
Magic Leap Alleges Workers Stole Its Secrets - HelgeSeetzen
http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/google-backed-magic-leap-alleges-workers-stole-its-secrets-1.2920529
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aresant
"Magic Leap filed late Thursday in federal court after the two workers, Gary
Bradski and Adrian Kaehler, sued the company for wrongful termination earlier
this week."

Both of these guys are listed as Vice President's - Kaehler as VP Special
Projects - and Bradski as VP of Advanced technology, that's no small deal.

More info of the allegations in a NY Times article (1)

(1) [http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/05/27/business/ap-us-
ar...](http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/05/27/business/ap-us-artificial-
reality-legal-tussle.html)

~~~
rsp1984
This is particularly interesting since Gary Bradski is also a Co-Founder of
Industrial Perception Inc., a robotics company that Google acquired in 2013.

Reportedly Bradski walked away from Google right after the deal to join early
Magic Leap, leaving lots of cash on the table and Google stock unvested.

~~~
bgalbraith
Bradski is also the creator of OpenCV, an industry standard computer vision
library.

~~~
Q6T46nT668w6i3m
Adrian Kaehler is also a major contributor to OpenCV.

~~~
dj_doh
That's enough for me to side with these two guys. I think Magic Leap is not
that magical after all.

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Negative1
Standard retaliatory tactic so they can tell investors the ex-employees are
actually the bad apples and of course not the company.

The impression I get is that the only secret ML actually has is that they are
years away from showing anything to validate their worth (by which point many
competitors will have shown their cards and removed the 'magic' from the
leap).

~~~
funkyy
Yeah, they just can make a deal - drop the case in exchange for former
employees silence about whats going on in the company...

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skc
The reluctance for people to be skeptical of anything to do with Magic Leap is
strange to me.

How is their product not rightly described as vapor ware? I feel like I've
been hearing about how amazing it is for ages and still...nothing.

Stories like this aren't helping me change my mind either.

~~~
dominotw
I am not even sure what ' deep learning techniques utilizing robotics' even
means.

~~~
blazespin
What does that have to do with Magic Leap?

~~~
dominotw
The lawsuit alleges the duo's duplicity involved "some deep learning
techniques utilizing robotics."

from nytimes article

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okket
I guess "artificial reality" refers to this?

[https://vimeo.com/166807261](https://vimeo.com/166807261)

~~~
rl3
That's one of the better dystopian visions of the future I've seen.

~~~
dominotw
I don't want to move my hands, legs or any other part of my body so much. I
watch stuff on my phone because I am too lazy to watch on TV . This stuff
seems like so much work, do you really want to move pieces of puzzle when you
can just flick your thumb.

~~~
dzhiurgis
Yeah but you still need to time travel to 70s using a bus to spend your points
on groceries...

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cptl
[http://uploadvr.com/magic-leap-alleges-former-executives-
mis...](http://uploadvr.com/magic-leap-alleges-former-executives-misused-
trade-secrets/)

contains a copy of the actual filing:

[http://cdn.uploadvr.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/05/complaint...](http://cdn.uploadvr.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/05/complaintmagicleap.pdf)

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zekevermillion
Big deal. Employers always allege trade secrets theft in any dispute with
their serf...I mean, employees.

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ChuckMcM
I don't know if ML's tech is vapor or real, but I have a lot of respect for
anyone who can get Larry Page to give them half a billion in cash. That right
there is some seriously convincing talking.

~~~
syngrog66
fair point. I'd add that if a person has $10+ billion, already (or whatever
his net worth is), then you can afford to risk blowing a few billion, here and
there, on things which might turn into a loss. On the upside, he'd be better
off and humanity would be better off. On the downside even if his bet failed
and he and therefore the Page estate got reduced to a mere, say, $100 million
in net wealth he and his children could still live out pretty good lives.

