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Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

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Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#111

Post by koof »

vkou wrote: post #96
javajosh wrote: post #31

It's funny I keep thinking about how the same people might work on the same thing but with different terms. As a W2 employee you make great money, but your upside is capped. Your downside is never capped, of course. As a founder you make okay money, you have better upside. But the same corp that fired you will invest that money with the VC that funded you. So, either way, the capital flows through the corp to you, an…

> Your downside is never capped, of course. What? Unless your work literally drives you to suicide, the cap on the downside is 'You go out and interview until you find another job.' You aren't risking your own money - you're an employee. You get paid for your work.

Isn’t it the same for the people “risking” their money? The only “risk” is that they lose their bet, meaning they have to go find a job like the rest of us.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#112

Post by Aunche »

javajosh wrote: post #49
loeg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your downside is never capped, of course. Surely your downside is capped at zero?

W2 work feels more stable and secure than startup land. If you worked for Google for 20 years you don't expect to be let go with no notice by an automated system. But that is exactly what happened to thousands of people just now. You kind of expect this kind of thing in startup land. Recent events show this downside is not unique to startups, and can affect any worker anywhere. It's chilling, and it should take some…

> If you worked for Google for 20 years you don't expect to be let go with no notice by an automated system.

Why? From the executive's perspective at megacorps like Google, employees are completely replaceable, and even for a megacorp, Google is incredibly scared of discrimination. The safest way to conduct layoffs is to do so completely randomly.

> You kind of expect this kind of thing in startup land.

No. In startup land, you should expect that there is a good chance that your entire company is dissolved. Your equity is completely worthless. You have no 6 month severance. You have nothing to show for the longer hours you worked besides a very sub-market salary.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#113

Post by tootie »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #38

Wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft is readying itself to sell/splitoff its consumer products and focus on Enterprise and Cloud. That could also be part of the reason why they're trying to make the consumer version of Windows generate revenue streams. The only thing that might point the other direction is the acquisition of Activision. Why buy it if you're going to spinoff that division?

I think VR/AR were massively over hyped and the actual size of the market just isn't very big.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#114

Post by chii »

fragmede wrote: post #10
sys_64738 wrote: post #5

Every business will can projects in their portfolio when belt tightening. VR and its multitude of derivative just isn't a core competency of M$. If anybody is to win this space then it'll be Apple IMO.

Apple's spend in this area is totally unknown, other than everybody expects them to. To contrast, Meta has been spending so much in this area that they've bet the company on it. It's anybody's game right now, but Meta already has launched products and iterated on them.

> Meta already has launched products and iterated on them.

and the reception is lackluster. the tech is still not quite mature enough for the average consumer, and the fear of meta's tracking/coercive social networking component in the hardware is all but the most of die hard fans to even participate.

Surely, meta knows this. So what's their end game?

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#115

Post by [deleted] »

echelon wrote: post #108
dougmwne wrote: post #28

Shutting down AltSpace should be a loud warning bell for Meta’s Horizon Worlds. Horizon is basically a badly executed AltSpace. AltSpace was super niche, but some artists and marginalized people seemed to find a home there. It was like an odd cross between a digital Burning Man and a BIPOC LGTBQ+ neurodivergent support group. I had a memorable conversation during the height of the pandemic with an older gay man whose…

VRChat is winning VR. Despite there being a few alternatives (Neos, Chillout, etc.), nothing reaches the scale of VRChat's community, platform, and developer ecosystem. Whoever buys VRChat wins VR.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#116

Post by mattigames »

uptown wrote: post #32
baby wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean Meta right? Otherwise it just sounds like you haven’t been following the field.

This is how Zuckerberg sees the metaverse: “We hope to basically get to around a billion people in the metaverse doing hundreds of dollars of commerce, each buying digital goods, digital content, different things to express themselves, so whether that’s clothing for their avatar or different digital goods for their virtual home or things to decorate their virtual conference room, utilities to be able to be more produ…

It's astounding how disconnected he is from reality, maybe having one hugely successful idea (FB in his case) drastically distort how you perceive the potential of succeeding of any other of your ideas.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#118

Post by skohan »

jwsteigerwalt wrote: post #107

The reality is that it was always unlikely that Microsoft (or Meta, or Google, or Apple…) would be able to create disruption in AR, VR, etc. on the magnitude of the initial iPhone release. Better to keep their powder dry to acquire the startups that potentially can.

It seems obvious to me AI will be the next major disruption. Radically decreasing the need for human labor has an obvious productive advantage while there is no evidence people would prefer to leave reality.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#119

Post by wucaworld »

N1ckFG wrote: post #103
ripley12 wrote: post #22

I was considering getting into HoloLens development a few years ago. It seemed like they were still pushing developers toward UWP even when UWP was obviously nearly dead, and that killed any interest I had. Did the developer story for HoloLens ever get better or did it just die a slow death?

HoloLens 2 switched to Android ARM and UWP apps running on heavily modified Android, but imo the insistence on hand tracking as the primary interface still walled it off from the other Android XR developer communities.

HoloLens 2 did not switch to Android. I have one and it is uwp and unity/unreal.

Re: Microsoft has laid off entire teams behind Virtual, Mixed Reality, and HoloLens

#120

Post by elif »

mbfg wrote: post #106
boppo1 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iirc there was some face-punching resistance to people recording discreetly. I suspect that may have subsided some in many areas due to the longer them of high-res-video-recorder ubiquity.

don't disagree, i find it interesting that people get unbelievably angered when individuals record them in public, but could care less when business do. I could understand some difference in reaction between the two, but the actual gulf displayed is astounding.

The pizza place's security camera isn't going to prank me or ask me about a sensitive topic and then same day blast my reaction on 7 vertical format video platforms as an out of context meme with sensationally misleading captions.
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