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OnePlus founder Carl Pei calls his new mystery tech company Nothing

We don't know what it means or what it does. All we know is that it's a "giant reset button." Cool?

Katie Collins Senior European Correspondent
Katie a UK-based news reporter and features writer. Officially, she is CNET's European correspondent, covering tech policy and Big Tech in the EU and UK. Unofficially, she serves as CNET's Taylor Swift correspondent. You can also find her writing about tech for good, ethics and human rights, the climate crisis, robots, travel and digital culture. She was once described a "living synth" by London's Evening Standard for having a microchip injected into her hand.
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Katie Collins
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Carl Pei's mystery company Nothing.

 Nothing

OnePlus founder Carl Pei announced the name of his new tech company on Wednesday, and that name is, quite simply, Nothing. It's a bold naming strategy, for sure, to choose a moniker so imbued with an absence of anything. But what does it mean? Unfortunately the sense of mystery surrounding the venture extends beyond the name. So far, we've been given little to go on.

The only clue Pei has dropped is a tweet with the words a "giant reset button," linking to an Instagram account, which links out to a website. Follow this trail of breadcrumbs and you'll stumble upon a description of what Nothing is. Don't expect to learn much from it though. It reads:

"It's easy to make something.

Even easier when it's just like the thing before it. And the one before that. But like all good things, this one starts from scratch. No notes. No blueprints. No map to find our way back.

We're rethinking everything. From what we make and how we make it. To what goes in and what goes out. A giant reset button for all things innovation.

And so we go. Confident that technology in reach isn't worth reaching for. We know, because we tried reaching a little further.

And came up with nothing."

Well, that clears things up.

This might all just sound like one big existential crisis, but with support from investors including Reddit CEO and cofounder Steve Huffman, Twitch cofounder Kevin Lin, Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave and YouTuber Casey Neistat, it's likely that whatever Pei has up his sleeve has legs.

"Consumer tech is a tidal wave of limitless potential. Nothing will be the brand at the forefront and I can't wait for the world to experience their products," said Neistat in a statement.

In an interview with The Verge, Pei reportedly said the company intends to launch "smart devices" at some point during the first half of this year, indicating that whatever Nothing does will be hardware focused. That's all we know for now, but keep checking back for updates -- we'll add more details as we get them.