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Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans

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

#121

Post by soneca »

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

I remember a small delivery startup called "Magic" too that had quite an impact here in HN, then I never heard about it again.

Edit: Here it is the HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9087819

They are still around though https://www.getmagic.com

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

#123

Post by michaelbuckbee »

catalogia wrote: post #112
wpietri wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't trust Evans at all, but I'm going to partially defend that here. There's a long history of technology being absolutely amazing the first time you use it and then not mattering at all. E.g., the Segway was going to revolutionize transport. The 3D space is particularly prone to this. I count at least 5 waves of 3D innovation going back to the Great Exhibition in 1851. 3D movies were going to revolutionize thing…

The segway at least found a niche with cops and tourists.

And in a slightly different form factor / price point presaged the mass usage of Lime, etc.

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

#124

Post by gonehome »

leeoniya wrote: post #110
gonehome wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supposedly the magic leap demo was actually cool and used different technology than the eventually crappy hardware they ended up sort of shipping. I think they couldn’t get it to a place where it could be small enough to be useful? Hopefully when Apple ships AR hardware for real it’ll be what it should be. Magic leap will be kind of like General Magic or the creative nomad jukebox - right idea but too early with hard…

> Supposedly the magic leap demo was actually cool and used different technology than the eventually crappy hardware they ended up sort of shipping. i think that technology was CGI: https://hothardware.com/news/magic-leap-admits-outrageous-au...

I'm not talking about their fake demo ads they put everywhere, I think they actually had an impressive in person demo using some different technology they couldn't miniaturize.

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

#125

Post by wpietri »

save_ferris wrote: post #97
alephnan wrote: post #67

> Citing COVID-19, CEO Rony Abovitz wrote in a blog post that the company needed to shift focus Right... because of Covid-19. As a counter example, Animal Crossing on the Nintendo Switch is doing phenomenal right now, in part due to Covid-19.

Nintendo is a well-established company with a solid platform for its Switch that sells millions of units. They've been doing this for a little while longer tbf. I get the sense that "shifting focus" means that Magic Leap were so focused on the hardware that they didn't really think concretely about bringing a viable platform to market, or something like that. I just don't understand how a company raises that kind of…

But nothing about the crisis changes fundamentals negatively for at-home entertainment. Covid-19 is a convenient excuse here.

> Did they really raise that much money without a concrete go-to-market strategy?

I'm sure they had a nominal strategy. But if you take the anthropologist-from-Mars perspective on Magic Leap, it looks like their real business was selling feelings of excitement to investors.

This is a common phenomenon with build-it-and-they-will-come businesses. If you want to crate a good business, you need contact with reality early and often. You need to test your hypotheses on actual customers, because that's how you really learn to maximize delivered value.

If you want gobs of investor money, on the other hand, it's often better to have no proof at all. With $0 in revenue, investors just have to imagine the billions that await. But once you have $1 in revenue, suddenly projections get anchored to real data. Rather than reveling in dreams of what people might do with, say, Segway or Google Glass, people insist on looking at the dreary reality.

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

#126

Post by adamc »

catalogia wrote: post #112
wpietri wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't trust Evans at all, but I'm going to partially defend that here. There's a long history of technology being absolutely amazing the first time you use it and then not mattering at all. E.g., the Segway was going to revolutionize transport. The 3D space is particularly prone to this. I count at least 5 waves of 3D innovation going back to the Great Exhibition in 1851. 3D movies were going to revolutionize thing…

The segway at least found a niche with cops and tourists.

Right, but it was a niche, not a revolution.

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

#127

Post by ahupp »

wpietri wrote: post #107
adam_fallon_ wrote: post #75

I sort of always knew it was the job of VCs to hype up their portfolio, but i've never seen it as bare faced as when Benedict Evans was shilling Magic Leap saying things along the lines of "Magic Leap was the coolest thing I'd seen since the iPhone. It's now much cooler than that." and "I’ve had the Magic Leap demo. It was worth going to Florida for." Well that looks a bit silly now doesn't it.

I don't trust Evans at all, but I'm going to partially defend that here. There's a long history of technology being absolutely amazing the first time you use it and then not mattering at all. E.g., the Segway was going to revolutionize transport. The 3D space is particularly prone to this. I count at least 5 waves of 3D innovation going back to the Great Exhibition in 1851. 3D movies were going to revolutionize thing…

To be fair to the Segway, there's a remarkable number of self-balancing one wheel scooters on the street in SF these days (well, a few months ago). And I think you can trace all of those back to Segway. Sometimes v1 doesn't quite do it.

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

#128

Post by hinkley »

tootie wrote: post #66
trollied wrote: post #24

Wow, they burned billions. Karl Guttag has blogged about them for years, debunking their technology. Hi blog is a good read for all things in the AR/VR space https://www.kguttag.com/

Their tech is actually pretty decent. It's as good as anything else on the market. Their biggest mistake has been setting sky high expectations and just not coming close. If you got a cold demo of Magic Leap you'd probably be blown away. If you watch their simulated demo from however many years ago, then try on the headset you'll be sorely disappointed.

I'm having trouble thinking of times when I felt more demoralized as a developer than when the sales team has made promises that simply defied the laws of information theory, and then wondered why we couldn't just work harder to fix the problem.

I mean, technically, capital I Innovation often comes in finding a way to do something without violating the laws of physics, but that's how company origin stories are written. You don't schedule that on the project roadmap "And then a miracle occurs" style.

During a particularly memorable instance of this situation, I recall reading a story by someone suggesting that you can close this feedback loop with peer reviews across functional units. Marketing reviewed product management, product management reviewed development, development reviewed QA, and QA reviewed...

And this is the kicker: QA reviewed marketing. So if marketing sold something that was undefinable and thus untestable, they got an earful from QA. No bonus for you.

I fantasized about that over countless cups of coffee with coworkers for the next year or two.

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

#129

Post by adamc »

three_seagrass wrote: post #116
cmelbye wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Magic Leap is really cool to use. That doesn't mean it's a feasible product for the mainstream.

It's the segway solution. Cool tech that solves a problem which doesn't really exist.

Kind of like VR for games? Which I have yet to meet anyone who uses...

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

#130

Post by joshgachnang »

wpietri wrote: post #107
adam_fallon_ wrote: post #75

I sort of always knew it was the job of VCs to hype up their portfolio, but i've never seen it as bare faced as when Benedict Evans was shilling Magic Leap saying things along the lines of "Magic Leap was the coolest thing I'd seen since the iPhone. It's now much cooler than that." and "I’ve had the Magic Leap demo. It was worth going to Florida for." Well that looks a bit silly now doesn't it.

I don't trust Evans at all, but I'm going to partially defend that here. There's a long history of technology being absolutely amazing the first time you use it and then not mattering at all. E.g., the Segway was going to revolutionize transport. The 3D space is particularly prone to this. I count at least 5 waves of 3D innovation going back to the Great Exhibition in 1851. 3D movies were going to revolutionize thing…

I have a feeling Magic Leap will be to AR what Segway is to Bird/Jump/etc: right idea, wrong implementation (time/form factor/business model/etc).
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