
GoPro cutting 7 percent of its workforce - coloneltcb
http://www.businessinsider.com/gopro-cutting-7-of-jobs-2016-1
======
netinstructions
GoPro drives me nuts. I bought one of their (second or third gen) cameras in
~2012 that had a firmware limited number of photos I could take with it.

One of my goals was to do a bunch of time-lapse shots, taking photos every few
seconds and then making a video out of them. They marketed this feature (take
a photo every X seconds) quite a bit, so it was definitely a selling point to
me.

I discovered the bug a few weeks after owning it, right before a big vacation
I was hoping to record. It would take about 8 or 9 photos and then lock up. I
couldn't turn it off or stop its capture. When I plugged it into my computer,
I saw that there were hundreds of empty folders. I tried power cycling it by
taking the battery out and putting it back in. I also wiped out the memory
card both via the computer, as well as selecting the 'delete all' option on-
camera, all to no effect. I emailed them, and their response was:

> Hi, Do you take many time lapse pictures? What may have happened, is you may
> have encountered a known issue with our current firmware, in which the
> camera is no longer able to save files after it has taken 9999 images. Could
> you please let me know what the name of the last successfully captured image
> was? If this is the case, we would need you to send in your camera, and
> would reflash your firmware to fix the issue.

So I had to shell out $20 in shipping and mail my (brand new) camera across
the country for it to be reset. I wasn't able to record the trip I took. Still
irks me today that they were selling cameras with a known, software-limited,
number of shots you could take with them before they had to be sent back.

If their QA department took a photo every 1 second (as their product was
advertised to be capable of) it would take 2.78 hours for them to discover
this bug.

~~~
corp-a
Might as well get a $20 SJ4000 from Ebay [1] that can do most of what a GoPro
can do...

1\. [http://www.ebay.com/itm/2015-SJ4000-1080P-FHD-Sports-Car-
Ful...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/2015-SJ4000-1080P-FHD-Sports-Car-Full-HD-DV-
Action-
Waterproof-30M-Camera-/301747694961?hash=item4641906d71:g:H4oAAOSwxN5WZQxG)

~~~
sauere
I just watched a side-by-side comparison here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RemeuGprSq0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RemeuGprSq0)

I have no use for actions cams and am not an expert in any way, but the
quality of that $20 camera looks amazing, in some scenes it actually looks
sharper and better than the GoPro that costs 5x as much.

~~~
Too
The quality is certainly good, how's the durability? That's the reason to get
an action cam, if i just want 1080p video i can use my smartphone.

~~~
kaylarose
I used it primarily as a travel & underwater cam. The software is pretty
terrible out of the box, and I ended up having a decent # of pictures that
were either never saved or "lost" from the memory card. (The card was fairly
old - so this could have been an issue with the card...) Also the camera
stopped working completely (as in wouldn't take any pictures, and wouldn't
turn off without taking the battery out) after about two months of use.

Given it was $50, and the shots I was able to pull off the memory card were
great, I am not too upset. However, caveat emptor.

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monk_e_boy
Me and my mates are big users of GoPro cameras. We use them for spearfishing,
kitesurfing, surfing and filming our kids at the beach.

GoPro seem to be going towards smaller cameras (good) higher res (who cares -
the camera lens is crap and fogs and is covered in water drops 90% of the
time) and drones (who cares)

What we want is more data overlaid on the video or perhaps stored along with
the video stream. Things like, depth, altitude, speed, G-force, GPS. From a
random user.

[edit] I guess you guys may not be aware of Woo and Xensor which are gadgets
you clip to your kiteboard, these measure GPS, jump height, speed etc. These
are not sync'd to the video (they are different gadgets) but someone needs to
make this work somehow. Not sure how they measure jump height in amongst the
waves... it's all pretty neat.

~~~
Vraxx
If I'm reading you right, that's kind of exactly what Garmin's action camera
Virb does. I got one for my dad to use mountain biking and it syncs up the
video with the gps location, the speed he's traveling, etc. Those stats can be
overlaid onto the video, it's kinda the angle that they're taking while trying
to get into the action camera market. Not sure if it's exactly the thing that
you were looking for, but it sounded close enough.

Full disclosure, I work at Garmin.

