Jony Ive, the mastermind behind the iconic design of Apple’s iPhone, has joined Sam Altman’s OpenAI to create devices tailored for using generative artificial intelligence, as per a statement by the ChatGPT maker.
Jony Ive and his team will take over design at OpenAI as part of an acquisition of his startup named “IO” valued at $6.5 billion.
As Ive ventures into a new future, having quit Apple two years ago, here is everything you need to know about him.
Who is Jony Ive?
British-born Jony Ive had been an Apple employee since 1992, and joined the US company after he graduated from Newcastle Polytechnic, now Northumbria University, in the UK. He began his career by starting his own design firm named Tangerine , according to the eponymous biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
Ives’ company struck a deal with Apple, following which he moved to Cupertino, California, from London to work in the company’s design department.
He quickly moved ranks in Apple, thanks to his skills, and soon became the head of the department in 1996.
Ives stayed at Apple until nearly a decade after Steve Jobs’ death, during which time he oversaw the development of the brand’s now legendary products, from the iMac and AirPods to the iPod, iPhone, and Apple Watch.
He left the company in 2019 to start his own company called LoveForm.
Working closely with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, his designs revitalised Apple, making it the company with the world’s third-largest market capitalisation and a global standard for product design.
Steve Job’s confidant wanted to quit Apple
When Jony Ive joined Apple, the company had ousted its founder Steve Jobs and the CEO at that time was Gil Amelio.
Under his leadership, Ive wanted to quit, according to the biography of Steve Jobs. At that time, the iPhone designer felt that Apple was focusing too much on profits, and its designers were being asked to generate models for the outside of products, while the engineers were using cheap materials to build the insides of them.
However, this outlook changed when Steve Jobs returned as Apple CEO in 1997. In one of his first talks with employees, Ive remembered him saying that he wanted the company “not just to make money but to make great products.”
This idea changed Ive’s mind, and he decided to stay back. Over the years, Steve Jobs and Ive developed a special bond. The Apple founder was deeply impressed with the designer’s work.
“He gets the big picture as well as the most infinitesimal details about each product. And he understands that Apple is a product company. He’s not just a designer,” Isaacson wrote in the biography.