Monologue: Did OpenAI Steal Another Startup's Idea?
Better Offline
Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
4.6 • 687 Ratings
🗓️ 27 June 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this week’s monologue, Ed Zitron walks you through the murky lawsuit between OpenAI’s soon-to-be-acquired hardware wing and Iyo, a company they met with multiple times that makes a similar-sounding product with a near-identical name.
Sam Altman tweets: https://x.com/sama/status/1937606794362388674
Jason Rugolo tweets: https://x.com/jasonRugolo/status/1936933761964511721
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:06.0 | Callsome Media. |
| 0:09.1 | Hello and welcome to this week's Better Offline monologue. |
| 0:11.7 | I am of course Ed Citron. |
| 0:17.5 | Last week, OpenAI |
| 0:21.8 | Abruptly pulled the promotional materials around along with any mention of. |
| 0:25.6 | It's $6.4 billion all-stock acquisition of Joni Ives' I.O. products, |
| 0:30.4 | an AI startup that is allegedly making some sort of screenless AI device with Open AI |
| 0:34.8 | that will allegedly launch next year. |
| 0:37.5 | Said device will not be, according to the Wall Street Journal. |
| 0:40.8 | It won't be a phone, and Ivan Altman's intent is to help Wien users some screens. |
| 0:46.1 | I love my screen. |
| 0:47.1 | I don't know why people keep thinking that's a bad thing. |
| 0:49.4 | But anyway, it turns out the reason that they did this is that a company called I.O. |
| 1:00.1 | sued I.O. Products, OpenAI, Sam Alton and I quote Sir Jonathan Paul Ive. |
| 1:09.2 | Johnny Ive. Ive. I just what a name. On June 9, 2025, for trademark infringement, unfair competition, and unfair business practices. |
| 1:12.0 | I also makes the case that these violations weren't a simply unhappy coincidence, but rather a deliberate action. A judge granted a temporary |
| 1:16.6 | restraining order on June 20, 2025 I.O. Products and Open AI from using its name, which has |
| 1:21.9 | obviously put the brakes on Altman's attempt to hype this acquisition, which he had previously |
| 1:26.1 | leaked to the Wall Street Journal, |
| 1:31.4 | could add a trillion dollars to the company's valuation, which is, of course, bullshit. |
... |
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