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Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics for nearly $1B

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Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics for nearly $1B

#81

Post by [deleted] »

dguest wrote: post #65
diveanon wrote: post #10

It blows my mind that a chat client is worth over 26 times what Boston Dynamics is.

I can't help but read this with a negative tone. To put a more positive spin on it: for roughly 1/26th the cost of another chat client we could have twice the scary robots. There are a lot of similar things that we spend a relatively large amount of time talking about but don't actually cost that much in the grand scheme of things (fundamental science, alternative energy, and presidential elections, to name a few). J…

[deleted]

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics for nearly $1B

#83

Post by SoSoRoCoCo »

tester34 wrote: post #43
diveanon wrote: post #10

It blows my mind that a chat client is worth over 26 times what Boston Dynamics is.

how about researchers making less than jr dev barely out of school?

How to configure WebPack is worth more than how to compute a Z transform, apparently.

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics for nearly $1B

#84

Post by ojnabieoot »

echelon wrote: post #29

I realize Korea is an ally, but this seems like tech we wouldn't want to lose the domestic capability to produce. Or tech we wouldn't want to cede the lead on. Why would Darpa pour so much money in for this outcome?

Because DARPA invests in high-risk research! They pour lots of money into lots of failures. It’s the nature of research.

DARPA gave up on Boston Dynamics in 2015 - BigDog and it’s like were just too noisy and finicky for use in a combat situation. I believe all the BD robots they purchased are in storage. And it’s not like Boston Dynamics was ever an extension of DARPA. The DARPA collaboration (along with the rise of YouTube!) made Boston Dynamics famous around 2007-2008, but the company has been around since the 90s and always had other projects and clients.

In general, robotics technology does not belong to the US, and as Boston Dynamics’s technology has applications in medicine, manufacturing, and humanitarian aid, this nativist greed is particularly inappropriate.

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics for nearly $1B

#85

Post by nickelcitymario »

jansan wrote: post #73
6a74 wrote: post #9

Makes sense. South Korea, where Hyundai is based, has by far the most robots per manufacturing employee [1]. They will make good use of the technology. [1] https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5f719cf9f44...

South Korea is also very advanced in using automated weaponry for their military: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGR-A1 Soon they may not only have sentry guns, but frickin' bots with frickin lasers attached to their back patrolling the DMZ.

Robot sharks?

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics for nearly $1B

#87

Post by bombcar »

ojnabieoot wrote: post #67
diveanon wrote: post #10

It blows my mind that a chat client is worth over 26 times what Boston Dynamics is.

I get your point, but a) Slack has 5x as many employees, global market share, consumer ubiquity, etc. It’s simply a bigger entity (in the same way that Home Depot is a more ‘boring’ business than slack but 15x larger in valuation) b) Boston Dynamics is in many ways a research lab rather than a for-profit company. In research and the arts, things might be nominally inexpensive but their real value is priceless.

Things have value for different reasons - Home Depot has value for its stores and employees: even though it is relatively conceptually simple to build retail outlets and hire people to staff them it still is a major undertaking that takes time. A place like BD is mainly valuable for the knowledge and capabilities of the existing employees/technology.

Being bought for the users (as with Salesforce buying Slack) vs being bought for the knowledge and tooling (many of Apple’s acquihires come to mind).

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics for nearly $1B

#88

Post by tooltalk »

stefan_ wrote: post #40
6a74 wrote: post #9

Makes sense. South Korea, where Hyundai is based, has by far the most robots per manufacturing employee [1]. They will make good use of the technology. [1] https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5f719cf9f44...

Feels like we said this about previous buyers. All I'm seeing is another sucker to keep the money rolling for more of these sweet viral robot demos that never seem to materialize into much of anything.

The two previous buyers, Google and Softbank, didn't have much presence in robotics, unlike Hyundai. Hyundai recently spun off the automation business to a separate company, Hyundai Robotics, early last year.

Re: Hyundai buys Boston Dynamics for nearly $1B

#90

Post by ArtWomb »

Congrats! Saw a demo of the "Cheetah" in Cambridge about a year and a half ago and it drew a massive, captivated audience. Even if they simply seek to dominate the live robotics sports & entertainment market with their dancing androids the acquisition would be worth many multiples. But I suspect their vision goes beyond Hollywood, or even post-Covid automat style restaurants ;)

Interesting that it was Hyundai and not a domestic partner. Still has to pass trade scrutiny. But the subtext here is that American Manufacturing is slow to adopt robotics vs Asia. This could be a wake up call to a sea change in the culture

Manufacturing in America - A View From The Field

https://workofthefuture.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2...

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