who shared an office with fellow software engineers to becoming key executives of a publicly traded company. To help themand their employeesenforce new and necessary boundaries, the two hired a key executive assistant. That new hire served as a filter for their email and a bouncer for their office, with their role empowered to moderate the flow of people in and out so the executives could be more disciplined with their time and focus. 5. Valuing Relationships over Accountability A key ingredient to building a successful company is a high-performing teamand most startups dont begin with one. Founder CEOs often describe their initial team as a family who have bonded with each other through the intense challenges of the startup experience. Sometimes, early employees are actual familysiblings, spouses, and children are often part of the act, bringing all of their relationship dynamics with them. High-performing teams, by contrast, run on accountability. Those who are not able to deliver the required results wont make it, regardless of their relationship to the founder. Adding accountability structures like job descriptions, goal-setting, and performance management helps to ensure the team is on track to execute. These processes also help to shine a light on anyone who is unable to adapt to the new demands of the larger and more complex organization. Inevitably, founders will be forced to make some difficult decisions regarding some of the early team members to make way for new talent who can drive results and take the business to the next level. Building a sustainable, stable growth engine with double-digit year-over-year growth is hard. Each new stage of growth brings new challenges that require a different set of skills. The most successful leaders are those who understand the need to adapt their behaviors to meet the next stageand what it demands.
Category:
E-Commerce
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