wearablesGraveyard archive2018–2025

Humane

Humane was the post-ChatGPT era's most hyped hardware startup and its most complete failure. Founded in 2018 by married ex-Apple stars Imran Chaudhri — who designed the iPhone's interface — and Bethany Bongiorno, it raised about $230M from Sam Altman, Tiger Global, Microsoft, Qualcomm Ventures, LG, and Volvo at a reported $850M valuation, most of it before anyone outside the company had seen the product. The Ai Pin, unveiled in November 2023 at $699 plus a $24/month subscription, was a screenless lapel wearable with a palm laser projector that promised to make the smartphone obsolete.

Years active

2018–2025

Peak valuation

$850M

Total raised

$230M

Peak headcount

250

The most pedigreed stealth startup in tech

Imran Chaudhri spent 1995–2017 at Apple, where he designed the interaction model of the original iPhone and holds design patents on it; Bethany Bongiorno was a software engineering director who ran iPad software programs. The married couple left Apple in 2017 and founded Humane in San Francisco in 2018, describing it as 'an experience company' building contextual computing 'on a foundation of trust and privacy.' Roughly 40% of early hires were ex-Apple, and the company stayed in near-total stealth for about five years — long enough to become famous for being secretive, raising nine figures without ever describing its product.

$230 million on faith

The capital came on the strength of the founders' résumés and a vision of post-smartphone 'ambient computing.' Sam Altman led a $30M Series A in September 2020 and became Humane's largest shareholder at 14.93% — bigger than either founder's roughly 13%. Tiger Global led a $100M Series B in September 2021 alongside SoftBank, Qualcomm Ventures, Forerunner, and Marc Benioff's TIME Ventures. Kindred Ventures led a $100M Series C in March 2023 that brought in Microsoft, LG Technology Ventures, Volvo Cars Tech Fund, and SK Networks' Hico Capital as strategics, with OpenAI attached as a technology partner. Total raised: about $230M, at a valuation The Information reported at $850M — all before a single unit had shipped.

What worked, what broke

What worked

Raised about $230M from Sam Altman, Tiger Global, Kindred Ventures, Microsoft, Qualcomm Ventures, LG, Volvo, and SK Networks at a reported $850M valuation — mostly while still in stealth.
Assembled one of the most pedigreed hardware teams ever fielded by a startup: founders behind the iPhone's interface and iPad software, with roughly 40% of early hires from Apple.
Actually shipped a genuinely new device category — a screenless, laser-projecting wearable running its own OS on its own cellular network — where most AI-hardware rivals never left the deck.
Generated cultural reach no gadget launch had matched in years: a TED mainstage reveal in April 2023 and Naomi Campbell wearing the Pin on Coperni's Paris Fashion Week runway.
Built assets durable enough to be worth $116M to HP even after total commercial failure: the CosmOS platform and a portfolio of 300-plus patents and applications.
The founders and core engineering team landed on their feet inside HP, with Bongiorno as CEO and Chaudhri as chairman and president of the new HP IQ innovation lab.

What broke

Shipped a $699 device plus $24/month subscription that was slower, less reliable, and less capable than the smartphone already in every buyer's pocket — the product it claimed to replace.
Fatal launch quality: overheating, hours-long battery life, laggy and wrong AI answers, and a palm projector unreadable in daylight, crystallized by Marques Brownlee's 'worst product I've ever reviewed.'
Demand never existed at scale — about 10,000 orders against a 100,000 first-year target — and by mid-2024 daily returns exceeded daily sales, with returned Pins unrecoverable e-waste due to T-Mobile provisioning.
A culture that 'preferred positivity over criticism' (NYT): internal battery and readiness warnings were disregarded, an engineer was fired for questioning the launch, and no head of marketing was ever hired.
Burned ~$230M building a vertically integrated phone-replacement — custom OS, laser hardware, its own MVNO — leaving no cheap pivot when the flagship flopped.
The endgame punished customers hardest: an asset sale that excluded the device business gave owners ten days' notice before every Pin was permanently bricked and customer data deleted on February 28, 2025.

Humane

The most pedigreed stealth startup in tech

$230 million on faith

The pin that would kill the phone

Fourteen days to infamy

Returns outpacing sales

Bricked in ten days

What worked, what broke

Sources