
MakerBot lays off 20% of its staff for the second time this year - SSilver2k2
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/8/9477999/makerbot-layoffs-employees-lawsuit
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blhack
I have to be honest, I do feel for anybody losing their job, but it makes me
happy to see makerbot doing poorly.

These guys really did a mean thing to the maker community. Not only did they
betray the trust of everybody that helped on that project, but it seemed like
they wanted to take credit for 3D printing, as if capital M makerbot was THE
THING that had suddenly made 3D printing explode.

No. It was the efforts of thousands of hackers all over the world
collaborating that made 3D printing explode, and it wasn't fair to those
people to see Bre's face all over the news, as if he had personally designed
and built all of this stuff.

Time heals all wounds, obviously, and I hope there are good things for
everybody involved with (or previously involved with) makerbot. But I hope
that this is a lesson: being mean to people isn't cool, and they will turn on
you and market against you when you do.

~~~
kayoone
Agree, however Pettis probably does not care too much anymore after the sale
to Stratasys some time ago. For the long term employees, i feel bad.

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ChuckMcM
This is sad on many levels, but for me it is most sad that Makerbot got caught
up in the whole "if we own the IP we'll be the biggest fish in the pond"
mentality. They fundamentally did not understand that as big as the 3D printer
market was when they switched over from open source to closed source, it was
_not_ self sustaining, and it still isn't self sustaining. People like
Printrbot came in with better solutions, people like Lulzbot out makered
Makerbot, and in general the community revolted at them trying to be the only
game in town after all the contributions from everyone in the community.
Totally not the way to start a revolution but a good way to put the brakes on
one.

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blhack
Why is that sad?

What makerbot, and Bre Pettis, did was truly awful. That was an absolute
betrayal of trust to everybody who had been working on that project.

Good that makerbot is doing poorly.

~~~
542458
It's sad because human beings are losing their jobs, which always sucks. It
also sucks because this is a big market player, and them going under may
hamper investor confidence in future 3D-printing ventures or give consumers
the impression that consumer 3D printing is dead. Additionally, if they go
under it would mean that there are suddenly lots of schools and libraries
equipped with makerbot machines who are no longer capable of getting support
or replacement parts, which would also serve to dampen public adoption.
Finally, it's sad because makerbot had so much potential, and although it's
been a long time coming and they completely brought it upon themselves it
still sucks to watch it end up like this.

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Lawtonfogle
>and them going under may hamper investor confidence in future 3D-printing
ventures

Could this be a blessing in disguise?

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ekidd
MakerBot appears to have gotten themselves trapped between Printrbot
(proprietary, entry level) and Lulzbot (open source, more expensive). Well,
and about 40 other competitors.

I own a Printrbot Simple Metal, which is a nice machine. But the simple
reality is that this is _not_ a consumer machine:

\- Given a choice between driving to town to buy a part, and firing up the
printer, I'll drive.

\- Given a choice between buying on Amazon, and firing up the printer, I'll
buy on Amazon.

Where 3D printers are awesome is when I'm in "tinkering" mode—when I've taken
out my toolbox and my calipers and my Arduino and I want to make something
that doesn't exist yet. I can design a part using OpenSCAD, mess with the
tolerances a bit, and run off two or three generations of prototypes in an
afternoon. When I'm done, I can upload the schematic and some images, and
other people can download it. It makes hardware almost as much fun as
software.

But the reality—at least for machines using hot plastic—is that you need to
learn about how plastic heats and cools, about what kinds of shapes are easy
to print, and about how to model things using CAD software.

Until the open source laser sintering printers come down in price, the only
"mass market" for 3D printing will be the kinds of people who have always hung
out around RadioShack and Home Depot, or who browse SparkFun and Octopart
regularly. 3D printers are awesome because they encourage hacking and
entrepreneurialism, not because they give you a push-button desktop fab.

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chunkstuntman
When they opened a brick and morter store in Boston, I remember walking in
with a real sense of excitement but walking out without any interest in
becoming more involved in the 3D printing scene.

If anything, seeing the printers in action made me realize just how
inessential their product seemed from a layperson's point of view.

For all of the potential 3D printing has, at the moment it is a solution
looking for a consumer problem, and most consumers aren't looking to make
custom figurines or embossed text.

