7 ms·

This one honestly makes no sense to me. How is this company being valued at a Billion dollars with a flagship product that is indistinguishable in features and

This one honestly makes no sense to me. How is this company being valued at a Billion dollars with a flagship product that is indistinguishable in features and price from any of its competitors. Who the hell is going to gamble on a new, no name brand for a $700 product that is exactly like the very reputable products from Apple, Samsung, and 50 other phone manufacturers?!?

jpm_sd 9y ago
Also, what is the benefit of a "bezel-less" phone? I always put cases on my phones, ever since I dropped one and spider-webbed the screen some years back. Without a bezel, the case will be covering up part of the screen...
- aetherson 9y ago
  As it turns out, your preferences are not universal.
- eulo__ 9y ago
  > I use a case, therefore no one would like a phone that looks good without a case. Not all of us are clumsy with our expensive and fragile possessions.
- stormbeta 9y ago
  Agreed. Modern phones are so fragile as to make cases mandatory for anyone that doesn't just sit around all day, and bezel-less designs make it even worse while adding zero practical value.
  - wastedhours 9y ago
    Fortunately there's a rather large portion of the population (myself included for 75% of the time) who do rarely more than sit around all day (staring at some form of screen or another).
wmf 9y ago
But they have a notch in the screen and a snap-on camera!
vqc 9y ago
Maybe investor expectation is that a company like HTC or LG or some other none-Samsung/Apple/Google/Amazon company will buy Essential in order to get a strong team that is building a suite of products that tries to compete with Samsung/Apple/Google/Amazon. Can that justify the valuation?
- prostoalex 9y ago
  Just like Microsoft's acquisition of Danger established Microsoft as a power player.
  - pawadu 9y ago
    Technically, it could have. Windows Phone 7.0 was a wonderful experience, dare I say, significantly better than what Android and iOS at that time. Then Microsoft went ahead and shot itself in the foot, hang himself from the ceiling, commit harakiri, burned down the house and then jumped down a bridge.
- HillaryBriss 9y ago
  I'm trying to understand what the appeal would be. Let's say you're LG. You're already doing pretty well as a company selling many types of consumer appliances and electronics. You already know how to make really really good phones, too. Maybe not quite as good as Samsung, but still, very very good. What does Essential bring to the table? Market share? Design skills? I mean, aren't they contracting out the manufacturing to some low-cost company? I don't know. If you were LG and felt you needed marketing and design skills, wouldn't you just make a deal with some super star, internationally known design firms (or someone) and add them to your team somehow? Why buy a whole expensive outside company when, at best, they know a few more things about phones than you do?
htormey 9y ago
Basically the reason this thing gets $300 million is because Andy Rubin is at the helm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Rubin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Rubin His track record is amazing (Danger/Android). I agree 100% with everything you have said but I'm willing to see where this goes based solely on his reputation. Surely their is something more to this than just building a high end Android phone with a little privacy tech thrown in.
- _pmf_ 9y ago
  > His track record is amazing (Danger/Android). Let's not fool ourselves: Android gained momentum because it was what was there when Google needed it; it's not a particularly well engineered or cohesive system. Everything down to the very basics is rushed and haphazardly thrown together, and I cannot see any improvement (Kotlin is a smart move to exfiltrate from the legal corner Google has painted itself with Java-the-Language, but the fact that this came from a 3rd party is pretty telling).
  - pawadu 9y ago
    > Kotlin is a smart move to exfiltrate from the legal corner Google has painted itself with Java-the-Language, but the fact that this came from a 3rd party is pretty telling Android is open, most good ideas come from the community. The fact that Google chose Kotlin over Go shows that there is very little politics in Android, the best technology often wins.
    - rubber_duck 9y ago
      >The fact that Google chose Kotlin over Go shows that there is very little politics in Android, the best technology often wins. In what world is Go a realistic consideration in this discussion ? Android is built on top of a JVM - Go is a native language with no JVM access. Not to mention it has nothing to do with Go target domain. Google already has an alternative mobile OS with Fuchsia and the front-end Flutter stack is built on their Dart language which can be viewed as a Java alternative without the JVM. Kotlin is the only practical alternative to Java on Android because of technical reasons (Scala stdlib is too big and the compile time ends up being too painful) - but I don't see how it has anything to do with the legal aspect (the entire platform is still built on top of JVM and tons of Java code).
threeseed 9y ago
Because product sales are likely to be irrelevant. Think of this company as a future acquihire for someone like LG who needs a better flagship phone or for companies who wish to have an experienced, design-savvy team capable of delivering on IoT and mobile products. Or there is even a free letter over in the Alphabet company for an in-house hardware player comparable to Microsoft's Surface strategy.
- Eridrus 9y ago
  I don't think Alphabet is keen on having him back after what he did with Replicant.
return2ozma 9y ago
Andy created the extremely popular Sidekick phones and Android OS.
- HillaryBriss 9y ago
  Would Android be a success if it hadn't been for Google's ability to push it very powerfully onto the market? I'm not knocking Mr. Rubin and I'm not saying I could have done anything anywhere near as successful myself. I couldn't have. He's clearly more talented and motivated than I am. But, I also wonder: Is Android anything but the number one, huge outlier in his business life? Isn't it plainly evident, even now, that Android is the biggest business success Mr. Rubin will ever accomplish? If Mr. Rubin is truly a powerful, free-thinking force for life-enhancing technological innovation, uh, why did he go away for multiple years and ... come back with ... another phone? Again, I'm not saying I'm as good as he is. Very far from it. But, isn't way more skepticism in order?
prostoalex 9y ago
1) The team has shown it can deliver, so there's a premium to be had. 2) Andy Rubin's personal net worth post-Danger and post-Android is in nine digits. He is likely to set the terms of the investment, and those who think it's too expensive have moved along.
wastedhours 9y ago
Somewhat flippantly: they bought the domain name. The investment is in a hardware/software services brand with a founder with expert experience of the field - the phone is a 0.1 product for the company. The wider vision will be an (assuming) quick roll out of assorted smart home/business tech built around the "Essential" brand, with a nice proprietary software layer linking it all up. With his experience, I highly doubt anything he creates at this point would be acquired for much less than $300m (in this day and age, a $300m acquihire doesn't seem so out of reach...), so if they have participation preferred, might not even lose out.
- noway421 9y ago
  That's true, depending on the terms of what happens in case of a flop, if investor's shares are realised at strike price with priority over other ones, than for investors risk is greatly reduced
specialist 9y ago
Roll the dice. Why not? Maybe they get bought. I didn't understand NextStep or BeOS. But they were the final two choices (to replace Mac System 9). Sometimes the innovation, execution has to happen on its own.
dyeje 9y ago
Well, when you're the creator of a the largest phone operating system on the planet it's probably pretty easy to raise some cash for a phone startup.

