Humane, formerly one of the startups of the most buzzing AI of the Silicon, announced Tuesday that it was partially acquired by HP for $ 116 million, which represents less than half of $ 240 million that the startup has raised funding capital funding.
On Tuesday, Tuesday was not a great day for certain human investors, but it was particularly chaotic for around 200 employees, according to internal documents seen by Techcrunch and two sources that requested anonymity to discuss private issues.
A few hours after the announcement of the acquisition, several human employees received job offers from HP with salary increases between 30% and 70%, the more HP shares and bonus plans, sources revealed. Several employees who have received offers have worked on the basic software of the company, although sources have also indicated that all the people working on software obtained job offers.
Meanwhile, other human employees – in particular those working closer to PIN AI aircraft, including in quality insurance, automation and operations – were informed that they were unemployed on Tuesday evening, had indicated the sources.
These job offers highlight HP’s interest in obtaining the POOL of Software Engineers focused on AI as part of the acquisition. Engineers who can build around AI systems are some of the hottest products in Silicon Valley today. While the Humane team did not form the AI foundation models from zero – just like the engineers of Openai, Google and other AI laboratories – These employees are always very sought after. It makes it difficult even for giant inheritance players, like HP, to hire.
Companies announced Tuesday that a newly trained innovation laboratory at HP – HP IQ – will not only house the co -founders of Humane, Imran Chaudhri and CEO Bethany Bongiorno, but also the operational system of the AI of the startup, cosmos. The new unit will focus on the integration of artificial intelligence in personal computers, printers and HP connected conference rooms.
Social media users were Quick to make fun of Humane employeesSome of which leave their work as buzzing startups for stable roles by building HP printers compatible AI. However, a source said that these job offers, with their higher wages, were exciting for many of those who received them.
Employed -scale company meetings
The acquisition of HP was not a surprise for human employees. The New York Times reported in June that Humane wanted to sell to HP for more than a billion dollarsAlthough the final price has ended up being much less.
Humane management has also told certain employees to prepare for “major news” to arrive at the end of January, a person said.
But the news did not come before the second half of February. When he did, Humane employees had not given a large part of the conclusion of a final agreement or that the PIN IA activity would be rolled up.
Around noon, Pacific time on Tuesday, Humane chief of staff, Andie Adragna, sent employees an invitation to Google Meet to an impromptu meeting on the scale of the company which was to be performed in a few hours, according to the Internal correspondence seen by Techcrunch. The meeting took place at the San Francisco office of the company and was broadcast live for distant employees.
During the meeting, Bongiorno informed employees of the acquisition offer for a few moments before Humane and the HP press release was put online, a source described.
During another meeting on the scale of the company later in the day, Bongiorno said that some employees would obtain job offers to work at HP IQ, and others would not do it.
Several human employees were then dismissed by email on Tuesday and cut their access to business systems immediately, said another source.
The total number of human employees affected by layoffs is not clear. HP and Humane did not respond to the request for comments from Techcrunch.
An early and troubled material startup
Humane ‘activities have shown signs of a paddling pool for a while.
The AI pin was immediately encountered Negative reviews of the first testers – A morale killer for company employees. Later, the product’s charge case was briefly considered a risk of fire. To make matters worse, the company engineering manager of the company abandoned the startup in July to start his own business with other human leaders.
Then things are really bad. The yields for the AI pin have exceeded its sales at some pointThis may have prompted the company to lower the price of its ia pins from $ 699 to $ 499.
After the announcement of the acquisition, Humane told customers that they should “recycle“Their pins of $ 499, which, according to the startup, will mainly stop working in less than two weeks.
That said, some employees consider Humane as a moderate success for a startup.
Most startups do not sell thousands of devices, attract national attention and are acquired for millions. Startup employees join these companies by understanding the risk that their business probably fails, but trying anyway. In the case of Humane, at least part of the staff is offered a well -paid job at HP and will be able to continue certain projects that they have launched at Humane.
Interestingly, the AI pin, with its mission to replace a smartphone, is dead properly because the other laptops of AI seem to take steam.
The Ray-Ban Ai intelligent glasses of Meta continue to sell well, and the company would have prepared new versions at the exit later this year. Rabbit R1 landed in Best Buy Stores this week, opening the door to more traditional electronic consumers. And we are still waiting for the release of Friend, another startup AI creating a portable device to fight against solitude.
Perhaps the most ironically, Apple has published a version of $ 599 of the iPhone this week which is filled with AI features, imitating the features of the devices that hoped to replace phones.
The pin was almost definitely ahead of its time – the question is now, how much?