~~~
therein
I used to own a Garmin dashcam and even though I really enjoyed the lat/lng
overlay on the screen, I think what would be even better (especially for
actioncams) is to have a little map on the right upper corner of the feed like
the "picture-in-picture" feature in some TVs. The map would obviously need to
be downloaded onto the device beforehand but that really shouldn't be a
problem.

~~~
DataJunkie
If you're talking about for video, VIRBedit can sort of do this. I loaded a
GPX file into a mountain biking video, with a little red dot showing where I
was. I am sure a map is just as easy.

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colmvp
Anecdotally, I know a couple people who buy a GoPro for a specific adventure.
They use it, it's cool, but then it gathers dust for months afterwards. It's
not hard to find used ones locally. Or to have a friend who you can borrow
from if you know you aren't going to use beyond your own single adventure of
the year.

In terms of daily videos, the mobile phone is good enough for most people who
want to capture moments.

My comment isn't meant to poo-poo the GoPro because the product definitely
fits a niche, rather to say that it wouldn't surprise me to see GoPro hit a
certain ceiling with just focusing on portable camcorders.

~~~
TheHydroImpulse
Even within GoPro's demographic of sports, everyone who wants one probably
already has one, more or less. Upgrading is now less of a concern with 4K. I
bought one for skydiving and I can't see myself upgrading if they came out
with a newer version (even if I use mine for every jump). Everyone pretty much
has one or a few GoPros at the dropzone's I've been to, and it's great for
that kind of stuff. But if I were to upgrade, I would move to a DSLR for
better quality and more control - not another GoPro.

They'd need to considerably improve the quality and features if they want
people to continue upgrading.

~~~
joeguilmette
As a tandem instructor I used GoPros every day (had a glove that would stack 2
- one for video, one for pics). I used the GoPro 2 and specifically did not
upgrade when new versions came out. The GoPro 2 was fine, it did the job, and
I didn't have to deal with bugs. Also, I hate dealing with MicroSD.

If I were still jumping I'd use a Hero Session because the form factor is much
smaller (rather than just slimmer).

What DZ do you jump at?

~~~
TheHydroImpulse
Tandem instructors at my dropzone did pretty much the same thing. All stayed
on the GoPro 2 or original 3.

I used to jump at Eden North in Canada, but I'm moving to North California so
I have to pick a new one :) Gotta love a Cessna Caravan going to 13K in under
9 minutes!

~~~
base698
It's crazy that many skydivers are on hacker news.

~~~
dgmdoug
What, 2? ;-)

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xlayn
The report is about GoPro cutting a % of their workforce because lower than
expected sales.

I see 3 different kind of comments for this entry:

-A comment about an opinion of a GoPro camera... this reflects on "I would not buy another because".

-A comment about internal politics about the company...

-People stating "I have one" why should I have another?

with that said, most of them are about "I have one" or "I don't see a reason
to buy another", the market has got to a point where most of the people who
have bought one doesn't see a reason and the company have not provide one.

How is possible that no one on GoPro had done a market investigation prior to
set quarter goals? for me this is a failure of estimating sales where there
were no sales to be performed.

The real question here is "What is this new feature that would make our users
want to buy a new one?" that would reflect on stronger sales?

~~~
randycupertino
someone to watch your 4 hours of boring helmetcam video, pick out the coolest
90 seconds worth, edit it into a cool video, and put it to hip music then
upload it. That is a feature I would pay for! Gopro is great but the editing
process sucks and is totally boring.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I wonder what it would cost to have a Mechanical Turk do this. How much would
you be willing to pay?

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tyingq
Their investor faq page
([http://investor.gopro.com/faq.cfm](http://investor.gopro.com/faq.cfm)) says
1460 employees total. That would make about 100 employees being cut.

There's also about 80 open positions there now (I didn't count internships).
[https://gopro.com/careers/jobs](https://gopro.com/careers/jobs)

~~~
bduerst
I'm not saying GoPro is doing this, but many companies will list open
positions online in order to collect applications to have on hand, even though
they aren't hiring.

~~~
CamperBob2
I've heard that, but I don't quite understand it.

    
    
       1. Advertise open positions that aren't really open
    
       2. Collect a bunch of resumes
    
       3. When a position opens up 6 months later, offer it to someone 
       who hasn't been able to find a job in 6 months...?
    

More likely it's something to do with hiring quotas -- perhaps they have to
show they made an effort to fill a position with a non-H1B worker, or
something.