jpm_sd 9y ago

Also, what is the benefit of a "bezel-less" phone? I always put cases on my phones, ever since I dropped one and spider-webbed the screen some years back. Without a bezel, the case will be covering up part of the screen...

aetherson 9y ago
As it turns out, your preferences are not universal.
eulo__ 9y ago
> I use a case, therefore no one would like a phone that looks good without a case. Not all of us are clumsy with our expensive and fragile possessions.
stormbeta 9y ago
Agreed. Modern phones are so fragile as to make cases mandatory for anyone that doesn't just sit around all day, and bezel-less designs make it even worse while adding zero practical value.
- wastedhours 9y ago
  Fortunately there's a rather large portion of the population (myself included for 75% of the time) who do rarely more than sit around all day (staring at some form of screen or another).

wmf 9y ago

But they have a notch in the screen and a snap-on camera!

vqc 9y ago

Maybe investor expectation is that a company like HTC or LG or some other none-Samsung/Apple/Google/Amazon company will buy Essential in order to get a strong team that is building a suite of products that tries to compete with Samsung/Apple/Google/Amazon. Can that justify the valuation?

prostoalex 9y ago
Just like Microsoft's acquisition of Danger established Microsoft as a power player.
- pawadu 9y ago
  Technically, it could have. Windows Phone 7.0 was a wonderful experience, dare I say, significantly better than what Android and iOS at that time. Then Microsoft went ahead and shot itself in the foot, hang himself from the ceiling, commit harakiri, burned down the house and then jumped down a bridge.
HillaryBriss 9y ago
I'm trying to understand what the appeal would be. Let's say you're LG. You're already doing pretty well as a company selling many types of consumer appliances and electronics. You already know how to make really really good phones, too. Maybe not quite as good as Samsung, but still, very very good. What does Essential bring to the table? Market share? Design skills? I mean, aren't they contracting out the manufacturing to some low-cost company? I don't know. If you were LG and felt you needed marketing and design skills, wouldn't you just make a deal with some super star, internationally known design firms (or someone) and add them to your team somehow? Why buy a whole expensive outside company when, at best, they know a few more things about phones than you do?

htormey 9y ago

Basically the reason this thing gets $300 million is because Andy Rubin is at the helm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Rubin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Rubin His track record is amazing (Danger/Android). I agree 100% with everything you have said but I'm willing to see where this goes based solely on his reputation. Surely their is something more to this than just building a high end Android phone with a little privacy tech thrown in.

