
Magic Leap said to be ‘doing 1,000 things badly’ after raising $1.4B - JumpCrisscross
http://venturebeat.com/2017/02/13/ar-startup-magic-leap-reportedly-stumbles-after-raising-1-4-billion/
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dharmon
Every time there is a post about Magic Leap, someone inevitably asks the
question if there has ever been a case of a hyped-up tech actually living up
to its claims.

I've thought about this and I'll be damned if I can't think of a single
example. The closest I can come is some of the old steam engine tech, where
they would have a huge public competition and one demo engine would be crazy
fast, but the hype was never at these levels.

Basically, as a student of business history of sorts, just considering the
base rates for these situations, I'd be willing to give generous odds that
Magic Leap absolutely fails to deliver anything worthwhile. It just doesn't
seem to happen. The true breakthroughs are built by those quietly plugging
away, scared to death that if they take a breath to talk about it their
competitors lurking in the shadows will pull ahead.

It really makes me wonder who these investors are that piled on. The first
$100M or so I understand; they thought they were getting in on something new
and great. But the next $1B? Did they never read a business history book
during their MBA program?

~~~
nostrademons
The Internet. It just took 10-15 years longer than everyone thought it would.

Mobile phones & PDAs as well - they were super-hyped right around 1992, it
just took 15 years after that before someone produced a device that was
_actually_ exciting.

Actually, it's generally been a pretty good business strategy to take whatever
was hyped up 10-15 years ago but was then written off as unworkable, and then
reimagine it with modern technology. Think of Javascript apps (DHTML 1997 ->
Angular 2012), streaming video (RealAudio 1996 -> YouTube 2006), e-commerce
(everybody 1995 -> everybody 2012), webmail (HotMail 1997 -> GMail 2004), GUI
interface builders (NeXTStep 1992 -> XCode 2007), mobile phones (Newton &
General Magic 1992 -> iPhone & Android 2007/09), lithium-ion batteries (first
prototypes late-80s -> widespread cellphone/laptop use mid-00s), etc.

It doesn't do much good for the investors of those early waves of companies,
though.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
These are different than what the OP was talking about. He's basically asking
about stealth products like segway etc...

All your examples were ones where the initial hype around the technology/idea
just wasn't ready yet, it wasn't one company playing coy and then coming out
with some groundbreaking thing like the iPod/iPhone was.

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Nursie
Why do people think the iPhone was groundbreaking?

It was evolutionary, it was very, very well polished (something apple are good
at) and it was advertised massively. But it wasn't streets ahead of the
competition.

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tempestn
When the first iphone came out, it was the only mainstream device to ditch the
physical keyboard, allowing for a very large (for the time) touchscreen, while
keeping the device thinner and lighter than high-end competitors. This screen,
along with pinch to zoom, allowed desktop websites (which were basically all
websites at the time) to realistically be used on a mobile device. You
certainly _could_ browse websites on other devices, but you wouldn't want to,
given a choice. The original iphone is what really started mobile browsing.

~~~
Nursie
Mobile browsing had been around for quite a while, and I had used Opera Mobile
on various phones for some time. PDAs, when they existed as separate devices,
tended to have larger screens than phones, and allowed reasonable browsing
too.

The iPhone was a great product, I'm not denying it, but I wonder if the
perception that it was revolutionary comes from the state of the US market at
the time - generally thought to have been years behind Europe and Asia.

~~~
maverick_iceman
I browsed web in phones before iPhone, the experience was awful. Though there
is some truth in your saying that the US market was much behind Japan and
Korea at that point. (Europe and rest of Asia was definitely not significantly
ahead.)

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IshKebab
I've tried a hololens and it's pretty amazing. Yes, the field of view is bad,
but the tracking (6 DoF tracking!) is absolutely rock solid. Better than a
Vive or Rift, and it is using inside-out tracking. There's also no perceptible
latency (again in my unscientific head-shaking test I'd say it is slightly
better than a Rift or Vive).

Magic Leap are going to have to do something seriously amazing to beat the
hololens, especially when they inevitably upgrade the FoV.

~~~
ChicagoBoy11
When I used the Hololens I had the same impression you did. I too was blown
away by the incredible accuracy of the tracking. What I don't understand is
how Microsoft didn't launch a VR product to compete with Vive and Oculus.
Given the strength of the tracking, it felt to me like they were so close to
building a VR device that did not require all the cables and tower set-ups
that the other two do. Clearly I must be missing something, but I just don't
know what it is.

~~~
astannard
Microsoft have Windows Holographic coming soon that will launch on 3rd party
sets for Dell Lenovo etc. These are VR headsets with inside out tracking but
without the AR tech. I guess they will be a good rival to the Vive but details
are thin

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throwaway2016a
Every time I see a post about Magic Leap I think to myself that a lot of smart
people invested a lot of money into this... they must know something we don't.
There is no way they are investing in a company that can't deliver, right? But
that might be naive / optimistic of me.

Meanwhile my startup has a working product with traction and a revenue model
but we are having issues getting funding. At least partially because we aren't
in Silicon Valley. (not bitter at all... no I won't name the company)

~~~
deelowe
Are you 10x though? Gotta be 10x or more.

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lsh123
Technology companies raising significant amount of money without a product are
usually not very successful. There were many examples: Color is probably the
poster child of such a company, but there are many more.

~~~
ExactoKnight
A Better Place was another massive, $1 billion example of such a failure.
[https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-
pl...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-place)

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draw_down
I dunno what's going on over there but they need some PR people or better PR
people than the ones they have now.

~~~
aphextron
>I dunno what's going on over there but they need some PR people or better PR
people than the ones they have now.

No, that's the problem. The entire company is PR. They need engineers.

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bobosha
Theranos all over again

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vernie
I believe that Abovitz has something amazing on his hands. All those faked
demo videos were very convincing.

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mileycyrusXOXO
Meanwhile Meta is taking pre-orders...

~~~
Eridrus
I wish everyone in this space well, and huge funding rounds can be a huge
weight dragging a company down, but I feel like Meta is severely
undercapitalized to be in this market.

Microsoft doesn't have a tethered product right now, but it seems very likely
that an OEM will[0] and Microsoft will help them build it and will provide the
software - somewhere that Meta 2 has been struggling with.

[0] [https://news.microsoft.com/2016/06/01/microsoft-opens-
window...](https://news.microsoft.com/2016/06/01/microsoft-opens-windows-
holographic-to-partners-for-a-new-era-of-mixed-reality/)

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arcaster
Wouldn't be too surprised if Magic Leap becomes the next Theranos.

