
Magic Leap has apparently raised another $350M - pseudolus
https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/21/magic-leap-has-apparently-raised-another-350-million-in-spite-of-itself/
======
koolba
> Magic Leap has reportedly received a $350 million lifeline, a month after
> slashing 1,000 jobs and dropping its consumer business.

What the heck do a thousand people do at Magic Leap? That’s an insane
headcount for a company without a sales or consumer support team. And that’s
just the jobs they cut!

~~~
georgeecollins
To be fair, none of these things are trivial: \- Creating an AR operating
system \- Developing and manufacturing AR hardware \- Creating an SDK and a
developer ecosystem for the hardware and software \- Creating a platform for
selling AR apps, and selling B2B \- Doing R&D and filing patents for new AR
tech

I don't think they are one of those companies where I wonder why they need
people. They are doing something really hard. Maybe too hard.

~~~
gameswithgo
prolly don’t need an os. or a platform.

~~~
waste_monk
I'd imagine it's some kind of RTOS to handle the time sensitive parts of the
graphics / AR stuff. Probably not custom kernel but they'd have to develop a
lot of stuff around it.

As for the sales platform, why wouldn't they develop it? To attract developers
they need to make it easy for users to buy the products those developers would
be create. It's not like the early 2000's where you could launch a console
without an online store, it's pretty much mandatory these days because both
developers/publishers and consumers expect it to be there.

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robgibbons
This is the startup equivalent of "too big to fail."

They have capitalized so much that they need to capitalize even more to make
their previous capitalization make sense.

~~~
cyrux004
I doubt if we investors who funded earlier wil want to continue doing that. At
some point they have to decide to cut their losses. Like wework

~~~
eganist
Only if the product begins to feel infeasible. But as computing hardware
continues to shrink and ML improves their processes, I'm willing to bet a lot
of investors see success as an eventuality.

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winrid
They must have something very valuable in the defense space.

~~~
Mandatum
Pretty much this. There's something else at play here given they haven't been
left to crash and burn, and patents either resold or licensing deals inked.
There's likely something actively being used or funded that can't be left to
fall over as part of a wider scope of work or project. Given it's JPMC, only
the board will "officially" be privy to it.

Nobody throws money into the fire unless they're trying to keep something
warm.

Once that project ceases, those employees will be cut and the resulting tech
or teams will be acqui-hired by an R&D arm or contractor who'll continue to
pick at the bones of it.

JPMC is in the money business. Not tech. They're riding this beater until it
finally conks out.

If you work for MagicLeap, get your CV out there.

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cracker_jacks
Magic Leap has already signed over its patents to JP Morgan back in Nov 2019.
Are those still acquirable assets in the event of an acquisition?

~~~
redis_mlc
I read about this previously.

"Signed over" is too strong, it's more like their loan covenants mention the
patents, but if you pay the loan, it doesn't matter.

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aloknnikhil
> Whatever the case, the company is withdrawing the WARN notice (a 60-day
> notification for large-scale layoffs) sent to staff in late April. The move
> represents an apparent reversal of the massive layoff round it previously
> announced.

What does that mean exactly? Were the people laid off given their jobs back?
What does "withdrawing" a WARN notice even mean?

~~~
pkaye
Is most cases, large companies need to give a 60 day notification if they plan
a sizable layoff. So perhaps they were just given the notification but not
laid off yet. But many employers will "pay in lieu of notice" and lay them off
immediately with the 60 days of pay.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraini...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_Adjustment_and_Retraining_Notification_Act_of_1988)

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kingkawn
I have got to see this demo

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_understood_
Yay- hopefully the landlords can get paid now -
[https://www.geekwire.com/2020/heavily-funded-magic-leap-
sued...](https://www.geekwire.com/2020/heavily-funded-magic-leap-sued-seattle-
landlord-52k-unpaid-rent/)

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troughway
>“We are making very good progress in our healthcare, enterprise, and defense
deals,” Abovitz writes. “As these deals close, we will be able to announce
them.”

Wouldn't surprise me if they sold lemons at such absurd contract prices that
it made their investors giggle.

~~~
Udik
They've also made "very good progress" in AR for the past 5 years. I hope the
deals won't turn out like this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ7-F_vWUVE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ7-F_vWUVE)

~~~
marakv2
As funny as that is, this was recommended to me next:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n0uhkLa5lBg](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n0uhkLa5lBg)

Id buy that.

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kahlonel
> Magic Leap cited COVID-19 as a key reason for April’s news.

Riiiigghhhht.

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jamesrom
A signal we'll be seeing something in this space from Apple soon...

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billme
$3 billion total...

That’s enough money to give $100,000 to 30,000 startups.

~~~
scarface74
I mean that’s simple math. But $100K won’t pay the fully allocated cost of one
senior developer for a year in a medium COL area.

~~~
billme
what exactly is a startup to you?

(Assure you a $100k to a startup is not the same as $100k to Google.)

~~~
scarface74
Whatever $100K is to someone, I know that what I said about salary is true.
I’ve worked for small VC back companies with less than $10 million in revenue.
$100K wouldn’t have made a difference either way.

~~~
billme
Here’s small scale examples of $100k making a massive difference:

[https://www.businessinsider.com/where-are-they-now-peter-
thi...](https://www.businessinsider.com/where-are-they-now-peter-thiel-
fellowship-2017-3)

That said, $100k is not a salary and if someone needs $100k+ salary to do a
startup for a year, startups are the wrong choice.

~~~
scarface74
Yes. That’s fine if you’re not adulting - with kids, bills, the need to pay
health insurance etc.

If I were under 26, no responsibilities and could get on my parents insurance
sure.

~~~
billme
This has nothing to do with age, being an adult, being in US, etc.; sure, you
have a set of assumptions, but they apply at best to you, not the world.

~~~
mdonahoe
“Peter Thiel launched a program that awards $100,000 to promising young
entrepreneurs who are willing to drop out of college”

Your example explicitly mentions age as one of the requirements.

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dvt
This might sound a bit cynical, but companies like Magic Leap (and WeWork, for
that matter) is why I find myself so fatigued with my "startup dreams" \--
it's clear that VCs are an echo chamber and that getting in those circles is
much more important than ideas, execution, or even profitability. During my
brief stint into hardware startups[1], I could barely find people to answer my
emails.

Magic Leap is literally garbage (it's downright embarassing when compared to
Oculus or HoloLens), and yet they just raised another $350M. It simply boggles
the mind.

[1] [https://www.pcgamer.com/introducing-gameref-the-anti-
cheat-h...](https://www.pcgamer.com/introducing-gameref-the-anti-cheat-
hardware/)

~~~
nojito
Products never matter. It's all about execution and convincing others to buy
into your execution plan

~~~
nyolfen
that doesn't seem to describe ML either

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seppin
beyond parody.

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ykevinator
I can't believe seemingly smart people still think consumers want vr

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bredren
I’ve been skeptical of VR myself, but Oculus Quest feels like it is going to
be a hit.

I don’t have data but the pulse I’m reading is a very high consumer
satisfaction and it continues to sell out.

~~~
thelittleone
To be fair though, they have a lot of cash for PR to manage people's
perception of 'pulse'. That is PR job after all.

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ilrwbwrkhv
the technology is really wonderful and given this current crisis, things which
digitizes us becomes even more important. we should try and go for mind
uploading soon.

