Sam Altman's eyeball-scanning startup Tools for Humanity announces layoffs amid struggles

Layoffs Reportedly Hit Sam Altman's Creepy Eyeball-Scanning Startup

Just as one of Sam Altman's companies, OpenAI, is preparing for an IPO, another one is downsizing. Business Insider reports that Altman's creepy eyeball-scanning startup, Tools for Humanity, is laying some staff off. The company is best known for World, formerly Worldcoin, a project designed to verify that people interacting online are human, not AI. Its solution to this problem is for people to get their eyes scanned by a somewhat Orwellian soccer-ball-sized device called the Orb in exchange for a unique digital ID code stored on their phone. In theory, this could help filter out annoying AI bots from gaming, social media platforms, or even financial transactions like concert ticket sales. Since launching in 2023, World has failed to reach its ambitious goal of scanning a billion people or about an eighth of the world's population. As of April, the company says it had verified nearly 18 million people via its Orb device. That's less than 2 percent of its goal. Now, it seems the company is shifting strategies. "As we enter the next step of our company strategy and operating priorities, we have made the hard decision to make changes to some roles and teams across the company," Tools for Humanity wrote in an email sent to staff on Monday, according to Business Insider. Tools for Humanity did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Before the restructuring, the company had more than 500 employees, but there have also been major exits in recent months. Earlier this year, Tools for Humanity's Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Architect Adrian Ludwig, as well as its Chief Legal and Privacy Officer Damien Kieran, departed the company. Those exits were preceded by the departures of the company's head of protocol and applied research, head of people, head of talent, and head of device product, according to Business Insider. A former employee told the outlet at the time that challenges with the company's culture and leadership were partly responsible for the departures. The startup raised $115 million in Series C funding in 2023. Since then, it has launched an updated World App with new chat and banking features. In April, the company also announced several integrations meant to bring the World ID protocol to some popular digital platforms. For example, Orb-verified Tinder users can now get a special badge on their profiles. World also announced integrations with Zoom and DocuSign, giving those platforms another way to verify that users are who they say they are. Still, it's no surprise that people aren't exactly running to hand over their biometric data to a Silicon Valley billionaire. Another part of the adoption problem is simply that people have to physically travel to one of the company's verification locations. Several countries have already temporarily banned or launched investigations into the company's biometric technology, citing privacy and data-security concerns. The exact reason for the layoffs is still unclear. But Altman himself has warned that companies are using AI as a convenient scapegoat for layoffs. Tools for Humanity hasn't exactly been a booming business, so we'll be watching to see where the OpenAI CEO places the blame.

Sam Altman's Eyeball Scanning Company Now Laying Off Workers

Can't-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Look, nobody roots for workers to lose their jobs. But some companies are built on such a ridiculous premise that it's impossible to ignore the cracks in the foundation -- making layoffs all but inevitable. On Monday this week, the Sam Altman-founded startup Tools for Humanity announced it was laying off an unspecified number of employees, Business Insider reported. The company, which had employed more than 500 people, is valued at $2.5 billion, with backing from big name tech investors including Andreessen Horowitz. It's main product is the Orb, a biometric ID device that scans irises in order to provide "proof of humanity" to clients. Basically, the idea goes, Orb is the only way to combat the growing risk of AI deepfakes and scams -- a development which Altman, as chief executive of OpenAI, is coincidentally spearheading. "As we enter the next step of our company strategy and operating priorities, we have made the hard decision to make changes to some roles and teams across the company," the company told staffers in an all-hands email viewed by BI. The layoffs come as the company has struggled to find a suitable market for its Orbs. As Time noted in reporting from earlier this year, Tools for Humanity was caught woefully unprepared to scale its technology when AI agents began swarming the internet back in February. "We acknowledge we have a problem," the company's chief business officer Trevor Traina told Time. "We've been Orb-constrained." And though the company's "World" ID project has found heavyweight partners in software firms like Tinder, Zoom, and Docusign, numerous governments in Asia, Africa, South America, and Europe have halted or outright banned the Orbs due to issues with the company's collection of biometric information. The scale of these layoffs will be a telling measure of just how deep the issues are at Tools for Humanity -- and whether there's appetite in the market for a company premised on selling a solution to its own founder's hubris.