- OSOM, the company founded by former employees of Andy Rubin’s Essential, is effectively shutting down later this week.
- The company’s chief executive, Jason Keats, announced the news internally yesterday.
- Most employees are being let go on Friday, but some will remain to push a final update to the Solana Saga.
It’s been a rough week for OSOM Products. The company has been embroiled in legal controversy stemming from a lawsuit filed by a former executive. Now, Android Authority has learned that the company is effectively shutting down later this week.
OSOM Products was formed in 2020 following the disbanding of Essential, a smartphone startup led by Andy Rubin, the founder of Android. Essential collapsed following the poor sales of its first smartphone, the Essential Phone, as well as a loss of confidence in Rubin due to allegations of sexual misconduct at his previous stint at Google. Although Essential as a company was on its way out after Rubin’s departure, many of its most talented hardware designers and software engineers remained at the company, looking for another opportunity to build something new.