7 ms·

Honest question—how is this hype without any technology details/demo any different than Theranos?

pxlpshr 11y ago
The past doesn't imply future success but Rony's was formerly CTO and cofounder of MAKO Surgical (robotic surgery), which was acquired by Stryker for $1.65BN. He has relevant domain experience and a track record. I'd bet on him. He also seems like a very genuine guy to work with based on the interviews I've seen. If you're going to invest as much money as they've raised, you better like spending time with the person putting it to work.
- mikeryan 11y ago
  Segway then?
  - drumdance 11y ago
    Segway wasn't a scam. It just didn't take off like people predicted.
  - puranjay 11y ago
    Segway wasn't crap technology. Just overhyped and overpriced.
    - mikeryan 11y ago
      im not comparing Segway to Theranos but to Magic Leap which even has a very similar founder story and may find its niche much slimmer then investors thought.
      - puranjay 11y ago
        That's a big possibility. People generally don't like to wear big, bulky things on their heads.
        cb18 11y ago
        I don't think there's any doubt that the game plan is to shrink these devices as much as possible, provided investor interest/market derived revenue can sustain things to that point. It's interesting how we've seen this shrinking form factor theme play out in the "segway sector" recently with the popularity of "hover boards." I'm not sure if that's a genuine new paradigm of human machine interaction or just a confluence of trendiness, fun, and much lower price than a segway.
Trundle 11y ago
Was there not a tech demo video right on the linked article?
- colinramsay 11y ago
  There's a promotional demo, yes.
- thanatosmin 11y ago
  True, though to someone completely outside this area, it doesn't seem to show any claimed benefits over hololens. To be clear, I absolutely don't think ML is anything like Theranos, but wonder what signals we, as third parties, should use during the stealth hype cycle.
ryandrake 11y ago
One difference I see is that at least the focus is on describing the technology (even without details/demo), rather than promoting the celebrity of the founder. Go back and read all the gushing exposés about Theranos: "The founder is like a female version of Steve Jobs!!" "Look at the founder, isn't she amazing?" "Theranos, founded by a young woman entrepreneur who wears only black turtlenecks..." "The company's technology is blah blah blah, but look! OMFG YOUNG FEMALE FOUNDER!"
jcfrei 11y ago
Whether the technology works as advertised can be verified by a layman. For Theranos you'd need a biologist/chemist/doctor.
- tyingq 11y ago
  I suppose though, the wrinkle being the "verified by a layman" means "verified by a layman in a very presenter controlled environment". The outside observer doesn't necessarily get to see if the results have some big limitations. That could be cost, environment, etc. Maybe the whole room is rigged with hidden tech that makes it possible, but not practical in the real world. Maybe there's a zillion dollars worth of compute farm running real-time behind it. Certainly, plenty of laymen, and even experts, bought into telekinesis when the demo was in a highly presenter controlled environment.

The past doesn't imply future success but Rony's was formerly CTO and cofounder of MAKO Surgical (robotic surgery), which was acquired by Stryker for $1.65BN. He has relevant domain experience and a track record. I'd bet on him. He also seems like a very genuine guy to work with based on the interviews I've seen. If you're going to invest as much money as they've raised, you better like spending time with the person putting it to work.

mikeryan 11y ago
Segway then?
- drumdance 11y ago
  Segway wasn't a scam. It just didn't take off like people predicted.
- puranjay 11y ago
  Segway wasn't crap technology. Just overhyped and overpriced.
  - mikeryan 11y ago
    im not comparing Segway to Theranos but to Magic Leap which even has a very similar founder story and may find its niche much slimmer then investors thought.
    - puranjay 11y ago
      That's a big possibility. People generally don't like to wear big, bulky things on their heads.
      - cb18 11y ago
        I don't think there's any doubt that the game plan is to shrink these devices as much as possible, provided investor interest/market derived revenue can sustain things to that point. It's interesting how we've seen this shrinking form factor theme play out in the "segway sector" recently with the popularity of "hover boards." I'm not sure if that's a genuine new paradigm of human machine interaction or just a confluence of trendiness, fun, and much lower price than a segway.

Trundle 11y ago

Was there not a tech demo video right on the linked article?

colinramsay 11y ago
There's a promotional demo, yes.
thanatosmin 11y ago
True, though to someone completely outside this area, it doesn't seem to show any claimed benefits over hololens. To be clear, I absolutely don't think ML is anything like Theranos, but wonder what signals we, as third parties, should use during the stealth hype cycle.

ryandrake 11y ago

One difference I see is that at least the focus is on describing the technology (even without details/demo), rather than promoting the celebrity of the founder. Go back and read all the gushing exposés about Theranos: "The founder is like a female version of Steve Jobs!!" "Look at the founder, isn't she amazing?" "Theranos, founded by a young woman entrepreneur who wears only black turtlenecks..." "The company's technology is blah blah blah, but look! OMFG YOUNG FEMALE FOUNDER!"

jcfrei 11y ago

Whether the technology works as advertised can be verified by a layman. For Theranos you'd need a biologist/chemist/doctor.

tyingq 11y ago
I suppose though, the wrinkle being the "verified by a layman" means "verified by a layman in a very presenter controlled environment". The outside observer doesn't necessarily get to see if the results have some big limitations. That could be cost, environment, etc. Maybe the whole room is rigged with hidden tech that makes it possible, but not practical in the real world. Maybe there's a zillion dollars worth of compute farm running real-time behind it. Certainly, plenty of laymen, and even experts, bought into telekinesis when the demo was in a highly presenter controlled environment.