OpenAI announced on Monday that it confidentially filed for an IPO, marking what could become the one of the defining public offerings of the decade. And then there’s OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s other company, Tools for Humanity, which is reportedly conducting layoffs, according to Business Insider. TechCrunch has reached out to the company for confirmation.
You might know Tools for Humanity better through its verification project known as World — and its related device, a creepy silver orb that wants to scan your eyeballs. The idea is that the company will be able to verify people’s identities using unique iris scans, helping to distinguish human activity from bot activity in the increasingly automated world that Tools for Humanity co-founder and chairman Altman is constructing. The company would also use these scans to validate people’s identities to support the trade of its own cryptocurrency, Worldcoin.
These vague, suspicious ambitions were enough to raise money at a $2.5 billion valuation from investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital, and other funds backing blockchain companies. But now the company is reportedly downsizing as it struggles to create revenue.
In the U.S., companies like Tinder, Zoom, and Docusign have partnered on Altman’s side project. Internationally, Tools for Humanity has faced regulatory and ethical concerns. In Kenya, India, and Hong Kong, for example, people were offered the equivalent of $50 in Worldcoin in exchange for their biometric data. Kenya later banned World from operating in the country, citing privacy and financial concerns; meanwhile, South Korea fined the company $830,000 for allegedly violating local privacy law.
Who would’ve thought? People don’t feel great about giving their biometric data to a startup in exchange for $50 worth of crypto.