Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 449 posts

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#11

Post by aero142 »

filoleg wrote: post #6
Ididntdothis wrote: post #3

This 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 ha…

Is there some exception to money laundering rules I'm not aware of where the government doesn't investigate the source of cash if it is invested in a company from overseas?

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#12

Post by lgleason »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #3

This 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.

One of the early seed investors is close friends with the founders of Google. Needless to say it wasn't surprising when Google funneled a bunch of cash into it. After that, I'm sure it made it easier to get others to follow suit.

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#13

Post by geerlingguy »

gamegoblin wrote: post #5
Ididntdothis wrote: post #3

This 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,…

Reminds me of Silicon Valley's fictional Keenan Feldspar and his VR demo (likely based on Magic Leap): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8MAV9jhf04

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#15

Post by gkoberger »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #3

This 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 easy to say in hindsight, but investors were taking a bet based on the little bits of promising information they had a decade ago. Both sides knew the risks, and that's the whole point – VCs and the company both believed they could make something happen, and it seems they weren't able to, and that's just how this works.

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#16

Post by DonHopkins »

gamegoblin wrote: post #5
Ididntdothis wrote: post #3

This 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,…

Now with COVID-19, they really DO have a killer demo:

1. Put the goggles on some investor's head.

2. Investor catches COVID-19 and dies.

Nobody wants to share VR or AR gear any more. The whole idea of location based VR / AR entertainment centers is deadly now.

If it's so great you can't believe it without trying it yourself, and nobody wants to stick their head in a device that anybody else has been drooling and coughing and vomiting in, it doesn't matter how great it is, nobody's going to try it.

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#17

Post by Andrex »

geerlingguy wrote: post #10
slg wrote: post #2

Does 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. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic

Some names are just too perfect.

Starcraft Ghost

The Phantom (games console)

Duke Nukem Forever (though it eventually did come out)

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#19

Post by nprz »

Are there other companies making progress in the augmented reality space? I've tried the Hololens v1 and was completely underwhelmed. The field of view is far too small and not impressive or immersive at all. Is the v2 much better? When will we get what Magic Leap was initially promising?

Re: Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

#20

Post by filoleg »

aero142 wrote: post #11
filoleg wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ha…

Is there some exception to money laundering rules I'm not aware of where the government doesn't investigate the source of cash if it is invested in a company from overseas?

Oh, if it is a foreign power, they arent laundering it to prevent the US government from discovering the source, they are doing it to prevent discovering the source from their own governments. Because those foreign actors wouldn’t be running away from taxes from the US, since those money were never in the US in the first place.

Also curious on how it would work. If a rich foreign national decides to invest into a random startup, i dont think US has the ability to look into where the money came from, unless that foreign national claims to have made those money in the US.

Again, could totally be wrong here, so please someone correct me if that’s the case.

Post reply on HN