Monologue: Did OpenAI Steal Another Startup's Idea?

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast.

0:24Hello and welcome to this week's Better Offline monologue. I am, of course, Ed Zitron.

0:35Last week, OpenAI abruptly pulled the promotional materials around along with any mention of its$6.4 billion all-stock acquisition of Joni Ives I.O. Products, an AI startup that is allegedly making some sort of screenless AI device with OpenAI that will allegedly launch next year. Said device will not be, according to the Wall Street Journal, it won't be a phone, and Ivan Altman's intent is to help wean users some screens. I love my screen. I don't know why people keep thinking that's a bad thing. But anyway, it turns out the reason that they did this is that a company called IO sued IO Products, OpenAI, Sam Altman, and I quote, Sir Jonathan Paul Ive, Johnny Ive, I just, what a name, on June 9th, 2025, for trademark infringement, unfair competition and unfair business practices.

1:25IO also makes the case that these violations weren't a simply unhappy coincidence, but rather a deliberate action. A judge granted a temporary restraining order on June 20th, 2025 that stops IO Products and OpenAI from using its name, which has obviously put the brakes on Altman's attempt to hype this acquisition, which he had previously leaked to the Wall Street Journal, could add a trillion dollars to the company's valuation, which is of course bullshit. At this point, I'm going to start calling IO products, by which I mean OpenAI's soon-to-be-maybe-acquired hardware wing, the defendants. Because IO, by which I mean the startup in question, sounds literally the same.

1:59IO has been referring to a device that they're making as a computer without a screen since, according to an archived version of their website, I found at least April 2nd, 2025. The defendants argued in their response to IO's complaint that they made changes only after seeing IO products, so Joni Ives' thing, or Joni Ives fucking don't care, and their thing when it launched, and this was right before they filed the complaint, which is actually true. Anyway, who are these people? So IO was founded in March 2018 as part of Google X, which is effectively Google's internal skunk works R &D division, and was spun out as an independent company in August 2021, raising a further$37.2 million on top of the$25 million Google had already provided.

2:40iowa's been preparing for launch ever since they've had an audiologist approved thing i think that's come out since but the io1 device the thing that's really the thing that we're talking about here which is an ear-worn screen this computer that's meant to have launched already techron said it would launch in winter 2024 in 2024 and of course it hasn't and the current store page says it will launch in august 2025 but bugger me i don't know how they would possibly raise money now there is a company possibly owned by open ai that has the same name that might do the same thing it's not great and it doesn't get better for the defendants because io also owns a trademark one that covers everything from audio headphones micro computers downloadable mobile operating system software a bunch of other things that would make it very easy to mistake the defendants announcement well for io and the io1 i mean they have the same fucking name they have the same name They have the same name.

3:35Now, one might think this is all a weird coincidence, except it very well might not be. According to IO's complaint, representatives from Sam Altman's Apollo Projects, one of his many venture capital firms, met with the company multiple times, receiving technical information and the vision for the product, along with demonstrations of whatever they had at the time. Weirdly enough, in April 2022, IO was also introduced to Johnny Ives design firm Love From to talk about a potential partnership, one that Love From eventually declined. Important detail, Love From also works with OpenAI. I don't know if they'd started at that point.

4:06In 2022, IO also attempted to hire Evans Hankey as their head of design. Great name there. And basically the heir apparent to Johnny Ive at Apple when Ive left, except Hankey left to join Ive on a product that sounds the same. I just fucking hate these people. Hankey declined, and in their defendant's reply, framed the conversation as Hankey taking a favor for a friend, just talking to someone. Nevertheless, Hankey went on to co-found the Defendant's version of IO Products in 2023. Also, a lot of the Defendant's arguments are, yeah, I was just being nice. I was just meeting with them because they were nice.

4:41Because Altman himself said on Twitter, oh, I meet with founders all the time. Do you? Do they have the same fucking name as the companies you're buying? Jesus Christ. In 2025, IO chose to reach out to Sam Altman to invest and got the response that Altman was, and I quote, working on something competitive, and that he would, and I quote again, respectfully pass, before adding that the company was called IO Products and that Johnny Ive was driving this, which is also a quote. Otherwise, multiple people that work for the defendant's identically named company went on to try IO's current product, as well as receive demonstrations of the upcoming IO One device, a screenless computer that you control with your voice.

5:19IO also claims that there were multiple meetings with OpenAI representatives, and Altman himself about an acquisition, though emails that Altman has publicly shared make it seem more like a friendly gesture this time, and I would buy that to an extent. On the announcement of the deal to acquire Ive's company in May, IOCEO Jason Rigolo reached out to Altman again to see you about partnering, or maybe an acquisition, eventually bringing up that there was an obvious similarity between the names. He used the words rut row, which if I was in a high-stakes corporate negotiation, I would not speak like Scooby-Doo.

