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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

#161

Post by gonehome »

CerealFounder wrote: post #156
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the concept video which was different from the demo, but you are correct and they did a horrible job conveying that that was a concept and not the actual product.

Did they? They raised a billions of dollars to try to basically try to drag reality to this demo. It feels like a bigger version of a regular venture story. "Gimme a ton of money to run this experiment. If I'm right you'll be rich"

That would have been fine if they said that, but they pretended the concept videos were real.

Even this post is another example of the continued dishonesty I'd expect from them. This pivot is obviously not about COVID-19.

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

#162

Post by snovv_crash »

e-_pusher wrote: post #63
xiaolingxiao wrote: post #8

They'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…

Not sure why you are claiming that Facebook has stepped away from AR/VR. I know that Facebook is still hiring quite heavily in the Seattle area for AR/VR HW roles.

Facebook/Oculus is also heavily recruiting in Zurich.

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

#163

Post by alephnan »

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…

Nintendo's never competed with other gaming platforms on a technology basis, and they've shown novel experiences can be adapted from less edge bleeding technology. Thread from earlier this month:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22791300

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

#164

Post by nordsieck »

_jal wrote: post #132
ahupp wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Those are toys. Back in the day, Kamen was going on about redesigning cities around them.

> Those are toys.

If you're referring to electric unicycles e.g. SoloWheel, they are probably the perfect compliment to mass transit.

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

#165

Post by braythwayt »

A little perpendicular to the subject, but this kind of thing always brings my mind back to iPhone. Apple had AT LEAST four kicks at the can with mobile devices.

They had the "Knowledge Navigator" vaporware in 1987, twenty years before iPhone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_navigator

They started working on realizing the KN concept in 1987, and shipped Newton in 1993, fourteen years before iPhone. Alas, the state of tech was not up to their ambition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Newton

They shipped iPod in 2001, six years before iPhone. In conjunction with iMacs that could rip CDs, they had a massive hit!

https://www.apple.com/ipod/

Then they shipped iPhone in 2007. The greatest hit in product history.

What made it possible to have so many kicks at the can was, of course, having a successful(ish) business selling Macs.

With VC funding, you strip all the legacy/cash cow business out of the equation. In exchange, you get tremendous financial leverage for founders, but you also have a very limited window in which to ship a hit.

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

#167

Post by nsxwolf »

vikramkr wrote: post #151
_jal wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are toys. Back in the day, Kamen was going on about redesigning cities around them.

They're toys that a lot of people use as their primary methods of transport, along with other micro mobility solutions like electric scooters amd good old fashioned bikes. In a way, the future took the path of least resistance and redesigned micromobility around cities instead. And we might still end up redesigning cities around some of those options The segways itself doesnt make much sense to me though. I dont reme…

It let you stand up, and it wouldn't fall over.

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

#168

Post by sytelus »

xiaolingxiao wrote: post #8

They'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…

Oculus was sold for $2B in 2014. Adjusting for S&P, I think it would have been sold for $4B today. MagicLeap has much more difficult and stronger tech so $10B seems reasonable. On back of the napkin, I would estimate ~500 people working for 4-5 years to build something like MagicLeap. So if a company wants to do this, they should be prepared to foot the bill of approximately $1B and wait for that many years.

The problem, however,is this. AR tech is simply not there yet. Glasses are becoming smaller but resolution sucks and we don't know if headaches will ever go away for more than an hour usage. I would estimate another 10 years of intense development before they are ready to compete with 6X cheaper 4K monitors in rendering quality. It's a long game and doesn't work without determined leader like Zuck willing to drain billions on it.

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

#169

Post by kd5bjo »

vikramkr wrote: post #151
_jal wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are toys. Back in the day, Kamen was going on about redesigning cities around them.

They're toys that a lot of people use as their primary methods of transport, along with other micro mobility solutions like electric scooters amd good old fashioned bikes. In a way, the future took the path of least resistance and redesigned micromobility around cities instead. And we might still end up redesigning cities around some of those options The segways itself doesnt make much sense to me though. I dont reme…

> I'm still unclear about what it was supposed to be able to do that an electrified scooter or bike couldn't.

Segways have much better low-speed handling characteristics than bicycles, which makes them safer to intermix with pedestrians: Travelling at a slow amble speed in a crowded environment is extremely difficult on a bicycle, but no big deal for a Segway (or similar)

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

#170

Post by wongarsu »

_jal wrote: post #132
ahupp wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Those are toys. Back in the day, Kamen was going on about redesigning cities around them.

That may still happen. The trend is very recent and cities aren't redesigned in a day.
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