In other words, it might not have been as hard to convince him as one might
think. "Gee, I can invest a big amount in a Theranos/MagicLeap/SpaceX or I can
put it into the next random/fad-ish
social/pic/buzz/RailsCRUD/BigData/leadgen/TODO/PM/cloud/viral/app startup.
Hmmm, choices."

~~~
ChuckMcM
Well in this case it is the company's money, and lots of people within the
company are "competing" for funding of their projects. Of course there is the
reverse NIH effect which is that any technology invented outside of the
company seems more impressive to leadership than technology created inside the
company.

~~~
syngrog66
great points!

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pmastela
Magic Leap's main product might be more than meets the eye. According to
Quartz [1], there's probably more far-fetching tech that Magic Leap is working
on that involves "deep learning techniques utilizing robotics," and Bradski's
and Kaehler's termination forced their hand to divulge even the least bit of
information. Maybe "artificial reality" is not a misnomer and the $4.5bn
valuation is not just the AR.

[1] [http://qz.com/694660/looks-like-magic-leap-is-working-on-
ano...](http://qz.com/694660/looks-like-magic-leap-is-working-on-another-
mysterious-buzzword-technology/)

~~~
nbb
And maybe I have the secret to cold fusion open in a text file in front of me.
Are you looking for an investment opportunity?

~~~
pat_space
am i allowed to say "lmao!" on hn?

~~~
askafriend
I hope you've learned your lesson.

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errantspark
I'm curious to see if this will result in the general public getting some info
to suggest that Magic Leap isn't vaporware.

~~~
bitewhite
It'a hard to believe they'd have $1.4 bn in funding without giving some tech
demonstrations o their investors.

~~~
errantspark
Theranos and whatever that ultrasonic charging one was both come to mind.

~~~
pat_space
uBeam
([http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.mx/](http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.mx/))

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Roritharr
Has there been some suggested Roadmap when we can expect some unveiling? It's
fun to see that people can get sued over unannounced tech, but I'd really like
to know what we are talking about here.

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khattam
The vapors are leaking.

I had some hope in them because I thought Google were not idiotic enough to
acquire them. Now I don't trust Google as much.

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NDizzle
Maybe I should have done on record somewhere sooner, but this is exactly what
I expected out of secretive companies like this. Raise a bunch of money,
produce nothing of substance, then have some kind of lawsuit action bring in
some dough. I'm not sure what the end goal is, but if we ever have a single
product from this company I'll be surprised.

~~~
zackbloom
You really think suing two ex-employees is their plan to make money? Most of
the money those employees have is the money MagicLeap paid them.

~~~
dsl
Nobody said it was a _good_ plan.

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lowglow
This is the first time I've seen someone refer to this tech as "artificial
reality" \-- interesting!

~~~
alaskamiller
Old school term from the 60's. Here's a book about it.

[http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Reality-2nd-Myron-
Krueger/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Reality-2nd-Myron-
Krueger/dp/0201522608)

~~~
lowglow
Yeah, I saw the history of the term from Wikipedia, but curious as to why they
dug it back up.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Probably because it confuses nicely with AR while offering some neat marketing
opportunities.

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LogicFailsMe
I interviewed with these guys and got an informal offer. I declined because of
the number of hoops I'd have to jump through to see a demo of it in action. I
learned my lesson about that sort of thing during the first dotcom boom.

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uptown
Has Magic Leap shared any public timeline for when they might launch something
to market?

~~~
Q6T46nT668w6i3m
No

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perseusprime11
I see this as a defensive move to show their investors why they are late to
launch.

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fishanz
I'm interested in this but the article itself is a bit of a joke and I
couldn't find any external links on it for anything more in-depth. :/

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blazespin
Artificial Reality... I like that term. A blend of augmented reality and
virtual reality. To bad it's AR though

~~~
elij
AV? [https://blogs.intel.com/evangelists/2016/04/26/the-case-
for-...](https://blogs.intel.com/evangelists/2016/04/26/the-case-for-
augmented-virtuality/)

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corpthrowaray
What's with 'Artificial Reality' ?

~~~
rblatz
Trying to muck up the short hand for Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

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bcheung
Isn't it "augmented reality"?

