William Gallagher
As Jony Ive's AI startup is bought by OpenAI, he and investor Laurene Powell Jobs talk about collaboration, and how technology has damaged society as well as benefited it.
Jony Ive and Sam Altman's startup "io" was bought in May 2025 by Altman's OpenAI company, and is working on a new AI device. Prior to being bought, Laurene Powell Jobs invested in "io," and in a new Financial Times interview with both of them, Ive reveals that she has been crucial to his post-Apple work, including forming his own LoveFrom company.
"If it wasn't for Laurene," said Jony Ive, "there wouldn't be LoveFrom."
Alongside speaking of how they first met in the 1990s at Powell Jobs's and Steve Jobs's house, both also talked about how technology has not always been a force for good.
"We now know, unambiguously, that there are dark uses for certain types of technology," said Powell Jobs. "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," she continued. "But that is the sideways result."
Ive echoes that point about how technology is usually developed with positive aims, yet it has gone wrong, or been misused. As a designer of the world-changing iPhone, Ive includes his own work in this.
"If you make something new, if you innovate, there will be consequences unforeseen, and some will be wonderful and some will be harmful," he said.
"While some of the less positive consequences were unintentional, I still feel responsibility," continued Ive. "And the manifestation of that is a determination to try and be useful."
Neither Ive nor Powell Jobs would be drawn on details of what the new OpenAI device will be, but Powell Jobs says she is following its development closely. "Just watching something brand new be manifested, it's a wondrous thing to behold."
The full interview also touches on Ive's personal investment in redeveloping parts of San Francisco, and Powell Jobs rescuing the San Francisco Art Institute out of bankruptcy. But the piece also touches on the long-running friendship between the two.
"It's funny... as I've got older, to me, it's [about] who, not what," said Ive. "The very few precious relationships become so increasingly valuable, don't they?"
Separately, Ive and Powell Jobs — together with Tim Cook — launched the Steve Jobs Archive in 2022.
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Christine McKee
Malcolm Owen
Andrew Orr
Andrew O'Hara
12 Comments
It could start by delivering on existing promises before getting distracted by the next shiny thing it will also drop just as it needs a polish
Honestly, does anyone have a clue as to what this new thing is?
I dunno.. It looks like a show driven by a group with inferiority complexes which wanted to try so hard, but never recognized in public because Steve Jobs was SOOOO good to be true.
Yeah... "Humanity deserves better", but with Sam Altman? With OpenAI, which is not open source?? Data collection for better humanity??
This is a s*it show.
Bottom line: unless AI programs are only using public domain material and/or material with the appropriate rights permissions secured then it's nothing more than theft. The LLMs themselves have no value whatsoever without the database used for training. It's basically a gigantic torrent with some techno jargon slathered on top as a smokescreen.