Leaders at Humane, the "AI Pin" company, allegedly prohibited criticism within the company, and this may have played a role in their launch of a "dead-on-arrival" product.
"The Times interviewed '23 current and former employees, advisers and investors,' and their anecdotes shed a lot of light on how a company makes it all the way to market with an out-of-touch, poorly performing product. The two founders apparently 'preferred positivity over criticism, leading them to disregard warnings about the AI Pin's poor battery life and power consumption. A senior software engineer was dismissed after raising questions about the product, they said, while others left out of frustration.' 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.' It's hard to make a good product if you can't honestly talk about the negatives and positives for fear of retaliation."
How to build a DOA product: Humane AI Pin founders banned internal criticism
