Brian Barrett: Vision Pro.
Zoe Schiffer: The Vision Pro. Thank you very much.
Brian Barrett: Don’t you think about Vision Pro every day?
Zoe Schiffer: No. I must say that it lived and died very quickly, and I haven’t thought about it since. But I think the issue, and this has been true for other AI devices, like the famous pin from Humane AI and all that. There are a lot of things that are better done on screen, and I don’t think that’s going to change. However, if you can find agents and voice mode that actually work, well, there are other things you can ask an agent to do for you, and you might prefer not to look at a screen all the time. And so I personally, as someone who has a very tortured relationship with my screens, am ready for something that can work better. But it’s hard to get it right, and I don’t think we’ve seen a product so far that’s been able to do that. Just to emphasize what we’re talking about a little more, OpenAI has hired more than 400 former Apple employees according to the lawsuit.
Leah Feiger: Wow.
Zoe Schiffer: And last year it paid $6.5 billion to acquire a startup called IO Products that was founded by longtime Apple executives, including Tan, Scott Cannon, Evans Hankey, and the most famous person, Jony Ive.
Brian Barrett: Yes, it’s a big investment that they’re making in this space, and it’s clear that Apple is hurting for losing all these people. Plus they’ve lost AI researchers to other companies as well. Apple’s hemorrhaging AI talent and now hardware talent too, which really hits them where it hurts. What I enjoy most about this whole process is that we haven’t even gotten there yet, is that lawsuits mean discovery, and—
Zoe Schiffer: Yes.
Brian Barrett: Yes, discovery, yes. And discovery means we’ll be able to read a lot of emails from these companies talking trash about each other and themselves. And it will be such fun. It’s always fun when these things happen.
Zoe Schiffer: Very interesting. There is no one better than a lawyer with an IP issue.
Brian Barrett: Put that in the cup, Zoë.
Zoe Schiffer: They are.
Brian Barrett: Wow. Do we have the product yet? That could be –
Zoe Schiffer: I like it.
Brian Barrett: That is our business. Yes.
Zoe Schiffer: That is our business.
Brian Barrett: OpenAI’s headache isn’t limited to Apple’s case this week. WIRED found that OpenAI employees are funding a major rival PAC to advocate for stricter regulations at the Frontier AI Lab. It’s a rival, of course, to all the money that people like Greg Brockman, the executive of OpenAI, and others have put into advancing AI and cracking down on defenses. This new Super PAC called the Guardrails Alliance, is interesting. It was launched last month.
