Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics • Hacker News Board

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#171

Post by Abishek_Muthian » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 6:30 AM UTC

jitix wrote: post #170

ajit_singh wrote: post #167

$1 billion! I understand that the valuation of a company is also determined by its earning potential but did Boston Dynamics have that so much that it justified this crazy valuation. From what I know it barely made any revenue while being in business for more than 25 years. It couldn't find a customer to produce any of its hyped robots at scale. It was clearly a loss-magnet entity for Softbank which is in a selling m…

As an immigrant engineer I feel this is actually good because it shows that the market in the US is bullish on new technologies. I believe this is what has led to most of the major inventions in the past 100 years to come from the US. In my home country (India) it’d be impossible for a company to reach such valuations based only on research and prototypes, which in turn leads to low salaries for STEM people, culminat…

A ~30 years bet on a company is difficult in any country or any sector for the matter of fact unless it has potential to change the landscape of future wars, thereby providing ROI in the form of strategic superiority or at least that's what U.S. DoD hoped for with Boston Dynamics and it didn't happen.

On the same context,

Imagine if Boston Dynamics was only involved with drones, it would have never changed hands.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#172

Post by valuearb » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 6:31 AM UTC

Cutting edge high tech company goes to die under ownership of massive conglomerate.

It’s an old but consistent story.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#173

Post by daotoad » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 6:35 AM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #35

dalbasal wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, and it's probably becoming a problem, but... I don't think this is a good example of that. I mean, we're talking about the value of a business. Boston Dynamics is more of a research lab. They don't really have much in the way of revenue streams, customers, products, etc.

Cutting edge research is ultra-high risk-to-reward. Some of the scientist and engineers working there might invent/discover what could be the most significant thing in human history for the next hundred years. Leading to a fabulous amount of wealth creation. But there's no guarantee the company financing all of this will be able to capitalize on that invention. That's a lot of ifs. If people there invent something im…

True. Just ask Xerox.

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

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#174

Post by postingpals » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 6:37 AM UTC

Crunchyroll acquired by Sony, BD acquired by Hyundai, Slack acquired by Salesforce...

Our economic system seems to have a natural tendency towards monopoly. This is happening before our eyes and we don't even realise it.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#175

Post by throwbacktictac » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 6:43 AM UTC

postingpals wrote: post #174

Crunchyroll acquired by Sony, BD acquired by Hyundai, Slack acquired by Salesforce... Our economic system seems to have a natural tendency towards monopoly. This is happening before our eyes and we don't even realise it.

Can you expand upon you thought? How do each of these acquisition make a case for the acquirer tending towards a monopoly?

It seems Boston Dyanmics is a solution looking for a problem. It can be a great company but it's going to take a long investment by Hyundai. It's been in the hands of some huge companies and none of them have been able to squeeze a profit out of it.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#176

Post by postingpals » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 6:54 AM UTC

throwbacktictac wrote: post #175

postingpals wrote: post #174

Crunchyroll acquired by Sony, BD acquired by Hyundai, Slack acquired by Salesforce... Our economic system seems to have a natural tendency towards monopoly. This is happening before our eyes and we don't even realise it.

Can you expand upon you thought? How do each of these acquisition make a case for the acquirer tending towards a monopoly? It seems Boston Dyanmics is a solution looking for a problem. It can be a great company but it's going to take a long investment by Hyundai. It's been in the hands of some huge companies and none of them have been able to squeeze a profit out of it.

These are just 3 examples of thousands of acquisitions by big companies with dominance in their industry. The trend is very clear, a handful of companies buy out competition and own virtually every serious competitor in the market. There are ongoing lawsuits against tech companies for doing this, and unfortunately companies can lobby to keep the laws on their side. Also, businesses like BD are always going to tend to want to sell rather than compete, this is obvious.

I don't see how one could argue there is no natural tendency towards monopoly capital given these key facts.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#177

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 6:59 AM UTC

postingpals wrote: post #174

Crunchyroll acquired by Sony, BD acquired by Hyundai, Slack acquired by Salesforce... Our economic system seems to have a natural tendency towards monopoly. This is happening before our eyes and we don't even realise it.

> Our economic system seems to have a natural tendency towards monopoly

We had this in post-War America. What broke it up? Activist investors. Corporate raiders. The stereotypical bad guys of 1990s media. (Also, antitrust action. The situation is a product of public and private sector failures combined.)

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#178

Post by jandrese » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 7:08 AM UTC

postingpals wrote: post #174

Crunchyroll acquired by Sony, BD acquired by Hyundai, Slack acquired by Salesforce... Our economic system seems to have a natural tendency towards monopoly. This is happening before our eyes and we don't even realise it.

In market based economies there will always be a general movement of capital to the top, because simply having money allow you to earn more money. It's a positive feedback loop. That's why it is important for an external force, which pretty much has to be a government, to tax the wealth at the top and move it back to the bottom. Otherwise the system gradually turns into feudalism by its very nature. A government that stops taxing the richest companies and citizens is failing in its duty to protect the health of the market.

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#179

Post by varjag » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 7:10 AM UTC

ajit_singh wrote: post #167

$1 billion! I understand that the valuation of a company is also determined by its earning potential but did Boston Dynamics have that so much that it justified this crazy valuation. From what I know it barely made any revenue while being in business for more than 25 years. It couldn't find a customer to produce any of its hyped robots at scale. It was clearly a loss-magnet entity for Softbank which is in a selling m…

It's Snapchat money..

Re: Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics

#180

Post by ActorNightly » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 7:10 AM UTC

postingpals wrote: post #174

Crunchyroll acquired by Sony, BD acquired by Hyundai, Slack acquired by Salesforce... Our economic system seems to have a natural tendency towards monopoly. This is happening before our eyes and we don't even realise it.

Don't confuse monopoly with consolidation.

When Salesforce goes out and gets a patent that says you can't have any client resembling Slack without paying them royalties , then you can consider that a monopoly.

And for fringe companies like BD, its honestly better that they get acquired by someone that can dump IRAD money into it cause the research that comes out of these is arguably more valuable than the products they produce.