71–80 of 215 posts
Sigh, all I can think is yet another promising startup vanishes into the depths of Google, never to be seen again. Google, please stop buying companies, please learn to support your products and build a loyal customer base. You are not a startup anymore, you need to make the transformation that companies like Microsoft did, and quit moving fast and breaking things. People don't want an agile foundation, they want a h…
Sigh, all I can think is yet another promising startup vanishes into the depths of Google, never to be seen again. Google, please stop buying companies, please learn to support your products and build a loyal customer base. You are not a startup anymore, you need to make the transformation that companies like Microsoft did, and quit moving fast and breaking things. People don't want an agile foundation, they want a h…
I'm not sure "promising startup" describes North (previously Thalmic Labs) that well. Everything I've heard around the Waterloo tech scene is that it was mostly smoke and mirrors from the founders who were able to maintain their own lifestyles using grants from the Canadian government. Tales from past employees are not flattering. Being bought by Google is likely the best thing that could happen to both the founders…
This describes a surprisingly high number of companies I’ve worked at in Canada. These SRED credits keep afloat so many companies that should have otherwise perished and that won’t ever go anywhere.
You can even hire SRED consultants that will help you milk those credits as much as possible (for a fee of course). You can then apply for more credits to pay off these SRED consultants fees, as I understand it... While producing little to no commercial value, and coast on these for years.
Sigh, all I can think is yet another promising startup vanishes into the depths of Google, never to be seen again. Google, please stop buying companies, please learn to support your products and build a loyal customer base. You are not a startup anymore, you need to make the transformation that companies like Microsoft did, and quit moving fast and breaking things. People don't want an agile foundation, they want a h…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure "promising startup" describes North (previously Thalmic Labs) that well. Everything I've heard around the Waterloo tech scene is that it was mostly smoke and mirrors from the founders who were able to maintain their own lifestyles using grants from the Canadian government. Tales from past employees are not flattering. Being bought by Google is likely the best thing that could happen to both the founders…
> mostly smoke and mirrors In fairness isn't that how this tech works
Well that's disappointing. It seemed like they had cool products, and it's too bad to see it bought up by an advertising/spyware company with a history of killing products.
Cool, who here has tried Focals by North? I was thinking of getting them for everyday walking around and reading. My problem is I still don't understand what the interface is like. Can it project a screen to it or not? I'm perfectly happy to see a translucent IDE/browser window in my field of view.
They were alright. The frames were reminiscent of big hipster frames, which I don't like, but they weren't outrageous. The visible area was small and neat, but I couldn't see any use for it. Probably the size of an apple watch, just floating in the corner of your right eye. The demo was walking directions and talking to alexa. They didn't sell because they weren't very useful and were very expensive.
Maybe Google's current strategy is the correct one - keep developing the tech for well-scoped, very niche applications until some day the tech might be good enough for general purpose applications. I think that day is still far away.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looks like North wasnt doing too well selling their tech. Would it preferable if Microsoft or Apple or Amazon or some chinese company picked them up instead ?
Microsoft or Apple or Amazon would all be preferable to Google, actually, yes. Good ideas go to Google to die.
Thalmic Labs/North helped to normalize the act of exaggerating the capabilities of your tech, lying to investors, raising millions of dollars and pivoting to something completely unrelated. We have to stop celebrating tech companies that are able to raise millions of dollars and still fail to deliver.
Why should we stop celebrating them? Who are the losers here and why should I feel sorry for them?
Sigh, all I can think is yet another promising startup vanishes into the depths of Google, never to be seen again. Google, please stop buying companies, please learn to support your products and build a loyal customer base. You are not a startup anymore, you need to make the transformation that companies like Microsoft did, and quit moving fast and breaking things. People don't want an agile foundation, they want a h…
I'm not sure "promising startup" describes North (previously Thalmic Labs) that well. Everything I've heard around the Waterloo tech scene is that it was mostly smoke and mirrors from the founders who were able to maintain their own lifestyles using grants from the Canadian government. Tales from past employees are not flattering. Being bought by Google is likely the best thing that could happen to both the founders…