Hosain Rahman at Startup School SV 2014

TL;DR

Hosain Rahman recounts Jawbone’s story from 1999: starting with a vision for mobile voice interaction (pre‑Siri), serendipitously inventing a noise‑cancellation breakthrough, failing to license it to handset makers, surviving on DARPA grants, building consumer hardware when no startup had done it, being shut down by investors after a failed product, wrestling the company back with $60 k in the ban

Key insights

• The original idea was “Siri for mobile devices” (1997‑98), but speech recognition wasn’t ready; the noise‑cancellation technology they invented to enable it turned out to be the bigger breakthrough.
• Handset manufacturers (Nokia, Motorola, etc.) refused to integrate the technology because adding an extra microphone cost too much – years later, Apple put six microphones in the iPhone.
• DARPA funding kept the company alive when no venture capital was available, allowing them to productize the science.