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All Magic Leap Patents Have Been Assigned to J.P. Chase Morgan as Collateral

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Re: All Magic Leap Patents Have Been Assigned to J.P. Chase Morgan as Collateral

#91
post #87

So what is up with AR? The way i naively imagine startups work is that they identify a market, develop a product for that market, then sell the product to the market. So where have the AR startups gone wrong? Did they not actually identify a market? Does the market turn out not to exist? Have they not been able to develop a product that adequatly fits the market? Are they unable to sell a perfectly good product to th…

As an outsider taking a quick look, this reminds me of the Apple Newton.

- Hard problem, immature technology that barely works as yet.

- Correct strategy would be vertical markets that have a particular need of the product, would pay enough per unit to pay for the R&D, would put it in the hands of professionals who can be trained to work around the inevitable bugs.

- Company instead unwisely aims straight for the consumer market.

Re: All Magic Leap Patents Have Been Assigned to J.P. Chase Morgan as Collateral

#92
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a few tens of thousands of dev kits I'd be willing to bet that it's more like a few thousand at most. Does anyone here know anyone with a Magic Leap One (maybe yes, since this is Hacker News, but still...)?

A developer friend of mine has a pair. They’re pretty underwhelming. It basically creates a small rectangular overlay in the centre of your vision. Far from the fully immersive experience I was expecting.

> Far from the fully immersive experience I was expecting.

That's because they were advertising a fully immersive experience. In reality, they did what Microsoft has done with HoloLens anyways, just worse.

Re: All Magic Leap Patents Have Been Assigned to J.P. Chase Morgan as Collateral

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how would a bank evaluate the risk -- do they generally have an internal team or farm it out to a consultancy? they don't have the history or contacts like VC or google's invesment funds. meanwhile, they are playing footsie with saudia arabia again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDv2E22Mz0s&feature=youtu.be...

The big banks like this have their hands in everything and connections all over the place. They have their own VC funds, they have investment bankers who specialize in different areas of tech, and they often have their own tech bus dev people in Silicon Valley who are deeply networked with both company founders and VC firms. For a lot of startups, being able to put the JP Morgan/Chase logo on your website as a custom…

> The big banks like this have their hands in everything and connections all over the place. They have their own VC funds, they have investment bankers who specialize in different areas of tech, and they often have their own tech bus dev people in Silicon Valley who are deeply networked with both company founders and VC firms. For a lot of startups, being able to put the JP Morgan/Chase logo on your website as a customer is huge. The founders and VCs know this.

And it was those very people that were selling their round A. Very competent people they were... :)

Re: All Magic Leap Patents Have Been Assigned to J.P. Chase Morgan as Collateral

#94
post #60
post #29

> Magic Leap is estimated to have over 1,800 employees and 19 office sites. For a company that has no consumer product and has no revenue, to have this many employees is quite shocking to me.

They have had a consumer product out for over a year. You can find it clearly available for purchase on their website: https://shop.magicleap.com/

Huh. I had no idea it was for sale. I'm guessing not many of those two thousand employees are in marketing...

Re: All Magic Leap Patents Have Been Assigned to J.P. Chase Morgan as Collateral

#95

I’m really hoping magic leap makes it in the long run. They’re a huge tech employer in south Florida, and frankly we could use more tech companies. I’m always afraid a recession will wipe them out and flood the market with experienced engineers.

Magic Leap probably won't succeed, but some of those experienced software and product developers likely will. Maybe ML is just a garden from where dozens of tech companies will bloom?

Re: All Magic Leap Patents Have Been Assigned to J.P. Chase Morgan as Collateral

#96
post #15

I'm amused that anyone ever took Magic Leap seriously. It's basically Apple's Newton; a good idea without the tech, without the infrastructure, without the content to sustain it and make it useful. Check back in after 10 years.

Yeah, but imagine getting in on Apple when the Newton was the big thing, and then staying for when the iPad was the real thing.

Re: All Magic Leap Patents Have Been Assigned to J.P. Chase Morgan as Collateral

#97
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is magic leap burning through so much cash? It can't be all salaries and at the same time they don't seem to be selling a ton of devices at a loss. Are they building factories or something?

"Magic Leap is estimated to have over 1,800 employees and 19 office sites."

[deleted]

Re: All Magic Leap Patents Have Been Assigned to J.P. Chase Morgan as Collateral

#98
post #68
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patents have value even if you never get a product out the door.

Patents can have value even if you never get a product out the door. Most patents are not worth the money spent getting them in the first place.

While it's true that most patents never get asserted or licensed, I suspect that in a pure sale, very few would go for less than the prosecution cost.

Re: All Magic Leap Patents Have Been Assigned to J.P. Chase Morgan as Collateral

#99
post #70

> Magic Leap is spending somewhere between $600M and $800M per year and that they have burned through all of their initial $2.4 Billion. Is it possible for ML to be viable at all? Assuming they manage to make $1000 profit eventually per device, they will need to sell at least half million devices each year. It seems militery usage probably won't be able to fund this alone as the size of US militery is just 1.5M. In U…

If they're selling it to the US military they're making at least mid-five-figures in unit profit.

> mid-five-figures in unit profit

Their most expensive product only costs $3,290.

Re: All Magic Leap Patents Have Been Assigned to J.P. Chase Morgan as Collateral

#100
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're selling it to the US military they're making at least mid-five-figures in unit profit.

> mid-five-figures in unit profit Their most expensive product only costs $3,290.

You underestimate how the US Military makes purchasing decisions...
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