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Laurene Powell Jobs and Jony Ive Reveal Why Tech Has 'Gone Sideways' in Rare Interview

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Jony Ive and Laurene Powell Jobs have given a rare joint interview to the Financial Times, addressing their collaboration, their concerns about technology's social impact, and OpenAI's mysterious hardware device.

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The interview follows the recent acquisition of Ive's AI startup, IO, by OpenAI in a $6.4 billion deal. Ive was Apple's Chief Design Officer and led the design of products including the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and Apple Watch. Powell Jobs is the widow of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. She was an early investor in IO said she has been closely involved with Ive's work since his departure from Apple in 2019.

Ive explained that Powell Jobs was instrumental in enabling his transition from Apple, saying, "If it wasn't for Laurene, there wouldn't be LoveFrom." Before supporting IO, Powell Jobs backed LoveFrom via her organization Emerson Collective.

While neither Ive nor Powell Jobs disclosed further details about the hardware device in development at OpenAI, they offered insight into the motivations behind the project and their shared belief that current technology has failed to adequately serve human wellbeing. Both expressed concern over the direction technology has taken in the years since the launch of the iPhone. Powell Jobs cited evidence of increasing mental health problems among young people as one consequence:

We now know, unambiguously, that there are dark uses for certain types of technology. You can only look at the studies being done on teenage girls and on anxiety in young people, and the rise of mental health needs, to understand that we've gone sideways. Certainly, technology wasn't designed to have that result. But that is the sideways result.
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Ive agreed, acknowledging that even innovations developed with the best intentions can produce harmful outcomes:

If you make something new, if you innovate, there will be consequences unforeseen, and some will be wonderful and some will be harmful. While some of the less positive consequences were unintentional, I still feel responsibility. And the manifestation of that is a determination to try and be useful.
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Powell Jobs declined to comment on whether the OpenAI device would compete directly with Apple, and emphasized her continued ties to the company:

I'm still very close to the leadership team in Apple. They're really good people and I want them to succeed also.
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The interview also touched on broader changes in Silicon Valley culture. Ive moved to the United States in the 1990s to join Apple, but said the tech industry had lost much of its original sense of purpose:

When I first moved here I came because it was characterized by people who genuinely saw that their purpose was in service to humanity, to inspire people and help people create. I don't feel that way about this place right now.
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Previous reports from The Wall Street Journal and analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claimed that OpenAI's first hardware device may be a compact, screenless, wearable AI companion. Kuo said it may resemble the iPod Shuffle in form factor, be worn around the neck, and begin mass production in 2027. The WSJ described the device as a user's "third core device" after a smartphone and laptop, potentially offering persistent environmental awareness and personal context.

Ive said that the project has reignited his optimism about technology. The device is apparently being designed with a mentality of "we deserve better. Humanity deserves better." Read the full Financial Times interview for more information.

Article Link: Laurene Powell Jobs and Jony Ive Reveal Why Tech Has 'Gone Sideways' in Rare Interview
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/02/laurene-powell-jobs-and-jony-ive-interview/
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$6.4 billion…
That's… that's a lot of money.

This device has to be really out of this world, or perhaps OpenAI was seduced by the unapologetically aluminium pebble smoothness of Ive's voice.

Right now it's a lot of hand waving and mystery.

Time will tell.

I wonder if Tim Cook is having sleepless nights? Ive and Jobs' widow in collaboration with OpenAI — sounds like Pandora's box.
 
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Idk, every media fluff piece that comes out about this company does not help their case in my opinion.
Also if Johnny truly feels “responsible” for today’s technology caused problems… why would he bet on a company who has been openly and loudly irresponsible with data, and just blurring the line between digital and real?
AI is kinda new and it’s the hot thing but, just like the smart phone, it’s not all good. A lot of the consequences will be arguably worse than the smartphone.
And we are already seeing this, there’s been articles about chatbots encouraging suicide, chatbots telling people with drug addictions the solution to their problems is to take more drugs, and obviously the famous example of the pizza glue.
And no matter how much these AI models improve the one thing they can’t seem to do is stop doing the wrong thing.
 
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To me, sounds like Jony is trying to come off as ‘old guard’ and had old Apple royalty come to his aid in helping him promote his new venture, to help market why people should buy his new device. That’s pretty low to disguise a talk as basically just a marketing promotion.
 
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arkitect said:
I wonder if Tim Cook is having sleepless nights? Ive and Jobs' widow in collaboration with OpenAI — sounds like Pandora's box.
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I highly doubt it, even with expected mass production set to start in 2027 it takes years for new devices to catch on, and Tim has made it pretty clear he’ll probably retire by the end of this decade.
Also I’m pretty sure Powell Jobs is still a massive, massive APPL shareholder and as such absolutely wants them to continue to thrive.
 
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The hardware is inert. It is within the application space that dubious and nefarious intentions have always originated. Social Networks and Teen anxiety, heightened bullying, death threats, etc all start with Zuckerberg.

AOL was a highly moderated and subject driven network, not unlike its later competitor Yahoo Games!--equivalent of card games of the past at a neighbor's house, your grandparents home, etc.

MySpace truly introduced the narcissist gene to Social Networks, Instagram made the Camera your vanity portal and Facebook either buried or purchased nearly all the options and cross linked it all.

When you own Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Facebook Messenger to name but four it is clear a multi-trillion dollar empire centered on self glorification is bound to suck all the oxygen and original intentions of IT post iPhone introduction out of the general spectrum of human focus.

Underneath it all is the old cancer, advertising, to drive it all home. The Internet was considered a toy before the browser took hold because advertisers had no way into the business. Surfing the Web made advertisers billionaires.
 
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minik said:
While I do want changes to the current environment surrounding tech, I don't think adding another device with AI-focus is the way to go.
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How else will we get the Black Mirror style future that we all deserve without an AirTag-sized device that can be attached to our temple and alter our reality? Anything less that that would be a failure.

/s
 
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arkitect said:
$6.4 billion…
That's… that's a lot of money.

This device has to be really out of this world, or perhaps OpenAI was seduced by the unapologetically aluminium pebble smoothness of Ive's voice.

Right now it's a lot of hand waving and mystery.

Time will tell.

I wonder if Tim Cook is having sleepless nights? Ive and Jobs' widow in collaboration with OpenAI — sounds like Pandora's box.
Click to expand...
I think it’s marketing. They want to break into hardware and be the new Apple. Best way is to bring the guy that was supposed to be the creative replacement for Steve Jobs on board. It undercuts Apple and hits them where they are weak.

OpenAI shouldn’t be underestimated. People that are into AI talk about them like people talk about iPhones vs androids.


That said this reminds me of humane. They also are ex apple people. Apple is more than Steve Jobs and that’s what people forget. It’s a whole institution with structure to support the quality and it’s hard to create or others would have done it. It also has a lot more resources than these companies. What’s more Apple wasn’t just jobs. There was also the woz influence that permeates.
 
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I'm reminded of the hype about the Segway... "a revolutionary new transportation device that will transform our cities"... until people got a look at it.

And then it became the transportation of choice for Paul Blart, Mall Cop.
 
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