5:53Now, the defendants frame Rigolo and Io's meetings as a generosity on their part, and their generosity was so profound that they chose to meet with Io at least five times over the course of three years. For whatever reason, both Altman and Rigolo are choosing to post about this publicly, and both of them seem like huge arseholes. Rigolo also posted, I have not nor have I ever been suicidal on Twitter and I must add I'm not a lawyer but some legal advice don't post that or anything don't ever if you're in a lawsuit don't go fucking posting about the lawsuit I don't care if you're some guy or you're Sam Altman you shouldn't be doing that it's just very frustrating to watch I was talking to a friend of the show Casey Kagawa about this and I think it gave him madness which is good because I like to share it with people.

6:41Nevertheless, the judge ordered that the defendant cease using the name IO Products until a hearing is held in October, and in general judges are hesitant to make this kind of ruling without a sincere belief that the case has merit. But in summary, this suit alleges that representatives of Sam Altman, Johnny Ive and their respective firms IO Products, Love From, Apollo Projects and OpenAI repeatedly met with IO, as in Jason Rogolo's company, as a means of learning more about the intellectual property and design of its products, going as far as to suggest that they may partner with, invest in, or consider acquiring the company.

7:11I keep thinking of like a Jason Derulo bit with Regulo, but I don't know how to say his name proper. At this point, I'm several minutes into recording the monologue. Someone else do the funny. But to me, something about this whole thing feels fishy on both counts. The defendant's argument is that these meetings were harmless, framing Regulo and Iowa's desperate counterparties with a device stuck in development hell, begging OpenAI and Sam Orman to invest in or acquire them, which is compelling-ish. The emails that Sam Orman shared publicly, and I'll have these in the notes, they don't make Mr.

7:44Jason look particularly good. They make him look a little desperate. But at the same time, and I know this from talking to various founders about money, is you generally don't go in heart, and the bigger they are, they kind of glad handle them a little bit because you don't want to piss them off. It's basic business. So he could have just been nice. I would actually buy this. I would also buy the defendant's argument and think it would have a lot more weight if it wasn't for the fact that they'd met with IO so many fucking times and their goddamn name is identical. In fact, what makes this entire thing so ridiculous is that Altman and Ive could have named their startup literally anything else and none of this would have happened.

8:18They could have named it Butt Burger Inc. and it would have been fine. IO would never have sued them if they were called Butt Burger Inc. I don't know what they're doing. But I guess the creator of the world's biggest plagiarism machine couldn't fucking help himself. While the emails that Altman has shared publicly do make Rigolo sound a bit cloying and don't feel like things you'd send somebody you have a deep relationship with, like they feel like new conversations and very generic, Io claims that there have been multiple other calls and emails, and I imagine those will come out in Discovery, which is the part of the lawsuit where everybody has to share emails and communications.

8:49Yet for me, the most damning part is the involvement of Johnny Ice Love From in 2022. Altman's absolutely a gadfly, and I would buy the idea that he'd meet with random people doing an AI startup. There is a history there of him randomly responding to people and meeting up with them. Sure, whatever. But why was Johnny Ives design firm meeting with IO in 2022, a year before he'd found a company with the same name that does something really similar sounding in roughly the same time frame that Sam Altman was meeting with them? I mean, Sam Altman's represented this. Isn't that kind of weird? I mean, it is.

9:22It's extremely weird. Why are you just this friendly? You just love hanging out? This Jason guy doesn't seem like he's doing well. Is he really charming? Is he fun to hang out with? Jason, hit me up, baby. Let's hang out. Actually, don't do that. You're in a really big lawsuit. I don't want to fucking talk to you. Stop posting. In any case, this farcical situation will ground open AI's hardware efforts to a halt for a little bit. At least for a month. But they could just rebrand it to like Butt Burger Inc, maybe? But just throwing that out there. Call me Sam, and if you use that name, I'm suing you too.

9:54And while they could come up with a new name, such as Butt Burger, any details of the product that leaked or announced will now face unbelievable scrutiny, if not by the tech press, but by me and IO's lawyers. Because that's the thing. They chose this name, and changing the name will not hide the fact that they knew some stuff about IO's products. And I mean the plaintiff in this lawsuit. That's the other thing. The name is so similar, man. You couldn't have come up with anything. And they're claiming, by the way, oh, IO refers to input-output, which is true. But fuck, mate, could you not have come up with anything else?

10:29Any other name? Butt Burger? I don't know. I'm going to say that at least one more time before the end of the episode. in Bart Boga, there you go. Anyway, this whole thing is fucking stupid. I find both sides of the situation very annoying. And it's also important to note that OpenAI has yet to buy IO products, you know, the Johnny Ives startup, and is currently in the process of trying to convince Microsoft to let them become a for-profit company, which I will get to probably in next week's monologue. Until then, I just want to say that everybody in this situation kind of fucking sucks.

11:32We'll be right back.

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12:53This is an iHeart Podcast.