5 ms·

I was, at one point, very excited about this company, to the point where I recommended a colleague join the company (she thankfully did not). I strongly believe

I was, at one point, very excited about this company, to the point where I recommended a colleague join the company (she thankfully did not). I strongly believe there's only so much vaporware that the general public will accept, and Magic Leap has definitely overstayed that period. If they aren't more honest about their current progress and more realistic with their near-future plans, they'll end up cratering their reputation with the public before they even have anything off the ground. At that point, it might not matter how many billions they have in the bank if they ruin their reputation to do so. Worse, if they don't get in front of their persistent vaporware problem, they could find themselves in the dust by the time they do come out with a product. Microsoft has already released their first version of the HoloLens, and is said to be working on their next version at full steam. By the time Magic Leap comes out, Microsoft might already have a compelling ecosystem and device portfolio. Other companies are joining suit. It'd be nice if Magic Leap showed the public the same thing they're showing these investors - clearly, their demo is convincing some supposedly smart people to pour lots of money in, so why can't they show the public?

yeukhon 9y ago
Well, many of the secretive startups remain secret because (1) they do have a great product but they want to test the water first, keeping initial customer happy and until enough maturity they go out and take over the market (and in many case their customers aren't any Internet users, often corporates and government so they don't care if you and I know their existence), or (2) they are really just bluffing. I have seen both. In both cases, the founders don't care about public opinions because their goal is to raise funds from VCs. In the first case, they obviously have a good intention, but in the latter, obviously they just want to buy time hoping one day they assembled a star team and get something delivered. Although I am very surprised how VCs are willing to buy time, specifically the top ones are known to be really sharp in investment. Something is up with this startup.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
throwanem 9y ago
Why indeed? On the other hand, maybe they just don't care. Why should they, if they're landing a multi-billion-dollar D round without having done that? They seem doing a good job of convincing the people they need to convince to stay in business, if "business" is the right word for an organization which, if this news is accurate, will be most of $10 billion into debt before it has its first cent in revenue. Why split focus and try to convince anyone else? If the tech gets off the ground (and exists in the first place, of course), everyone who sees it will be convinced once the product hits retail. Until then, I don't really see how it matters.
gtm1260 9y ago
I think its okay what they are doing. They are competing with Microsoft, Apple, etc... Raise big and play to win I think is a valid strategy, even if it means keeping things secret.
rawnlq 9y ago
> why can't they show the public It doesn't really help them until they need to start marketing. Even oculus/vive mismanaged the expectations of the public so there's no advantage to start doing it until you have to. Given how bad hololens(probably their closest competitor) is, magic leap is probably still a few years away. And it's not their fault. Humans are biologically very good at vision so it takes a lot to trick our eyes and brains. I am sure no one is going to pop out of their garage with a better solution anytime soon. Right now it doesn't matter where the capital concentrates at long as it's concentrating somewhere. Throw enough money/R&D/engineers at the problem and it will be polished enough to be declared solved. And at that point the world will change and no one is going to care how we got there.
- qyv 9y ago
  Hololens may never be a commercial success, or even a very compelling product, but that was not it's purpose. Hololens at it's core is a POC and tech demo, and we are already seeing that tech trickle down into the next gen. The upcoming VR dispalys for Win10 will all incorporate the inside-out tracking developed for hololens. This is huge because it offloads a very large tech burden from display manufacturers which opens the market for more, cheaper, simpler VR displays. ML could see their market inundated with competitors before they even reach it.
Retric 9y ago
IMO, assuming the tech is comfortable, their best path to success v1.0 is simply replacing monitors. 'Full' VR has issues and needs to black out the room, but if you can put on a pay of glasses and have a virtual 100" screen while sitting in a lazy boy that's worth quite a bit. Alternatively, if all it could do was show YouTube videos on a virtual screen while I am working on a hands on project that's an awesome tool. It's not what the demo shows, but it could bring in a lot of money while the technology improves.
ChuckMcM 9y ago
Pretty much. This is pretty much a classic analysis of execution risk. The company spends so much time in development that the market passes them by. One of my favorite poster children for this is Plastic Logic. I have no direct knowledge of anything that Magic Leap is doing so I can only speculate. My speculation is that they have raised too much money, and as a result they lost their edge. People are naturally more productive when a deadline is looming, especially if it is an existential one, and startups typically have a limited amount of cash before they have to raise more or die. But sometimes startups get enough money that they can operate for years before they die, and then their delivery deadlines seem to ooze out to years. It can happen easily enough, if you have to deliver next year, and your schedule it tight, then you start narrowing the scope of your delivery. That naturally prunes the things that are less critical to your success from the delivery and focuses the team on the critical bits. If your delivery is in two years, there often is pressure for some "quick wins" which are features which are not critical to the product but easily completed to show progress. As a result you make lots of progress on things which are not part of the critical path. It can make an engineering team feel good ("Hey, look at all this stuff we got done!") but it pushes off the question of whether or not they can even do the critical bit. One unexpected side effect of this I saw in a company I advised was that the group working on the critical bits were penalized in terms of recognition for not getting more done (even though their part of the problem was much harder) and some key members of the group left, putting the critical pieces in still more jeopardy. What I'm trying to say is that taking a big funding round is exceptionally risky for people who haven't managed through the sorts of ups and downs a startup has to weather. Magic leap took in a lot of money early on. That sets the stage for disaster. Not that the problem will actualize; People go out sailing on the San Francisco Bay without enough life vests for the people on board every day and that situation only occasionally intersects with an event that results in the loss of life. But once you've left the dock without enough vests, you have just increased the importance of the competence and abilities of your crew without necessarily realizing it. So to with startups that take too much money, they increase the importance of having a management team with exceptionally good discipline. We will get to see how it turns out for Magic Leap.
- kken 9y ago
  >One of my favorite poster children for this is Plastic Logic. Basically the entire organic transistor community has a solution in search of a problem. Not really an issue limited to Plastic Logic.
slg 9y ago
What "public" are you speaking about? I don't think the average consumer has any idea what Magic Leap is or what they do. You compare it to Microsoft and the HoloLens which had much greater public awareness and because of that is already dealing with the vaporware label. Gizmodo just posted an article today discussing the HoloLens as a current consumer failure. People in the tech bubble might be tired of not seeing anything out of Magic Leap, but I don't think that automatically means it is the wrong strategy for eventual mass market success.
Ajedi32 9y ago
Yep; as Magic Leap goes longer and longer without publicly providing any details about their product I've slowly grown more and more skeptical. On the other hand though, you and I aren't the ones they have to convince; for now they only have to convince investors. And so far, investors seem to be pretty convinced. Whether those beliefs are well-founded is impossible for us to determine one way or the other, since again, we haven't been provided with any information on Magic Leap's product. If Magic Leap ever does release a product it won't matter how skeptical the general public is or isn't initially; the product will speak for itself.

