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How to build a DOA product: Humane AI Pin founders banned internal criticism

Questioning the design and dev progress was apparently "against company policy."

The report says, "As of early April, Humane had received around 10,000 orders for the AI Pin, a small fraction of the 100,000 that it hoped to sell this year, two people familiar with its sales said." If you want to know how a company makes it all the way to market with such an out-of-touch, poorly performing product, the Times interviewed "23 current and former employees, advisers and investors," and their anecdotes shed a lot of light on how this can happen. After that software engineer was fired for questioning if the AI pin would be ready for launch, the report describes a staff meeting where the founders "said the employee had violated policy by talking negatively about Humane."

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