Jony Ive: also a billionaire thanks to Jobs' widow
Laurene Powell Jobs co-financed the companies LoveFrom and io of ex-Apple design boss Jony Ive. Both are now profiting handsomely, according to a new report.
Jony Ive behind an OpenAI logo: Big share package for the ex-Apple designer.
(Image: Thrive Studios / Shutterstock)
The purchase of Jony Ive's AI hardware company “io” by OpenAI makes the former Apple design boss a billionaire, at least on paper. The deal, which makes Ive a major OpenAI shareholder, not only benefits the father of the iPod, iPhone, iMac & Co. but also Steve Jobs' widow Laurene Powell Jobs. This was reported by the Financial Times. Because: Powell Jobs has invested in io directly as well as in Ive's design company LoveFrom. “Without Laurene, there would be no LoveFrom,” Ive told the financial newspaper, which is published in London.
Designers get a lot of paper money
Ive left Apple in 2019 – apparently partly in dispute. He then founded his “creative collective” in San Francisco, apparently duly supported by Powell Jobs, where he now owns large parts of the Jackson Square neighborhood next to the financial district. Powell Jobs runs a company called Emerson Collective with the legacy of Jobs, who was the largest single shareholder in Disney as well as co-owner of Apple. Among other things, it owns the liberal magazine The Atlantic. According to the Financial Times, it invested an undisclosed sum in LoveFrom and then in the aforementioned AI company io, which has now acquired OpenAI for 6.4 billion US dollars in shares –. The io investors, including Ive, are set to receive around 5 billion, as OpenAI was one of the co-founders of io.
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It is unclear what the company's product will be, but it will probably be an AI device without a screen. According to OpenAI boss Sam Altman, a “family of AI devices” is planned. According to the Financial Times, Ive is now a “billionaire”, at least on paper, if he wasn't already one during his time at Apple. Ive's other partners also received a “surprise windfall”, according to the Financial Times, including Ive's design partner Marc Newson and Powell Jobs. Here, too, there is probably no cash, but rather OpenAI shares. Although the AI group is not listed on the stock exchange (whether this will ever happen is unclear), there are secondary markets for shares in young companies. As OpenAI is in high demand here, the shares are also very likely to be lendable.
There is still only an announcement video
Nobody yet knows what kind of device Ive been planning with Altman for a good two years. It is not due to come onto the market until next year. Behind it are large parts of Apple's old design team, which Ive had poached. However, the project lacks a “chief editor”, as Steve Jobs once was for Jony Ive at Apple.
Altman now seems to want to take on this role, even though he has never launched a hardware product on the market in his life. Ive did not want to tell the Financial Times what kind of OpenAI hardware this would be. It's about ending our “bad relationship with technology”, by which he means, among other things, social media and the smartphone (which he significantly advanced thanks to the iPhone). “Humanity deserves better,” says Ive.
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