_pmf_ 9y ago
> His track record is amazing (Danger/Android). Let's not fool ourselves: Android gained momentum because it was what was there when Google needed it; it's not a particularly well engineered or cohesive system. Everything down to the very basics is rushed and haphazardly thrown together, and I cannot see any improvement (Kotlin is a smart move to exfiltrate from the legal corner Google has painted itself with Java-the-Language, but the fact that this came from a 3rd party is pretty telling).
- pawadu 9y ago
  > Kotlin is a smart move to exfiltrate from the legal corner Google has painted itself with Java-the-Language, but the fact that this came from a 3rd party is pretty telling Android is open, most good ideas come from the community. The fact that Google chose Kotlin over Go shows that there is very little politics in Android, the best technology often wins.
  - rubber_duck 9y ago
    >The fact that Google chose Kotlin over Go shows that there is very little politics in Android, the best technology often wins. In what world is Go a realistic consideration in this discussion ? Android is built on top of a JVM - Go is a native language with no JVM access. Not to mention it has nothing to do with Go target domain. Google already has an alternative mobile OS with Fuchsia and the front-end Flutter stack is built on their Dart language which can be viewed as a Java alternative without the JVM. Kotlin is the only practical alternative to Java on Android because of technical reasons (Scala stdlib is too big and the compile time ends up being too painful) - but I don't see how it has anything to do with the legal aspect (the entire platform is still built on top of JVM and tons of Java code).

threeseed 9y ago

Because product sales are likely to be irrelevant. Think of this company as a future acquihire for someone like LG who needs a better flagship phone or for companies who wish to have an experienced, design-savvy team capable of delivering on IoT and mobile products. Or there is even a free letter over in the Alphabet company for an in-house hardware player comparable to Microsoft's Surface strategy.

Eridrus 9y ago
I don't think Alphabet is keen on having him back after what he did with Replicant.

return2ozma 9y ago

Andy created the extremely popular Sidekick phones and Android OS.

HillaryBriss 9y ago
Would Android be a success if it hadn't been for Google's ability to push it very powerfully onto the market? I'm not knocking Mr. Rubin and I'm not saying I could have done anything anywhere near as successful myself. I couldn't have. He's clearly more talented and motivated than I am. But, I also wonder: Is Android anything but the number one, huge outlier in his business life? Isn't it plainly evident, even now, that Android is the biggest business success Mr. Rubin will ever accomplish? If Mr. Rubin is truly a powerful, free-thinking force for life-enhancing technological innovation, uh, why did he go away for multiple years and ... come back with ... another phone? Again, I'm not saying I'm as good as he is. Very far from it. But, isn't way more skepticism in order?

prostoalex 9y ago

1) The team has shown it can deliver, so there's a premium to be had. 2) Andy Rubin's personal net worth post-Danger and post-Android is in nine digits. He is likely to set the terms of the investment, and those who think it's too expensive have moved along.

wastedhours 9y ago

Somewhat flippantly: they bought the domain name. The investment is in a hardware/software services brand with a founder with expert experience of the field - the phone is a 0.1 product for the company. The wider vision will be an (assuming) quick roll out of assorted smart home/business tech built around the "Essential" brand, with a nice proprietary software layer linking it all up. With his experience, I highly doubt anything he creates at this point would be acquired for much less than $300m (in this day and age, a $300m acquihire doesn't seem so out of reach...), so if they have participation preferred, might not even lose out.

noway421 9y ago
That's true, depending on the terms of what happens in case of a flop, if investor's shares are realised at strike price with priority over other ones, than for investors risk is greatly reduced

specialist 9y ago

Roll the dice. Why not? Maybe they get bought. I didn't understand NextStep or BeOS. But they were the final two choices (to replace Mac System 9). Sometimes the innovation, execution has to happen on its own.

dyeje 9y ago

Well, when you're the creator of a the largest phone operating system on the planet it's probably pretty easy to raise some cash for a phone startup.