A few months ago, I walked by the storefront and it was totally empty.
Apparently I wasn't the only one disillusioned by seeing their product up
close.

~~~
blt
3d printing got oversold. "Print replacement parts for your washing machine"
was total bullshit. 3D printer CEOs wanted to be like Steve Jobs and sell
millions of devices to consumers. They could have earned a respected spot in
the toolboxes of engineers, artists, scientists, even manufacturers. Instead
they pushed trinket machines that didn't even work as designed. They could
have been like Tektronix or Mori Seiki but they got greedy.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I read them as, enthusiastic promoters on the bleeding edge. They jumped into
3D printing despite the risks. Harsh to call that 'greedy'.

That said, 3D printing is still pretty lame. Cheap plastic parts are rarely
the critical element in a device. And even knobs etc often have retaining
clips or friction-fit holes with sub-millimeter tolerances, that 3D printers
cannot achieve.

~~~
blt
I speak from personal experience. It was all greed with certain major players.

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fossuser
Print The Legend was a pretty interesting documentary that showed the
development of Makerbot and form labs - but it made Makerbot look like a
complete disaster and the original CEO seem terrible (along with what I think
was Amazons invester arm)

Not surprised things aren't going well. Seems like the vision died long before
the sale.

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Animats
MakerBot's problem is that their hardware technology is obsolete. They made a
mediocre extruder-type printer years ago, and they still make a mediocre
extruder-type printer. Meanwhile, the other players are going to better
technologies.

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Htsthbjig
So many people talking about how 3d printers is something impractical for
everybody.

The other day I attended a talk about the history of personal computers, and
certainly it rhymes.

At the time everybody was saying, a personal computer? who wants this? People
do not need a database for cooking, or a spreadsheet, it is a very expensive
typing machine and it is very hard to use(command line). It was true.

What happened is that personal (and then mobile) computers evolved from a
entrepise-centric to user-centric to grandma-could-use-facebook centric
computers.

Most people in the old days could not imagine what the future would look like,
because computer did exist, but their applications were different to what they
predicted.

In the same way I believe 3d printing is amazing, not for what it is now, but
what it will became.

I volunteered giving 3d classes for children and it is incredible what they
could do after you teach them the basic concepts.

What is shocking for me is that it is "normal" for those 10 years old to
design things that I could only do after studying engineering and gaining
experience. Some of them absorb knowledge like an sponge.

I see in them the next Linux Towards, but instead of OSes, it becomes possible
to design a car, or a plane over the Internet.Before 3d printers it is so hard
that is practically impossible for normal people to do it.

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hanklazard
Sorry to hear about the problems at makerbot ... This company really got out
in front of 3D printing and made people excited about it. That being said,
maybe the growth was a little to aggressive. I remember seeing a makerbot
store here in Boston in the last few years-- a lot of people watching the
machines in awe, but no one was actually making any purchases (as in the
printed items they were trying to sell). It just seemed more like an expensive
showroom rather than a store. So cool, though!

I'm still bullish on the maker space. I saw a functioning prototype of this
3in1 machine in Pittsburgh last year.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/boxzy/boxzy-rapid-
chang...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/boxzy/boxzy-rapid-change-
fablab-mill-laser-engraver-3d-p)

CNC routing and laser cutting/etching included and priced much better. The
maker machines will just get better and less expensive and I can't wait.

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mrebus
How big is their actual market. In Print The Legend they realize a major
sector is the small engineering/tech shops that can't afford/don't need an
industrial prototyper but could use a $3000 one. After that they have the
"Hobbyist". These sectors seem small and possibly shrinking.

~~~
togusa
An anecdote: I know someone who works for a small engineering company. They
bought a ~$3000 one and used it perhaps a couple of times. 3d printing is
still at the "early inkjet" phase of hassle. It's sometimes easier for a guy
with a lathe and a mill to knock something up by hand from a pencil drawing
for a one off if he's got 20 years of experience than have to knock the thing
up in some CAD software and frig around with a 3d printer for an hour then
wait for it to print and then have to clean it up.

I suspect the market is saturated with such purchases.

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msandford
Yeah, 3d printing is still a solution in search of a mass market problem.
Quality isn't good enough to make "consumer" parts yet and still too fiddly,
and not 10% of the country needs to prototype, much less the _whole_ country.

Eventually someone's going to figure out exactly what they're perfect for and
things will really go bananas. Until then they're fun but only useful to a
pretty limited set of people.

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datashovel
I'm looking forward to the day when the norm becomes "things have slowed down
so we're all taking a temporary 20% pay cut".

If you're hiring full-time employees for short-term goals you're part of the
problem, not part of the solution.

