Dodged a bullet here. I didn’t make it pass the first interview call back in 2016 lol.
past
Airware is shutting down after raising $118M
101–110 of 145 posts
Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M
#102Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
One other usecase with a lot of potential is inventory control and counting in warehouses. Not small articles, but for industrial warehouses and larger products drones combining bar code scanners and visual artical identification can improve things considerably. Fraunhofer ran some first test like two years in Germany. No idea what came out of it.
Does that really benefit from a drone vs a wheeled vehicle with a bunch of fixed cameras on it? I would think a gigantic planar environment is pretty much ideal for an industrial SDV; a lot of things get easier when you're no longer worried about weight— you can carry a full day's worth of batteries, not to mention having higher quality optics and safety lasers. (disclosure: I work for OTTO Motors, which has customer…
I could imagine both. In the case I mentioned the warehouse was euipped with highracks up to 13 meters if I remeber well. Also the drone flew during non-working hours, so yeah some ground based solution would work too.
Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
wheeled vehicle parked in the isles to take a picture of a space on top shelf would be blocking pallet jakcs and other vehicles that need to move between the isles. may be a railed solution hanging from the ceiling would be better.
Rails are a lot of infrastructure to install and maintain. People complain that sticking down magnetic tape is a pain in the butt.
Exactlly, also a drone is much more flexible in case you change your layout.
Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Huh?
VCs take money from Limited Partners (LPs). For the LPs, they spread less than 5% of their investable assets across a venture strategy. If it doesn't pan out, no big deal. So from their perspective, fundraising is spectacle and excitement, and losing investments are part of the loss model. -- Side note, a return model heuristic for LPs: 1 in 10 yields 10x, 1 in 100 yields 1000x
From the perspective of the LP, sure.
From the perspective of the VC, if they have a bunch of losers in their portfolio it means that they're not going to be able to raise another fund in 10 years, they won't have any carried interest (which is where VCs make the bulk of their compensation - it's their 20% of the total profits), and they'll have to content themselves with the salary they drew from the fund management fees.
BTW, most LPs are things like pension funds and university endowments, along with hedge funds that pensions & universities invest in. So if you're ever wondering why your parents' retirement has suddenly vanished or your kids can't afford to go to college, this is why.
Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
It has less to do with the space, and more to do with the odd engineering decisions and multiple pivots. There wasn't a SDK or platform to build on and we didn't take any actual orders for anything (so we had minimal success stories or $$$). The hardware we showed was built by us, and ran a custom OS (not based on linux) that was nearly impossible to work with. We had a very talented engineer rage-quit after spending…
So, a death by NIH?
What’s NIH? Not Inough Humility?
Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, a death by NIH?
What’s NIH? Not Inough Humility?
Not Invented Here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_invented_here
Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
EOS and Tron. There are probably others. I went to a couple cryptocurrency meetups recently that were sponsored by a startup, 6 months old, which had offices in 3 cities, 2 different product lines, and was launching a venture capital fund. To me, that's a red flag that they have too much money and no idea how to deploy it.
Off topic, but is there anything interesting going on in the cryptocurrency space? I stopped following circa 2015 after seeing Bitcoin/blockchain co-opted by a bunch of hucksters for a bunch of get-rich-quick schemes (including internal projects at more than a few major technology companies). I've heard stirrings about a few "stablecoin" project with more solid economic underpinnings, but am skeptical anyone can come…
You might want to check out https://twitter.com/buttcoin which aggregates a lot of good cryptocurrency news
Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certainly sounds like it. I find this bit pretty funny though: > entire enterprise cloud stack written in only the newest of the new JS frameworks and containers I'm of the opinion that the JS ecosystem is one of the few spaces where a healthy dose of NIH can save you a lot of time and money in the long run. And it seems like the only place where they didn't go for a custom solution.
That people are choosing js for drones boggles the mind.
It makes a lot of sense for high level mission planning (more agile than other languages + it runs everywhere) and interacting with web apps.
Re: Airware is shutting down after raising $118M
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
Certainly sounds like it. I find this bit pretty funny though: > entire enterprise cloud stack written in only the newest of the new JS frameworks and containers I'm of the opinion that the JS ecosystem is one of the few spaces where a healthy dose of NIH can save you a lot of time and money in the long run. And it seems like the only place where they didn't go for a custom solution.
That people are choosing js for drones boggles the mind.
They aren't. He said that was for their servers.