Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans
1–10 of 449 posts
Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans
#2Does this officially place the Magic Leap's consumer device on the list of the biggest vaporware products in the history of the tech industry?
I don't know whether there was some tech hurdle they could never get over or if they were just straight up selling a fantasy from the beginning, but this result has seemed to be the likely destination for years.
Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans
#3This is such a weird company. They created big buzz over years and it seems they are just fading away quietly with nothing to show for the money they took in. Reminds me a little of Theranos (although not as criminal). Why do these investors keep pumping so much money into a company that has nothing to show? I thought they do due diligence.
Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans
#4This is such a weird company. They created big buzz over years and it seems they are just fading away quietly with nothing to show for the money they took in. Reminds me a little of Theranos (although not as criminal). Why do these investors keep pumping so much money into a company that has nothing to show? I thought they do due diligence.
It's just about taking a bet. I'm sure that magic leap must have had some demo (perhaps rehearsed) of a rudimentary alpha version they showed investors that was enough to convince people it was possible. From an investor standpoint, there isn't much downside outside of losing money. But the potential upside would have been huge.
Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans
#5This is such a weird company. They created big buzz over years and it seems they are just fading away quietly with nothing to show for the money they took in. Reminds me a little of Theranos (although not as criminal). Why do these investors keep pumping so much money into a company that has nothing to show? I thought they do due diligence.
I assume they must have had a killer demo.
1. Put the goggles on some investor's head (in a normal looking room, but with known lighting and spatial properties...).
2. Show them some flashy demo that has some limitations, but promise that with their investment, they will be able to remove those limitations.
3. Investors, who probably lack the deep knowledge of optics to know that those limitations aren't so trivial, throw money at them. Because if those limitations (e.g. FOV, opacity) were removed, it would be world-changing tech.
Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans
#6This is such a weird company. They created big buzz over years and it seems they are just fading away quietly with nothing to show for the money they took in. Reminds me a little of Theranos (although not as criminal). Why do these investors keep pumping so much money into a company that has nothing to show? I thought they do due diligence.
I am not sure if financials really work out the way i assume, so i could totally be talking out of my ass here. But i have a feeling it could work as a really nice money laundering vehicle for investors (even though i dont think it was fully the case here), and the company doesn’t even need to be aware of it.
You make X in dirty money, then invest it into a cool sounding company promising groundbreaking stuff that has a bunch of big known investors on board already. If the company does well, you take the clean money out with a nice profit on top. If it doesn’t work out, hopefully you pulled out at a level where you lost some money but not much. And it still returns you clean money at the end, so the goal is accomplished.
Typically, this kind of money laundering is done through retail businesses like restaurants and such, but it is way easier to just drop those money as an investment into another company, rather than maintaining your own retail business. Plus, the amount of money you could launder by investing is way higher, since it isnt as suspicious to drop a few hundred millions on a startup investment, as opposed to claiming that your small restaurant that is almost always empty is bringing you tens of millions per year.
Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans
#7Jesus Christ. I personally know two people that started working there right around when the lockdowns were starting to get put in place. They've probably been there less than a month.
Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans
#8They're exploring a sale valued at $10B, but it's doubtful who would have the appetite to buy it at this valuation. Google declined a follow on round recently, Apple has been developing their own tech for years, and Facebook has quietly stepped away from AR/VR.
Magic Leap is reminiscent of another company with "Magic" in its name: General Magic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic). They both made a product that evangelize the form factor in the public's (or some subset of it) eye, but alas is way ahead of its time in terms of tech, and content.
It's easy to hate on Magic Leap and its self aggrandizing marketing. Although I personally never bought into the hype of Magic Leap in particular, they did inspire a whole generation of developers in a way that hasn't been done since the release of the original iPhone.
Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans
#9This is such a weird company. They created big buzz over years and it seems they are just fading away quietly with nothing to show for the money they took in. Reminds me a little of Theranos (although not as criminal). Why do these investors keep pumping so much money into a company that has nothing to show? I thought they do due diligence.
I feel like I have heard rumors about amazing closed door tech demos for Magic Leap for years now, so I always assumed that's how they got so much money. The question then is did they just have a really good pitch/canned demo, or do a good job of stirring up rumors and riding off that.
Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans
#10Does this officially place the Magic Leap's consumer device on the list of the biggest vaporware products in the history of the tech industry? I don't know whether there was some tech hurdle they could never get over or if they were just straight up selling a fantasy from the beginning, but this result has seemed to be the likely destination for years.
There's something about using the word 'Magic' in your company's name [1]; great concept, likely amazing people, but in the end either vaporware or something that's way too ahead of its time.
Maybe the 'Magic' is how they are able to get so much funding and attention for so little end result.