yeukhon 9y ago

Well, many of the secretive startups remain secret because (1) they do have a great product but they want to test the water first, keeping initial customer happy and until enough maturity they go out and take over the market (and in many case their customers aren't any Internet users, often corporates and government so they don't care if you and I know their existence), or (2) they are really just bluffing. I have seen both. In both cases, the founders don't care about public opinions because their goal is to raise funds from VCs. In the first case, they obviously have a good intention, but in the latter, obviously they just want to buy time hoping one day they assembled a star team and get something delivered. Although I am very surprised how VCs are willing to buy time, specifically the top ones are known to be really sharp in investment. Something is up with this startup.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

throwanem 9y ago

Why indeed? On the other hand, maybe they just don't care. Why should they, if they're landing a multi-billion-dollar D round without having done that? They seem doing a good job of convincing the people they need to convince to stay in business, if "business" is the right word for an organization which, if this news is accurate, will be most of $10 billion into debt before it has its first cent in revenue. Why split focus and try to convince anyone else? If the tech gets off the ground (and exists in the first place, of course), everyone who sees it will be convinced once the product hits retail. Until then, I don't really see how it matters.

gtm1260 9y ago

I think its okay what they are doing. They are competing with Microsoft, Apple, etc... Raise big and play to win I think is a valid strategy, even if it means keeping things secret.

