Imagine the scene: a morning at Apple’s design studio. Not a boardroom, but a breakfast table. Jony Ive and his team gather not to pitch or perform, but simply to be together. This wasn’t corporate culture. It was ritual. Trust. A shared meal as sacred as any sketch or prototype.
This is how Ive worked. Not in isolation, but in communion. Not in pursuit of profit, but of meaning.
And now, he’s working with Sam Altman.
Design as Devotion
For Jony Ive, design is not decoration. It’s devotion. A craft of care, where every curve, sound, and surface carries moral weight. He calls it a “servant orientation”—a way of working that begins and ends with the user, the human, the living being on the other side of the screen.
In a recent interview, he reflected on how Silicon Valley has drifted—from the purpose-driven culture of the 1990s to today’s corporate noise. He still clings to a different kind of north star: “to enable and inspire people.”
Innovation, for Ive, isn’t about disruption. It’s about care. About joy. About making something better, not just newer.
Jobs & Ive: The Spiritual Partnership
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, he didn’t just reclaim a company. He found a kindred spirit in Jony Ive.
Jobs called him his “spiritual partner at Apple”, a designer who could hold both the grand vision and the microscopic detail. Their collaboration was legendary: the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad—each a synthesis of Jobs’ intuition and Ive’s touch.
They shared more than ideas. They shared ethics. Simplicity. Empathy. Obsession with the invisible. A respect for users as emotional, evolving humans. “Steve and I care about things like that,” Ive once said, after being disappointed by the finish on a knife blade. (Business Insider)
And after Jobs’ death? Ive still asks, “What would Steve do?” (The Guardian)
So Why Sam Altman?
It’s a natural question. Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has taken heat for shifting the organization from its idealistic, open-source origins to a more secretive, profit-driven entity. Elon Musk has criticized this pivot sharply.
So why would a man like Ive—whose ethos is so deeply human—partner with him?
Because something is happening. Something big.
Ive’s design firm, LoveFrom, is now working with OpenAI on what’s being called a “new category of AI hardware.” Not a phone. Not a laptop. Something entirely new.
They’re asking: What should AI feel like? What should it live inside?
Backed by SoftBank with a $1 billion fund, this project is being quietly built outside the gravitational pull of Apple or Microsoft. And at the heart of it is a design question, not a technical one.
What if the future of AI isn’t on a screen, but in the room with you—calm, ambient, humane?
The Pointe Being
Jony Ive doesn’t build machines. He builds relationships—between idea and form, between person and product, between what is and what could be.
Now, with Sam Altman, he’s stepping into the most profound design challenge of our time:
How do we integrate artificial intelligence into our lives without losing our humanity?
And what might emerge is not just another device, but a new kind of companion—one that listens more than it interrupts, adapts instead of addicting, and respects your attention rather than hijacking it.
Imagine a world where AI is not a faceless force but a presence you trust—quiet, ambient, even joyful. A tool not to track you, but to understand and support you. An object that reminds us not of machines, but of ourselves—at our best.
Jony Ive has done this before. He’s changed how we touch technology.
Now, perhaps, he’ll change how it touches us.
Let me know when you’d like the podcast script version and teaser posts ready. Shall we schedule recording for Tuesday morning as usual?
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