OpenAI just spent $6.4 billion acquiring io, Jony Ive's nascent hardware venture. As someone who grew up idolizing the Jobs-Ive partnership—Mac Addict subscription, Marathon on shareware, one of everything they ever made—I understand the allure. But this move reveals OpenAI's existential crisis: they're playing a game they've already lost.

Let's be clear about the consumer AI endgame: Google and Apple will dominate, with Microsoft trailing on desktop and maybe, eventually, phones. They have what OpenAI desperately lacks: hardware expertise, distribution channels, and capital scale that dwarfs even OpenAI's eye-watering funding rounds.

Hardware isn't just another moat—it's a moat where your competitors have decades of experience and you're learning to swim. Leaning into your weakness is how you get your head chopped off by companies that do this in their sleep. Apple ships hundreds of millions of devices annually. Google's Android runs on billions. OpenAI is acquiring a company that's never shipped anything.

There are paths OpenAI could pursue but won't. NSFW applications. Deep companionship that pushes beyond its sanitized ChatGPT. Autonomous agents that live in Discord servers, slide into iMessages, become actual digital beings inhabiting the internet. But they won't touch these........

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