rawnlq 9y ago

> why can't they show the public It doesn't really help them until they need to start marketing. Even oculus/vive mismanaged the expectations of the public so there's no advantage to start doing it until you have to. Given how bad hololens(probably their closest competitor) is, magic leap is probably still a few years away. And it's not their fault. Humans are biologically very good at vision so it takes a lot to trick our eyes and brains. I am sure no one is going to pop out of their garage with a better solution anytime soon. Right now it doesn't matter where the capital concentrates at long as it's concentrating somewhere. Throw enough money/R&D/engineers at the problem and it will be polished enough to be declared solved. And at that point the world will change and no one is going to care how we got there.

qyv 9y ago
Hololens may never be a commercial success, or even a very compelling product, but that was not it's purpose. Hololens at it's core is a POC and tech demo, and we are already seeing that tech trickle down into the next gen. The upcoming VR dispalys for Win10 will all incorporate the inside-out tracking developed for hololens. This is huge because it offloads a very large tech burden from display manufacturers which opens the market for more, cheaper, simpler VR displays. ML could see their market inundated with competitors before they even reach it.

Retric 9y ago

IMO, assuming the tech is comfortable, their best path to success v1.0 is simply replacing monitors. 'Full' VR has issues and needs to black out the room, but if you can put on a pay of glasses and have a virtual 100" screen while sitting in a lazy boy that's worth quite a bit. Alternatively, if all it could do was show YouTube videos on a virtual screen while I am working on a hands on project that's an awesome tool. It's not what the demo shows, but it could bring in a lot of money while the technology improves.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

Pretty much. This is pretty much a classic analysis of execution risk. The company spends so much time in development that the market passes them by. One of my favorite poster children for this is Plastic Logic. I have no direct knowledge of anything that Magic Leap is doing so I can only speculate. My speculation is that they have raised too much money, and as a result they lost their edge. People are naturally more productive when a deadline is looming, especially if it is an existential one, and startups typically have a limited amount of cash before they have to raise more or die. But sometimes startups get enough money that they can operate for years before they die, and then their delivery deadlines seem to ooze out to years. It can happen easily enough, if you have to deliver next year, and your schedule it tight, then you start narrowing the scope of your delivery. That naturally prunes the things that are less critical to your success from the delivery and focuses the team on the critical bits. If your delivery is in two years, there often is pressure for some "quick wins" which are features which are not critical to the product but easily completed to show progress. As a result you make lots of progress on things which are not part of the critical path. It can make an engineering team feel good ("Hey, look at all this stuff we got done!") but it pushes off the question of whether or not they can even do the critical bit. One unexpected side effect of this I saw in a company I advised was that the group working on the critical bits were penalized in terms of recognition for not getting more done (even though their part of the problem was much harder) and some key members of the group left, putting the critical pieces in still more jeopardy. What I'm trying to say is that taking a big funding round is exceptionally risky for people who haven't managed through the sorts of ups and downs a startup has to weather. Magic leap took in a lot of money early on. That sets the stage for disaster. Not that the problem will actualize; People go out sailing on the San Francisco Bay without enough life vests for the people on board every day and that situation only occasionally intersects with an event that results in the loss of life. But once you've left the dock without enough vests, you have just increased the importance of the competence and abilities of your crew without necessarily realizing it. So to with startups that take too much money, they increase the importance of having a management team with exceptionally good discipline. We will get to see how it turns out for Magic Leap.

kken 9y ago
>One of my favorite poster children for this is Plastic Logic. Basically the entire organic transistor community has a solution in search of a problem. Not really an issue limited to Plastic Logic.

slg 9y ago

What "public" are you speaking about? I don't think the average consumer has any idea what Magic Leap is or what they do. You compare it to Microsoft and the HoloLens which had much greater public awareness and because of that is already dealing with the vaporware label. Gizmodo just posted an article today discussing the HoloLens as a current consumer failure. People in the tech bubble might be tired of not seeing anything out of Magic Leap, but I don't think that automatically means it is the wrong strategy for eventual mass market success.

Ajedi32 9y ago

Yep; as Magic Leap goes longer and longer without publicly providing any details about their product I've slowly grown more and more skeptical. On the other hand though, you and I aren't the ones they have to convince; for now they only have to convince investors. And so far, investors seem to be pretty convinced. Whether those beliefs are well-founded is impossible for us to determine one way or the other, since again, we haven't been provided with any information on Magic Leap's product. If Magic Leap ever does release a product it won't matter how skeptical the general public is or isn't initially; the product will speak for itself.