Call it “When Jony Met Sammy.”
OpenAI’s $6.5 billion acquisition of Jony Ive’s AI-device startup io was accompanied by what could best be described as an engagement-party sizzle reel starring the iPhone designer and Sam Altman. The nine-minute love fest detailed their meet-cute, their growing relationship, and their plan to redesign how humans interact with technology.
Well, “plan” might be a generous word. While the clip was full of fawning descriptions of each other — and a suspicious number of “ordinary San Franciscans” with the apparent gift of time travel — it was light on details about what Ive and Altman are cooking up. But since the trailer for the Seth Rogen flick filming in San Francisco has yet to drop, The Standard’s staff had nothing better to do than break down the video in excruciating detail. Enjoy!
0:25: A brief glimpse of Altman’s shoes, which we’ve identified as the LEGO x Adidas UltraBoost DNA, is seen as he walks through the Financial District. In a town full of men who refuse to grow up, having a pair of sneakers themed on a popular children’s toy is a major flex, even for a billionaire. —Kevin Truong, business editor
0:35: The video’s first few seconds have the feel of a romantic (bromantic?) comedy’s opening sequence, with the “two friends” navigating thronged streets from separate starting points en route to a cafe meet-up. Unusually thronged, for that part of town, actually. Suspiciously thronged, even … —KT
0:44-1:29: OK, either someone hired a lot of extras to make these streets look hella thronged, or else the mind-blowing technology these superfriends are making is a teleportation device. The same people keep showing up in shots in different locations, sometimes heading in different directions.
Get a load of this gentleman passing Altman on the sidewalk to his left: bald head, mustache, navy jacket, red tie.
Here he is again, three seconds later, only this time he’s walking parallel to Altman and across the street.
Sixteen seconds later, he’s once again passing Altman, only this time they’re right by the Transamerica Pyramid.
Then there’s a fellow in a camel topcoat who strides about talking on his phone and clutching a portfolio. On his first appearance, he strolls across Columbus toward Grant, heading east. But on his next appearance, he is heading north along Columbus.
There are also at least two people who appear in shots with both Ive and Altman. One wears a blue varsity jacket, hoodie, beanie, and messenger bag; the other, a navy suit and ponytail. OpenAI has raised about $60 billion. If it was so important to make North Beach look fake-busy, couldn’t they at least have invested in a change of costume for the extras? —Joe Burn, news editor
1:19: I cannot believe Ive walked right by Vesuvio and went to Cafe Zoetrope instead. There are so many less embarrassing restaurants within a three-block radius that they could have chosen as the setting for this conversation. Who’s eating there besides a tourist? —Lauren Saria, food editor
1:47: I’m just confused. Who is interviewing them? Who are they talking to? The bartender? Whoever it is, they are as impatient as we are, over 90 seconds into this nine-minute video, to understand … why we’re all here anyway. —Sophie Bearman, head of audio
2:00: Altman: “Jony was running a design firm called LoveFrom that had established itself as really the, I think, densest collection of talent that I’ve ever heard of in one place — and probably that’s ever existed in the world.”
Even for a guy known for hyperbolic pronouncements, this seems a bit much. LoveFrom is a denser collection of talent than the Manhattan Project? Xerox PARC? The 2016 Warriors? For the record, here is Wikipedia’s summation of LoveFrom’s achievements to date: “[producing] the official emblem for King Charles III’s coronation, redesigning the review system for Airbnb, and designing a new typeface called LoveFrom Serif.” —Jeff Bercovici, managing editor
3:23: Altman: “Jony recently gave me one of the prototypes of the device for the first time to take home, and I’ve been able to live with it, and I think it is the coolest piece of technology that the world will have ever seen.”
We have more than five minutes left. Spoiler alert: That’s the only detail about the device that’s in the entire video. —KT
4:18: An intertitle reads “a partnership based on friendship.” This is when I realized this meeting could have been an email — that ChatGPT wrote, of course. A tech overlord mutual-admiration society whose two members are each gobbling up a tony San Francisco neighborhood would be cringe enough, but the time for unqualified gosh-wow awe at AI is behind us. I say this as someone who would otherwise be seduced by Ive’s resonant subwoofer voice and plummy British accent. —Astrid Kane, senior culture editor
4:55: Altman: “The direction of like the force vector felt clear.” Truly, no explanation necessary here. —KT
5:45: Altman: “San Francisco has been, like, a mythical place in American history, and maybe in world history in some sense. It is the city I most associate with the leading edge of culture and technology. … The fact that all of those things happen in the Bay Area and not anywhere else on this gigantic planet we live on, I think, is not an accident.”
Did we mention hyperbole? This is blatant Silicon Valley erasure! Altman, who was 20 years old in 2005, has never known a San Francisco that wasn’t the world capital of tech, but Ive, who clocked into the office in Cupertino for 27 years, knows that tech’s historic center of gravity is a lot closer to San Jose than here. As for the “not anywhere else on this gigantic planet” bit, I expect the DeepSeek team has something to say about that. —JB
8:18: Ive: “We are literally on the brink of a new generation of technology that can make us our better selves.” Until then, we’ll just use it to Ghibli-fy every image in sight. Sorry Jony, blame OpenAI for this one. —KT
8:56: Let’s take a look at the “special thanks,” or credits(?). Davis Guggenheim, the screenwriter, director, and producer known for “Training Day” (2001), “Waiting for Superman” (2010), “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006) … and “Sam & Jony introduce io” (2025). And you can’t ignore the music: Also thanked is composer Harry Gregson-Williams, who most recently scored “Gladiator 2.” This seems fitting. —SB