The Essential Gem's unveiling resurfaces allegations against Andy Rubin, making clear that it's becoming hard to disassociate products from their makers
The Essential Gem's unveiling makes clear that it's becoming harder to disassociate new products from the people making them. Tweets: @shiraovide , @bjacobel , @rmac18 , @whatthebit , @saraashleyo , and @waltmossberg Tweets: Shira Ovide / @shiraovide : Tech products and services cannot be divorced from the people and companies behind them. This is the consumer technology piece that needed to be written, and read. By @LaurenGoode https://www.wired.com/... Brian Jacobel / @bjacobel : Good Wired article about Andy Rubin's stupid gimmick phone and how willing much of the tech press was to ignore his history of sexual assault in exchange for a glimpse of it https://www.wired.com/... Ryan Mac / @rmac18 : “But the caveats are real, and it's getting harder to look at consumer products and their pretty packages without thinking about the people making them, and the power behind them.” https://www.wired.com/... Stefan Constantine / @whatthebit : They literally made multiple movies about Steve Jobs knocking up a woman and refusing to acknowledge the child. Everyone owns an iPhone. https://twitter.com/... Sara Ashley O'Brien / @saraashleyo : “in an era of heightened scrutiny of the technology sector, it is possible to divorce new gadgets from the people who make them and the ethos of the corporations that fund them. And even if it's possible, should we?” https://www.wired.com/... Walt Mossberg / @waltmossberg : Here's a really thoughtful essay by @LaurenGoode on whether, in 2019, tech writers and consumers can evaluate new products without also considering the records and behavior of the companies and people behind them. https://www.wired.com/... Expand More For Next Unexpand More For Next
Context & Ripple Effects
When Essential unveiled the Gem, the launch was immediately overtaken by the founder rather than the phone: reporting a year earlier had established that Andy Rubin left Google with a $90M exit after a credible misconduct allegation, and journalists like Shira Ovide and Walt Mossberg used the unveiling to argue that gadgets can no longer be covered apart from the people behind them.
That argument lands inside an ongoing fight over how tech gets covered at all — from Wired's own earlier defense of the industry to critiques of how Silicon Valley feeds reporters information on background — making this piece as much about press norms as about one startup.
First-order effects
- Essential's Gem launch now has to compete against the Rubin story for attention, with mainstream tech writers explicitly refusing to review the device in isolation from its founder.
Second-order effects
- Other hardware startups fronted by controversial figures face the same coverage template, and PR teams lean harder on anonymous, on-background briefings that outlets like CJR are already flagging as an accountability dodge.
Third-order effects
- If founder conduct keeps attaching itself to products, the 'great-man' hardware marketing playbook loses value, and the widening media-Silicon Valley rift becomes a structural feature of how launches are covered.
The trend: Consumer tech coverage is shifting from product-first reviews to accountability journalism that treats founders and their companies as inseparable.