'Work weekends for the good of humanity', Altman's Orb startup tells staff

Sam Altman’s blockchain company, “Tools for Humanity,” has made a startling demand from its staff. The company's flagship “solution” is something it calls the Orb, a spherical eyeball scanner. It basically verifies whether whoever is on the other side is a human through the crypto platform Worldcoin. The Orb sounds pretty confusing about its job, but the people tasked with working on it and other products have it all laid out pretty clearly, and that is complete devotion to the company. According to Business Insider, the company’s CEO, Alex Blania, told the staff at an all-hands conclave that they need to be fully devoted to their job, or quit. They have reportedly been told to work weekends "for the good of humanity." BI reported, "We will neither fail, nor will we be an average outcome, and that’s what we want and that’s all I care about every day and all you should care about every day, and nothing else should matter."

At the all-hands, Blania said, "We don’t care about politics, we don’t care about DEI, we don’t care about anything, we just care about how we can achieve the mission through merit, performance, and excellence." And if you are not prepared for it, and "care about something else, you should just not be here. It’s as simple as that."

"We work weekends for humanity"

Tools for Humanity’s "team values" also talk about how the project is "important for humanity", and for that, it is crucial that the employees "work weekends and are always on call". A TV screen broadcasting a video at the company’s former office in San Francisco in February was seen by Business Insider. It read, “We believe this is a once-in-a-lifetime project and that success is important for humanity. Therefore, we work weekends, we’re always on call, and we push as hard as our circumstances allow us to. As a result, we defy the odds, get to escape velocity and succeed on the mission."

Altman's Orb has failed to take-off

Orb was launched two years ago to get two billion people to sign up in this time period. However, it has largely been a failure as Altman's product has only managed about 17.5 million subscribers. Meanwhile, the news of the staff being asked to be at the beck and call of the company on all days, at all hours, is inviting criticism, making it a double dud for Altman.