Why Jony Ive joined OpenAI

Hey, I'm Shane.

Welcome to Design for Builders, a newsletter for founders, operators, and builders who want to improve their design skills and create better products.

This week has been absolutely wild. Two massive stories dropped that tell us everything about where tech design is heading: OpenAI just acquired Jony Ive's startup IO for $6.5 billion, and Google announced 101 things at I/O. But only one of these stories matters for the future of design.

Quick takeaways before we dive in:

• Hardware design might be the new frontier: While everyone's building software, the biggest opportunity is making AI physical

• Taste beats technology: Google shipped 101 features, but Ive's joining OpenAI for one simple reason, design taste can't be automated

• The platform shift is real: We're moving from screens to ambient computing, and the designers who understand this will win

Let's get into it.

The $6.5 billion bet on design taste

Here's what happened: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced he's been collaborating with former Apple designer Jony Ive on a mysterious consumer-facing device. Altman called it "the chance to do the biggest thing we've ever done as a company".

But here's the thing that caught my attention: this isn't just about building a gadget. It's about proving that in the age of AI, design taste is the ultimate moat.

Think about it: AI hardware devices like the Humane Pin and Rabbit R1 have largely failed to find an audience. The technology exists, but the experience design doesn't. OpenAI just paid $6.5 billion to fix that problem by bringing in the designer who created the iPhone, iPod, and iMac.

According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the current prototype is "as compact and elegant as an iPod Shuffle" and designed to be worn around the neck. It will rely on built-in cameras and microphones to detect surroundings, with computing offloaded to connected devices.

The form factor sounds familiar. We've seen necklace-like AI devices before. Kinda uninspiring to be honest.

Friend, Humane, Rewind. The list is long already, and if you talk to anyone who has tried these, well they kinda suck.

But here's why this one might actually work: Ive understands that great design isn't about features, it's about removing everything that's not essential.

Feature factory vs focus

While OpenAI was making its big design bet, Google was doing the opposite at I/O 2025. They announced 100 different things, from AI Mode in Search to Project Astra capabilities, from Veo 3 video generation to Android XR.

Sundar Pichai bragged that they're now processing 480 trillion tokens per month, not even sure I understand what that means, but it’s 50x more than last year. Over 7 million developers are building with Gemini, 5x more than last year.

Impressive numbers. But here's the problem: more features don't equal a better experience.

Google's approach is the engineering-first mindset that dominated the 2010s. Ship fast, add features, optimize for metrics. OpenAI's approach is the design-first mindset that will dominate the 2020s: craft fewer things, but make them feel magical.

This isn't just philosophical, it's strategic. The partnership aims to "redefine how users engage with technology" by moving "beyond traditional screens to offer more natural, AI-powered interfaces."

Why hardware is the new frontier

Software is becoming commoditized. But hardware? Hardware is where design taste becomes a sustainable competitive advantage. You can copy features, but you can't copy the intuitive understanding of how objects should feel in your hand, how interfaces should respond to touch, how products should integrate into daily life.

The device is expected to launch in 2026, with plans to ship 100 million units. That's iPhone-scale ambition for a completely new product category.

The real insight here is that Ive isn't just designing a device, he's designing the interaction paradigm for the next decade. This collaboration "seeks to move beyond traditional interfaces, potentially revolutionizing the interaction models with AI in everyday life".

What does this mean for designers?

Three big takeaways for anyone building products:

Restraint beats features: Google announced 101 things. OpenAI announced one thing (and spent $6.5 billion on it). In a world of infinite possibilities, the discipline to say no is your superpower.

Taste is your moat: AI can generate interfaces, write copy, and even design logos. But it can't develop that intuitive sense of what feels right, which is still uniquely human.

The Ive-OpenAI partnership isn't just about building a device. It's about proving that in an AI-first world, design thinking becomes more valuable, not less.

The platform shift moment

We're living through a platform shift that happens maybe once a decade. Mobile killed desktop. Now, AI is killing mobile-first thinking.

Google is building Android XR "in the hope of doing for augmented reality, mixed reality, and virtual reality what Android did for smartphones". But that's still thinking in screens and apps.

Ive's approach is different. Based on his track record, he's probably not building another screen-based device. He's building the thing that comes after screens.

This is the same mindset that created the original iPhone not a better BlackBerry, but a completely new way to interact with information.

The designers who understand this shift will build the next decade's most important products. The ones who don't will be optimizing yesterday's interfaces.

Final thoughts

Google shipped 101 things this week. OpenAI shipped one announcement. Guess which one has me more excited about the future of design?

When you have unlimited AI capability, the constraint becomes taste. When you can build anything, the question becomes: what should you build?

That's why OpenAI paid $6.5 billion for Jony Ive. Not for his British accent or crazy glasses. For his judgment.

As builders and designers, that's our superpower in the AI age. Not competing with machines on speed or scale, but developing the taste to know what's worth building in the first place.

- Shane

P.S. If this resonates with you, forward it to a founder friend who's thinking about their next product. Let's build something amazing together.