Sam Altman literally said "absolutely not, I don't like smart glasses" in July and now OpenAI is apparently hiring Apple hardware engineers to build them. Companies pivot this fast when they realize they're about to get left behind.
Meta Already Won This Fight
While everyone was making fun of the metaverse, Meta actually figured out smart glasses. I'm not saying they're amazing, but they work and people actually buy them, which is more than anyone else managed.
Meta's Ray-Ban glasses succeeded because they didn't try to be science fiction. No AR overlays that drain your battery in 20 minutes, no floating keyboards that make you look insane. Just AI that helps without announcing itself.
Compare that to Apple Vision Pro at $3,500 that weighs like a brick, or Google Glass that turned everyone into walking privacy violations. Meta's glasses cost $300 and look normal.
OpenAI was too busy building "screenless, pocket-sized devices" that solve problems nobody has.
Why the Hell Did They Pick Jony Ive?
OpenAI partnered with Jony Ive's LoveFrom studio, which sounds fancy until you remember Ive designed those butterfly keyboards that broke constantly. Those things were a disaster.
Ive's whole thing is "simplicity" and "user experience," which in practice means removing useful ports and calling it innovation. Now he's supposed to design OpenAI's entire hardware ecosystem: glasses, speakers, pins, whatever else they're cooking up.
Apple succeeded by perfecting one product at a time. OpenAI wants to build everything simultaneously while their main product is still basically smart autocomplete.
Hardware Is Actually Hard
OpenAI's hiring Apple hardware people, which makes sense, but hiring talent doesn't fix physics. You can't push a software update to make batteries last longer or fix overheating chips.
Meta spent years and billions learning how to make smart glasses. Their first generation was trash, so they iterated and eventually got something decent. OpenAI thinks they can skip the failure part while building glasses, speakers, and pocket computers simultaneously.
I've covered enough hardware launches to know this doesn't work. Ship broken software and you patch it overnight. Ship broken hardware and you're explaining to investors why you have warehouses full of $500 paperweights.
The Apple Lock-Out Risk
Apple's building their own smart glasses, and when they launch, ChatGPT integration will disappear faster than features in a Jony Ive redesign. Apple doesn't do permanent partnerships – they do temporary arrangements until their own products are ready.
Google's doing the same thing. Meta's building their own LLMs. Every major tech company is racing toward vertical integration, and OpenAI's window for third-party AI integration is closing fast.
Without their own hardware platform, OpenAI becomes a software vendor dependent on platform owners who are also competitors. That's not a sustainable business model – that's a recipe for getting Sherlocked.
The Real Infrastructure Play
With Nvidia's $100 billion investment and Oracle's $300 billion cloud deal, OpenAI has the compute infrastructure to power edge AI devices. The question is whether they can build hardware that doesn't suck.
Smart glasses require three things to work: compelling AI features, comfortable hardware, and decent battery life. Meta nailed this combination through years of iteration. OpenAI has to get it right on the first try while competing with established hardware companies.
The physics haven't changed. Cramming AI processing, cameras, microphones, speakers, and batteries into something you can wear for hours without headaches is still really fucking hard.
So What Now?
Altman's flip-flop tells you everything about OpenAI's position. They built their lead with software, but software advantages disappear overnight. Hardware control lasts forever.
The next platform isn't phones - it's AI that sees what you see and hears what you hear. If OpenAI doesn't control that interface, they become a service provider to their competitors.
OpenAI's hardware isn't shipping until 2027. Apple, Google, and Meta will all have smart glasses out before then. In consumer electronics, showing up late is usually game over.
This Probably Won't Work
OpenAI went from "absolutely not" to panic development in six months. When your strategy changes that fast, it's not strategy.
The real question is whether they can build decent hardware before everyone else locks them out. Based on their hardware experience (zero) and Jony Ive's recent track record (butterfly keyboards), I'm skeptical.
But hey, maybe they'll surprise everyone. Or maybe they'll learn the hard way that hardware is different from software, and physics doesn't care about your valuation.