Oct 6, 2016
Why Siri's creators sold their new business to Apple rival Samsung
The team behind Apple’s digital assistant Siri is joining the Samsung family.
On Wednesday, Samsung announced the acquisition of Viv Labs, an AI-focused startup built by Siri’s founders. The deal highlights what venture capitalist Gary Morgenthaler calls an “arms race among all the mobile device makers.”
Indeed, AI-fueled personal assistants are a key focus area for companies like Apple, Google (Google Assistant), Amazon (Alexa), Microsoft (Cortana), and Facebook (‘M’). Viv’s potential is evidenced by the long list of high-profile investors it attracted prior to the Samsung sale; they included Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.
Morgenthaler, a partner at Morgenthaler Ventures, also personally invested in Viv. He spoke with BNN about Samsung’s acquisition of Viv Labs. Here’s a portion of the conversation:
Q: How did the team behind Siri end up at Apple’s chief rival?
A: In the early days of Siri, Steve Jobs called the founding team and implored them to join Apple. What followed was a 45-day courtship, which included five offers from Apple. Siri, of course, was unveiled to the world in 2011 and it helped the iPhone 4S become a huge success.
Siri has since become a cultural icon. It has improved considerably since 2011, although not as much as the original team would have hoped. Because of differences with senior management at Apple, the original Siri team decided it was better to start a new company. That left them free to re-think their AI vision. They took their learnings from the original implementation of Siri and doubled down on their original vision, which was ubiquity. To do so, they literally re-invented the technology stack from scratch.
“Viv” is Latin for life. The founders want it to be an integral part of life. So Viv interacts the way a human would, allowing you to ask any query.
Q: Why did Samsung want to buy Viv?
A: Before this acquisition, Samsung had nothing going on on the AI front. Samsung realized it is shipping 500 million devices a year, but doesn’t have a strong alternative to Siri or Amazon’s Alexa. The fact that Samsung doesn’t start with an entrenched AI team creates a big opportunity for the Viv team. While Samsung has a bit of brand recovery to focus on right now, longer term this deal can help position it as a leader and innovator.
(Note: negotiations between Samsung and Viv preceded Samsung’s recent recall of its Galaxy Note 7 device)
Q: Was the Viv team actively looking to sell the business?
A: The team was not looking to sell. The team was confident that if they built this, it would be financially-rewarding. And ultimately, it’s a good financial outcome for everybody. But the main goal has been ubiquity and finding a path to get this technology in the hands of as many people as possible. This was a chance to partner with a company that ships 500 million devices a year.
Q: Will we see this technology available on Apple devices?
A: You should expect it will appear first on Samsung devices. But my understanding is that Samsung’s commitment is to make this technology ubiquitous. That includes, over time, on iOS devices. I think Apple will prove open to this. I also think this is a step forward for the Android platform
