Jawbone’s Wristband Health Monitor

Hosain Rahman met Steve Jobs in 2004; it did not go well. Rahman’s five-year-old startup, Aliph, was about to begin selling headsets for mobile phones, and one of his investors had arranged for him to show Jobs his first creation, a stylish earpiece connected to a phone with a thick cord. Jobs hated it. In an hour-long session in Apple’s offices, Jobs intuitively exposed every shortcut the company had taken. “It was a shellacking,” Rahman says. “It was one of the most painful and formative experiences of my life.”

Rahman believes that conversation was a turning point for the company now known as Jawbone. After that meeting, the San Francisco-based company began work on an updated device and has now sold 10 million Bluetooth earpieces, making it one of the largest makers of peripheral headsets in the world. Jawbone also has begun positioning itself in a very Apple-like way, as a maker of consumer products that combine intricately designed hardware and easy-to-use software. Last year, Jawbone introduced a well-regarded wireless speaker, called the Jambox. And on Nov. 6 it will begin selling UP, a sensor-laden wristband that connects to a mobile phone and tracks elements of the wearer’s health, such as sleep patterns and physical activity. “We think we can create an incredibly valuable series of wearable computers and specialized devices,” says Ben Horowitz, a Jawbone board member and partner at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the venture capital firms that plugged $120 million into the company in 2010.