~~~
RyanZAG
You mean a 20% paycut and double the equity, right?

If it's just the 20% paycut, all your best talent is going to jump ship and
you end up losing people anyway.

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datashovel
20% was just an arbitrary example. The underlying point I think is the first
focus should be on trying to retain all full-time employees. And I probably
should've mentioned that the likely outcome would be that the higher ranks
would make the sacrifice, not the lower levels (unless absolutely necessary),
since they probably depend more on their salaries for the basics.

Those who are not willing to make the sacrifice probably don't really believe
in the vision and thus probably aren't the right people to help you get out of
the rut.

And one other caveat would be transparency. That way a company can't just
arbitrarily request that their employees make sacrifices when it's not
demonstrably essential.

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erichmond
>Those who are not willing to make the sacrifice probably don't really believe
in the vision and thus probably aren't the right people to help you get out of
the rut.

Sorry, but this is a bit ridiculous. You could make the same counter-argument
from the employees perspective as well.

"If my company isn't willing to sacrifice to pay my current market worth, then
they don't really believe in me as an employee"

Is this company going to pay an extra 20% when things start going well again
to make up the difference lost?

When you sign on for a job/salary you shouldn't feel bad for leaving if the
company can't hold up their end of the bargain. If you only worked at 75% of
the capacity they thought you were going to, you'll most likely be fired.

~~~
datashovel
That's not the point really. The criteria are: If a company is demonstrably
(ie. open financial books) having financial difficulties, then I think the
default reaction should be "what can we do to get ourselves through this
without layoffs". The current environment seems to condone a "fire as first
reaction to save the company" behavior. I would argue the default reaction
should be "fire as last ditch effort to save the company". Before firing
anyone the first reaction should be to find a compromise everyone is
comfortable with so that everyone can find a way to help the cause.

Also I think there is merit to the point that if someone is not willing to
sacrifice in times of scarcity, they are only thinking about themselves and
thus are not mentally in a state conducive to helping the company to get out
of its financial difficulties.

I've lived this situation. At one point in my career I had people on my team
who I thought were truly brilliant, and I vouched to ensure their happiness
and comfort in spite of difficult times. They simply took that gesture of
goodwill as a sign of weakness and feasted like vultures without any real
uptick in output in return.

In the end the lesson is that no matter how brilliant or gifted you are, a
true sign of loyalty or dedication to a company's cause in the form of
sacrifice is far more valuable than a self-absorbed employee who can churn out
good code, but only as long as everything is going in their favor.

EDIT: And that's not to say a company shouldn't find ways to sacrifice as
well. For example additional equity should certainly be on the table as an
option. You can't expect people to give without expecting anything in return
should things turn around and the company should eventually get back on its
feet financially.

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ewindisch
It's worrisome to me that I'm now getting in my emails offers for extreme
discounts on their printers as part of customer loyalty (I've bought PLA
filament from them, but not a printer). I mean, that's not generally
unexpected, but 40% discounts? That does not instill confidence as a buyer,
unless they're now going for the "always on sale" model.

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gorena
It seems weird that they'd put their software engineers and even _customer
support_ all the way down in Industry City. Unless you live off the D/N/R in
Brooklyn already, or maybe in lower Manhattan, that's a horrid commute. Unless
you actually need the industrial space for your job... why?

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dzlobin
Space in Industry City is _cheap_

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kirk21
Read an article a while ago where they did an analysis of the amount of
printers a company needed to sell to break even (based on the parts cost). The
conclusion was that there were just too many players in the field to ever make
money (given the limited market atm).

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yAnonymous
You know we're in a bad situation when machines are firing humans.

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benbojangles
I quite like thingiverse.

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empressplay
Niche market is niche?

