All the way back in 2013 (has it really been that long?), Steve Kondik and many other CyanogenMod contributors founded Cyanogen Inc. The company had two goals, to maintain the existing community-created CyanogenMod ROM, and to develop ‘Cyanogen OS’ for other manufacturer’s devices. That business model could certainly have worked, but it didn’t take long for the company to make costly mistakes.
The first mistake was when Cyanogen ended its partnership with OnePlus, the only manufacturer it was working with at the time.
Cyanogen Inc rebrands itself again as ‘Cyngn,’ an autonomous tech company was written by the awesome team at Android Police.