~~~
brianwawok
Well, or what if you hire in big cycles? Like no hires for 2 months, then you
have 30 days to fill 50 seats. If you always have job postings, you could
always go back 30 or 60 days and have a bunch of resumes to go after. Makes
sense maybe from the HR side (but super annoying from the applicant side).

~~~
abraae
We provide recruitment software.

This kind of recruitment is commonplace, especially in large "always hiring"
companies. Its sometimes known as talent pipelines. However in all of the
companies I am aware of, it will be made very clear to the candidate that they
are applying to a pipeline, not to an actual open position. Doing otherwise
would piss off candidates, harm the employer's brand, and likely be counter
productive.

Its also common to ask candidates to "register" in order to be informed of
future openings. Again though, its made clear that you are not applying for an
actual position.

However agencies, particularly smaller ones (as opposed to actual employers),
are well known for posting "bait and switch" openings which are not real jobs
at all but simply to try and troll for talent.

------
kkapelon
The success of GoPro so far has been the result of

1)first mover advantage

2)Smart marketing with viral videos of athletes in various extreme sports

3)Selling proprietary accessories

However now that some time has passed and competitors have appeared GoPro is
losing ground on all types of users

1)Casual GoPro users already have one and are not going to upgrade

2)Pro users are turning to models with better form factor (sony, contour etc)

The Sony action cameras come with built-in video stabilization a feature that
GoPro cameras do not have yet.

------
freyr
My understanding is that GoPro sells a small, rugged, waterproof digital
camera that can easily be mounted on a bike/surfboard/whatever. It built a
strong brand due to its first-mover advantage in the action sports community.

But beyond its brand strength, has there been anything preventing the
commoditization of the GoPro product?

~~~
picardo
Patents, perhaps.

~~~
topspin
You would think that, but that doesn't appear to be the case. There are a
plethora of GoPro clones available now. I count over 50 distinct brands
offered via Amazon Prime and hundreds of models filling the spectrum. The
"action camera" has indeed been commoditized and GoPro layoffs are not
surprising.

~~~
piokuc
My feeling is they need to come up with something radically new to compete
now. No idea what it could be. It'll be interesting to see how this market
evolves.

~~~
SixSigma
Having 3d and 360degree models would be a future possibility - team up with
Rift etc.

------
spraveen80
Fitbit is next. It is very hard for un-diversified hardware companies to exist
once the product becomes commoditized.

~~~
jbb555
I don't know about fitbit so much. The main advantage to me isn't the
hardware, it's that it all uploads smoothly to their website for tracking. If
I got a different device I'd have one website for steps, one for weight etc...

------
jmsdnns
Worth taking a look at the WSJ short interest tables, where GoPro has been for
a while: [http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3062-nasdaqshort-
hig...](http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2_3062-nasdaqshort-
highlites.html)

------
hkmurakami
I've always wondered if GoPro has an iPad problem where the old models are
"good enough" so the refresh rate will be low.

~~~
kraig
They're not that good, they're just not innovating quickly.

Even simple improvements like battery life or a better remote would probably
drive a lot of upgrades.

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iDemonix
Well that tells me I know nothing about business. A few weeks ago I was
thinking of having my first go at buying shares and thought GoPro could be an
interesting company to look in to.

~~~
Someone1234
If you didn't look into it yet, it hardly indicates you know nothing about
business. Randomly picking companies to examine further is a perfectly
reasonable way of trying to find investments (and what stops you following the
crowd).

In my OPINION GoPro's problem is that they haven't diversified in any
significant way. Here's a list of products GoPro sells: GoPros (and
accessories). That's it.

But this area has hardly been standing still. We've seen drone-cameras take
off, including the ingenius ones which follow you (e.g. Lily), we've seen
those throw-up 360 degree cameras, smaller versions (e.g. Mokacam), and a near
constant stream of less expensive generics which do 90% of what a GoPro can do
(and can even use GoPro's accessories).

GoPro had a MASSIVE market lead and still does, but they're squandered much of
it on reproducing the same product over and over until the market is
saturated.

~~~
Avalaxy
To be fair I don't think any of the cheaper knock-off products come anywhere
close to the quality that GoPro produces, both in terms of solidness and image
quality?

~~~
foobarqux
The Xiaomi cam looks like it has virtually identical image quality for $60.
You give up water-proofness but you can get a waterproof case add-on.

~~~
jonknee
GoPro's aren't waterproof either, they require a waterproof housing.

------
neves
Last week, I went to Iguaçu Falls with my kids. I was impressed with the
amount of GoPros I saw. Just the elderly tourists didn't have one. Groups of
young tourists, everyone in the group had their GoPro in a stick. Now I know
it is mainstream. Sport people aren't their public as they are from North
Face.

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matt_wulfeck
I don't think this really surprises anybody. GoPro management is trying to
pivot the company into a media company, which carries completely different
stock valuations. It just looks like the decline in hardware sales is
happening faster than anticipated.

------
melted
Basically everyone who wanted one already has one. I have a hero 4, and even
though I got it at a 50% discount, it still was too expensive for what it does
imo.

