OpenAI CEO Sam Altman struck a deal to acquire io, the product-development startup founded by Jony Ive — the former Apple design guru behind the iPhone — in a deal valued at $6.5 billion.
The all-stock deal is OpenAI’s biggest acquisition to date. Privately held OpenAI previously owned a 23% minority stake in io, which Ive founded last year. The pact will merge Ive’s io team of 55 engineers, designers and researchers, who are “focused on developing products that inspire, empower and enable,” with OpenAI “to work more intimately with the research, engineering and product teams in San Francisco,” OpenAI said in announcing the deal.
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