An interview with Rabbit CEO Jesse Lyu about the R1's design, collaborating with Teenage Engineering, why he didn't want to make a phone or an app, and more
Few people knew who Jesse Lyu was when he posted a video of himself to X, standing in front of a black backdrop in a black T-shirt, holding a bright orange gadget. X: @ctrlzee , @vkhosla , @altcap , @vkhosla , and @bharatvasan LinkedIn: Mark Wilson , JR Dawkins , Gregor Berkowitz , and Matthew Price, Ph.D. X: Mark Wilson / @ctrlzee : 50,000 presales later, the $200 Rabbit R1 has stolen the AI mindshare. Take a deep dive into its unconventional hardware in this interview with @rabbit_hmi's founder/CEO @jessechenglyu, who is eager to explain why it's not just an app https://www.fastcompany.com/ ... Vinod Khosla / @vkhosla : People view @rabbit_hmi as “hardware”. To me a new class of device will enable a new user experience & new model for how apps are used, making it “AI agent” based user centric, not app centric. A large change is coming in very low latency (not achievable for apps on an iPhone)... Brad Gerstner / @altcap : 100%. Speed. Speed. Speed. The elimination of latency will make the device disappear. When answers are whispered to u as fast as u think of the question - engagement will 💥. But latency makes devices feel like a chore. High performing models on the edge coming very soon... Vinod Khosla / @vkhosla : When Apple introduced the iPhone major criticism was it had no keyboard. As Steve Jobs said, the hardware enables the software. @rabbit_hmi is mostly software but the hardware enables user experiences like low latency conversations and the large action model allows one to... Bharat Vasan / @bharatvasan : I think @vkhosla is right on the low-latency voice ux. The 2 compelling use cases I see are real-time functional (search, translate) and augmented memory (what happened, what did i decide). Commerce (book a trip, buy tix at a concert) will prob take a while since the stakes are... LinkedIn: Mark Wilson : Apple is about to release its first headset, and yet, for the last two weeks, the internet's been abuzz about another product: the $200 Rabbit R1 by rabbit inc. A walkie talkie for AI. … JR Dawkins : This is a sleeper product for many outside of the tech world. When I saw this during CES week I thought, wow, someone was working on putting … Gregor Berkowitz : Rabit R1 is a cool product concept and an impressive video. The video is a clever hybrid of UI demo and CEO narration. … Matthew Price, Ph.D. : Great read Mark Wilson! I pre-ordered immediately. Teenage Engineering is a really interesting story. …