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Magic Leap Raises $461M from Saudis

bloomberg.com

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Re: Magic Leap Raises $461M from Saudis

#11

Post by patrickaljord »

skellera wrote: post #8
luka-birsa wrote: post #3

Looking from afar it really looks like Magic Leap is the largest money laundering vehicle that everybody is using. It's either that or the tech is so freaking groundbreaking that it is literally going to melt brains. Given my age, the cynic is winning.

Apparently their tech is pretty awesome but getting it down to portable is what’s taking so long. That might be a rumor but it’d make sense for how much money they’re pulling in.

I think any kind of AR glasses that do not look like regular glasses are going to be a tough sell to the general public at least. I think we're still years away from this kind of tech though. I mean if it were possible today Apple would be all over it. Can Magic Leap pull it off before Apple if it is at all possible to do it in the next 5 to 10 years? I'm doubtful.

Re: Magic Leap Raises $461M from Saudis

#12

Post by trimbo »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #5
econner wrote: post #2

Thought it was going to be Softbank, no it actually is the Saudis directly.

Does SoftBank often act as a proxy for the saudis?

The Vision fund is about half Saudi money

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/21/technology/saudi-softbank-te...

Re: Magic Leap Raises $461M from Saudis

#13

Post by mbesto »

velominati wrote: post #6

This is great evidence of the greater fool theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory I’ve heard some second hand anecdotes about Magic. Apparently they have one big technology advance, which is that they’ve solved the eye tracking and vertigo challenges of AR. These are hard and not to be underestimated. However the company is supposedly a mess internally - with huge management and political issues. T…

> However the company is supposedly a mess internally - with huge management and political issues.

This typically happens when there is high pressure to deliver, but you have zero revenues. So, it wouldn't surprise me.

Re: Magic Leap Raises $461M from Saudis

#15

Post by walrus01 »

luka-birsa wrote: post #3

Looking from afar it really looks like Magic Leap is the largest money laundering vehicle that everybody is using. It's either that or the tech is so freaking groundbreaking that it is literally going to melt brains. Given my age, the cynic is winning.

Given my age, I would bet that it is great technology, but also that they are spending money ridiculously. Most likely outcome is probably something like what happened to the Iridium satellite network from 1996-2002:

a) massive profligate spending

b) great tech, but not much money from customers

c) bankruptcy and acquisition by a new corporation formed to acquire the assets of the defunct company, new acquisition-corp renames itself to magic leap.

d) new company which has acquired everything for pennies on the dollar proceeds to become successful and profitable.

Re: Magic Leap Raises $461M from Saudis

#17

Post by igloofoo »

Changing the world one murdered-by-starvation Yemeni at a time.

How do you accept funding from oppressive, dictatorial, mysoginist regimes and then claim to “make the world a better place”?

Sigh. The political implications are so ironically cringe-worthy

Re: Magic Leap Raises $461M from Saudis

#18

Post by meestaahjoshee »

walrus01 wrote: post #10
ModernMech wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not any good data, but I've had recruiters tell me that they don't pay very well (in SV terms), instead opting to sell employees on large options packages that will be "worth millions one day". It's a typical SV story, but one I wouldn't expect from a company that's valued at billions of dollars. That kind of behavior seems shady to me, so I wouldn't even consider working there.

not to excuse significantly lower pay from magic leap, but their compensation might be calculated based on their office location in Plantation, Florida which I presume has significantly lower real estate (rental or purchase) costs than the bay area. actual take home after rent or mortgage each month might be greater than something in mountain view. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plantation,_Florida spending 20 seconds…

also no state income tax in florida

Re: Magic Leap Raises $461M from Saudis

#19

Post by walrus01 »

iooi wrote: post #4

> Magic Leap has raised more than $2.3 billion to date, and has been valued at above $6 billion. How can you raise that much money without shipping a product? Or better question, why do you need raise that much money in the first place?

I wonder if given the bulky size of the thing, the tech might be great, but it's just too early. For those people who are old enough to have been working in the tech industry in the dotcom 1.0 boom days, the business model proposed by the epic failure of Webvan was later validated by Amazon/Prime Now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan

Look at all that money down the drain.

Re: Magic Leap Raises $461M from Saudis

#20

Post by ModernMech »

skellera wrote: post #8
luka-birsa wrote: post #3

Looking from afar it really looks like Magic Leap is the largest money laundering vehicle that everybody is using. It's either that or the tech is so freaking groundbreaking that it is literally going to melt brains. Given my age, the cynic is winning.

Apparently their tech is pretty awesome but getting it down to portable is what’s taking so long. That might be a rumor but it’d make sense for how much money they’re pulling in.

The typical life-cycle in tech is to make something awesome, even if it's big at first, and then shrink it down. If it's really awesome, no one will care that it's big. Waiting until something is small before unleashing it seems to me like they don't actually have anything at all.
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