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Regardless of whether Magic Leap is a Theranos level scam (and I personally think it is), this is additional evidence that there are massive amounts of investme

Regardless of whether Magic Leap is a Theranos level scam (and I personally think it is), this is additional evidence that there are massive amounts of investment money available out there.

gaius 9y ago
... if you aren’t too worried about the source
jamisteven 9y ago
A scam? Do explain!
tnoue0i9nt 9y ago
I used to work with people who now work there. I can say for sure that they are both good at what they do and good people. If it is a scam, the employees I know there don't appear to think so. Also, Theranos was lying to the general public about very important health issues that affect your daily life. So far, Magic Leap hasn't released a single product. Even if they do, at worst it will be a computer that isn't as good at playing games as they claimed it would be. Not really even in the same league as Theranos.
- webkike 9y ago
  I also know people who work there. Very talented engineers. I find it highly unlikely that they have been duped. And even if they are, they're sure as shit still making money out of the deal.
  - mondoshawan 9y ago
    I /was/ one of the leads working there, and I can tell you, I made more money elsewhere and actually took a pay cut going to ML. All in all, it wasn't pleasant, and the promises weren't enough.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  "If it is a scam, the employees I know there don't appear to think so." How many people knew that Enron is a scam? I bet 99% of people there were hard working intelligent people who had no idea. Same for Theranos.
IshKebab 9y ago
It's unlikely to be a total scam like Theranos, given that third parties have tried it and didn't go "omg this is shit". But it definitely seems to be a Faraday Future level of over-promising, growing way to fast and burning through all your money with nothing to show.
michaelbuckbee 9y ago
Theranos' tech plain didn't work. If you're looking for a historical analogy that fits better, I'd suggest Segway. There's a number of parallels with Magic Leap. Both have engineering founders. Both founders made their first big money in medical tech (Kamen with stents and Abovitz with Mako Surgical). Where things got away from Segway was on the PR + Hype front and that seems where Magic Leap is at as well. Magic Leap is going to ship something this year, it will likely be "ok" but not brilliant and then after a few iterations and a half dozen years it may well be a device on a similar trajectory to how we use mobile phones. That's why all the money is going to these companies, the thought is that the patents and expertise is going to lay the foundation for what replaces mobile phones and what's a $500 million dollar bet against a 5 Trillion a year industry.
- cinquemb 9y ago
  >…going to lay the foundation for what replaces mobile phones I having a hard time seeing how this technology (and AR glasses/devices in general, at least what we hear of it) is going to be more of utility in the future than the billions of people with cheap smartphones are today. I think brain(neural) computer interfaces (transmitters/sensors) have a better chance of leaping over the smartphone than anything coming from this, and currently have utility to some of the most physically marginalized people on the planet, which is a lot more than magic can say for its product.
  - walrus01 9y ago
    I have to agree with you. Getting people to wear any sort of AR glasses, no matter how small and light they are, is going to be a lot higher barrier than convincing people to keep 6" screen sized high-end phablet/phones in their pockets and purses. Advancements in flash memory density, low power CPU and I/O are continuing to come rapidly for mobile phones. The near future will have phones with 8 or 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, 802.11ac wave2/802.11ax wifi, LTE radios that can sustain 500 Mbps with MU-MIMO, and so on.
  - bduerst 9y ago
    The difference between those two is 10 years to mass market and 20 years to mass market. Considering that smart phones really came to mass market 10 years ago, that's still a window to make a lot of money.

Regardless of whether Magic Leap is a Theranos level scam (and I personally think it is), this is additional evidence that there are massive amounts of investment money available out there.

gaius 9y ago

... if you aren’t too worried about the source

jamisteven 9y ago

A scam? Do explain!

tnoue0i9nt 9y ago

I used to work with people who now work there. I can say for sure that they are both good at what they do and good people. If it is a scam, the employees I know there don't appear to think so. Also, Theranos was lying to the general public about very important health issues that affect your daily life. So far, Magic Leap hasn't released a single product. Even if they do, at worst it will be a computer that isn't as good at playing games as they claimed it would be. Not really even in the same league as Theranos.

webkike 9y ago
I also know people who work there. Very talented engineers. I find it highly unlikely that they have been duped. And even if they are, they're sure as shit still making money out of the deal.
- mondoshawan 9y ago
  I /was/ one of the leads working there, and I can tell you, I made more money elsewhere and actually took a pay cut going to ML. All in all, it wasn't pleasant, and the promises weren't enough.
maxxxxx 9y ago
"If it is a scam, the employees I know there don't appear to think so." How many people knew that Enron is a scam? I bet 99% of people there were hard working intelligent people who had no idea. Same for Theranos.

IshKebab 9y ago

It's unlikely to be a total scam like Theranos, given that third parties have tried it and didn't go "omg this is shit". But it definitely seems to be a Faraday Future level of over-promising, growing way to fast and burning through all your money with nothing to show.

michaelbuckbee 9y ago

Theranos' tech plain didn't work. If you're looking for a historical analogy that fits better, I'd suggest Segway. There's a number of parallels with Magic Leap. Both have engineering founders. Both founders made their first big money in medical tech (Kamen with stents and Abovitz with Mako Surgical). Where things got away from Segway was on the PR + Hype front and that seems where Magic Leap is at as well. Magic Leap is going to ship something this year, it will likely be "ok" but not brilliant and then after a few iterations and a half dozen years it may well be a device on a similar trajectory to how we use mobile phones. That's why all the money is going to these companies, the thought is that the patents and expertise is going to lay the foundation for what replaces mobile phones and what's a $500 million dollar bet against a 5 Trillion a year industry.

cinquemb 9y ago
>…going to lay the foundation for what replaces mobile phones I having a hard time seeing how this technology (and AR glasses/devices in general, at least what we hear of it) is going to be more of utility in the future than the billions of people with cheap smartphones are today. I think brain(neural) computer interfaces (transmitters/sensors) have a better chance of leaping over the smartphone than anything coming from this, and currently have utility to some of the most physically marginalized people on the planet, which is a lot more than magic can say for its product.
- walrus01 9y ago
  I have to agree with you. Getting people to wear any sort of AR glasses, no matter how small and light they are, is going to be a lot higher barrier than convincing people to keep 6" screen sized high-end phablet/phones in their pockets and purses. Advancements in flash memory density, low power CPU and I/O are continuing to come rapidly for mobile phones. The near future will have phones with 8 or 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, 802.11ac wave2/802.11ax wifi, LTE radios that can sustain 500 Mbps with MU-MIMO, and so on.
- bduerst 9y ago
  The difference between those two is 10 years to mass market and 20 years to mass market. Considering that smart phones really came to mass market 10 years ago, that's still a window to make a lot of money.