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Comment by vjvjvjvjghv | Hacker News Reader

It’s mind boggling how much money is floating around once you are part of the insider circle. What has that company been doing to be worth 6.5 billion?

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I consider myself extremely plugged in to what's going on with AI and I still couldn't tell you what Ive's company does without looking it up

Maybe the company is inconsequential and this is just about hiring Ive?

Ive will not be joining OpenAI, and they’re also not buying Ive’s design firm LoveFrom.

Kind of both? "While Ive and LoveFrom will remain independent, they will take over design for all of OpenAI, including its software. Altman said his first conversations with Ive weren’t about hardware, but rather about how to improve the interface of ChatGPT."

6.5b to spruce up a chat box. Unbelievable.

That's not promising! Ive isn't an interface designer and doesn't know a pushbutton from a skeuomorphic hole in the ground. Software and industrial designers can work with each other to build great things, but they are not equivalent roles.

Thank God the jacket button is protected then.

It’s about putting lipstick on OpenAI. They’re in trouble.

After reading it again, I think Ive and his firm will be designing hardware.

Oh I'm sure that's the reason, but it still makes zero sense. Ive is incredibly overrated as a designer and visionary.

Overrated is great for raising the next investment round. It is much easier than convincing investors they are underrating someone you think would make a better choice to go with someone overrated instead. If he is overrated enough the increase from overratedness in the next investment round will pay for more than the acquisition cost.

Do they even have a website?

As far as I could tell, no. Seems to be fairly stealthy. I even asked ChatGPT with Deep Research, and there's not really much detail out there.

I looked it up, still no idea what his company does.

> It’s mind boggling how much money is floating around once you are part of the insider circle.

it's a big club and you ain't in it [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUaqFzZLxU

They made a very pretty font.

that is more useful than more or less anything else that AI has practically achieved

I think of it in terms of Vegas-style casinos or cruise ships. About $2B for a casino, $1B for a cruise ship.

So imagine Johny Ives to be worth a couple of cruise ships tied up outside 2 hulking casinos.

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