~~~
rodgerd
> Basically everyone who wanted one already has one.

And there are a gaggle of imitators at the bottom of the market (various
Chinese brands) and the high end (Sony, Panasonic, etc).

------
gregdoesit
I worked at Mivrosoft when Tony Bates - curent GoPro CEO - was Head of the
Skype divison there. After the Microsoft aquisition, and Steve Balmer
announced stepping down, Satya Nadella, Stephen Elop and Tony Bates were the
front runners for the Microsoft CEO seat.

When it turned out Satya got the CEO seat, rumours of Tony joining GoPro
immediately surfaced - and turned out to be true.

I am pretty sure GoPro execs were hoping Tony Bates would make GoPro the
mainstream success that Skype was. He did... except Skype was never profitable
- but it was also not publicly traded, so this wasn't apparent, and never
really an issue.

I do wonder if GoPro would have done better to appoint any other CEO, but
personally I never even noticed any change of direction before or after Tony
Bates being the CEO, despite the massive hiring spree that followed. Mind you,
the same happened at Skype after the Microsoft aquisition - except Microsoft
easily footed the bill.

In the light of things I do think GoPro did make the mistake of hiring an
overly ambitious CEO, who hired too fast and too soon, without the financial
results following.

~~~
nhod
Tony is GoPro's President, not its CEO. Nick Woodman is still very much
GoPro's Founder & CEO.

------
fithisux
We bought 6 Hero Pro 4 Black and a Freedom mount. Multiple issues with latest
firmware, misleading advertisement info

a. Cameras freeze when are switched on and plugged in USB f PC. Have to remove
battery to unfreeze them. b. Not able to explicitly sync time on cameras with
Studio c. Not open in providing lens specs (it was proprietary information
what kind of fisheye distortion happens), no focal length, no sensor size,
nothing d. UDP streaming is proprietary e. Whatever you do, you need the Go
Pro app, not possible to control from PC, no documentation f. Not developer
friendly (no REST API for developers) g. Camera acts as a Wi-Fi router, you
cannot put multiple of them in the same network as your PC. h. Unintuitive UI
in camera, too many clicks to achieve your goal. i. For streaming, they forgot
to tell you that you need a Micro-HDMI to HDMI adapter and a USB frame
grabber, hidden extra costs.

------
StillBored
Gopro was pretty much the first "reasonable" price 4k camera on the market.
I've often wondered why they didn't move up market into the nikon/canon space
starting with the small mirrorless replaceable lenses format. That space has
been ripe for disruption for at least a decade.

------
rdxm
bought one of the new session cameras to put on the bike for rear-view capture
of douchebag drivers. it flat out did not work. tried several approved microsd
cards, etc, etc..

big disappointment as I really need a decent solution that will run for many
hours at a time...

~~~
post_break
It's an action cam, not a dash cam. Try the mobius action cam. The suggestion
seems like a joke due to my first sentence but the makers worked with the
users and added dash cam features to the firmware. Been using it as a dash cam
for over a year and the quality rivals my GoPro. Under $100 too.

------
conradfr
FWIW my brother has a Hero 3 Silver and got all kind of problem with it. Not
booting, freezing, firmware etc. He serviced it and is supposed to have got
back a new one, but years later it's worse and worse (I think it's a RAM
problem or something, who knows).

Now the warranty is over and the customer service is still useless with their
stock sentences.

So he need a new one and I'm guessing it's not gonna be a GoPro.

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Negative1
Out of curiosity is Woodman still the highest paid CEO in the US?

~~~
freyr
Yes, though his compensation dropped to _only_ $136M. It didn't stop him from
recently buying a 180-ft yacht.

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castell
Take a dust and water proof smartphone, some of them do 20+ megapixel picture
and 4k videos. Why would anyone still use a clumsy device? (except for rare
action videos)

~~~
saddestcatever
Most likely, buying a dust-proof, water-proof, and shock resistant smartphone
with 4k video support is going to be a tad more expensive than your entry
level GoPro.

However, for the casual user (not doing action shots), you've got a point.
What use would my mom have for a GoPro that her iPhone can't do?

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Tepix
I'm looking forward to the 360° camera they hinted at. I hope it will do 3d
360°, not just 2d 360°.

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jaymoorthi
(It looks like the link to the article 404s now)

