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Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

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Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#201

Post by ansible »

pfdietz wrote: post #142
ansible wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I hadn't realized it also got sold off. Let's see, what all was sold off: computer division, analog ICs (Onsemi), digitial ICs (Freescale, NXP), base stations (as mentioned), mobile phones (Motorola Mobility, Google, Lenovo). What did I miss? It is funny that the Motorola as we knew it is gone, but many of the pieces remain. And others were able to make money using those pieces. To this day I still fail to unders…

Large companies are often worth less than the sum of their parts, particularly if there's little synergy between the parts. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/conglomeratediscount.as...

The flip side of that argument is look at how vertically integrated companies like Samsung are. Apple used to buy processors and such from other IC vendors, and now they are doing that in-house.

I don't know how Motorola could have been fixed though.

Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#202

Post by ornornor »

jameshart wrote: post #17

I love the tone of this, it’s like the musings of an explorer who discovered a jungle city abandoned by a mysterious civilization. “there were old wall slogans inside that must have been added to motivate and inspire the employees” … “ the tall building had several brick structures on the lower main level. He suspected that those structures probably had plants and ferns in them so that important business clients and…

If you haven’t read it already, you might enjoy Motel of the Mysteries[0] where an archeologist from the future stumbles upon the ruins of a present days motel and speculates over its use and the artifacts found within.

[0]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108831

Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#203

Post by ppg677 »

OldHand2018 wrote: post #74
walrus01 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iridium wasn't a sell-off. Motorola was one of the largest investors in Iridium, and lost a vast amount of money when it went bankrupt. Additionally they were deeply involved in its hardware. The second incarnation of the Iridium corporation we know now is the group of people who bought it at pennies on the dollar in the bankruptcy auction.

Iridium went under because the developing world installed mobile networks, and Motorola had a huge portion of that market. Accounting tricks aside, they didn't lose money on the downfall.

Iridium was doomed from day 1. The system could only support a small number of subscribers. It was nearly impossible to recoup the capital expenditures given the capacity of the system.

Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#204

Post by agumonkey »

jameshart wrote: post #29
ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HR wall slogans are cringey when still drying on the wall. They are even cringier in a ruin.

Gives you another perspective on the hieroglyphs on walls in ancient Egypt though if you imagine them being put there by enthusiastic religious branding consultants, and inducing just as much eye rolling from the citizens of the day…

it's plausible but I have a feeling that cultures in those days had a lot more meaning, I may be wrong though

Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#205

Post by AlbertCory »

chiph wrote: post #114
AlbertCory wrote: post #45

It's amazing that neither the article nor any of the comments so far mention that Google bought part of Motorola, for its 10,000 patents. Then sold it a few years later. I was in Google Patents and I interviewed people for the position of "acquirer of patents." This was a period when they actually thought the "throw weight" of your patent portfolio really mattered in cross-licensing deals. Most of those patents were…

Not just their patents, but also their cellphone division. My understanding was that the Motorola phones were going to be Google's flagship devices for Android. So I bought one, and I really liked it - I got regular OS updates (unlike many Android licensees), the phone had a gorgeous walnut veneer back, and it fit well in my hand. Nice.

Yeah, I remember the phone that had real wood as its case. That was a nice idea. You would think that would have more success.

Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#206

Post by [deleted] »

jameshart wrote: post #17

I love the tone of this, it’s like the musings of an explorer who discovered a jungle city abandoned by a mysterious civilization. “there were old wall slogans inside that must have been added to motivate and inspire the employees” … “ the tall building had several brick structures on the lower main level. He suspected that those structures probably had plants and ferns in them so that important business clients and…

[deleted]

Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#207

Post by malwrar »

This building has a special place in my heart. My dad used to work here when I was growing up and would take me there occasionally. I remember going between cubicles and asking people what they were doing, learning to make simple circuits in one of the labs there (simple stuff though, like hooking a battery up to a motor), and generally being fascinated by how fun of a job that looked to be and meeting the sorts of people who did it. I guess it was a good formative experience considering what I ended up choosing as my childhood hobby and later my job! Super weird to see this place again, sad to see what happened to it.

Re: Abandoned Motorola Headquarters (2020)

#209

Post by cwilkes »

laurent92 wrote: post #117
ipv6ipv4 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HR wall slogans are cringey when still drying on the wall. They are even cringier in a ruin.

On my startup’s wall, I have the top cringy slogans of my customers. In the middle sits: “We advance humanity.” I guess the message is, don’t take yourself too seriously, most of where companies succeed is happenstance. It still takes a moment to all visitors to understand that it can’t be serious.

I think I saw that in Doom: Enternal. And yeah it wasn’t the good guys saying that.

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

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