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I was at Daqri from employee ~12 to ~300. It was a wild ride and I've got some really amazing memories with only a bit of scarring to show for it :) Daqri was

I was at Daqri from employee ~12 to ~300. It was a wild ride and I've got some really amazing memories with only a bit of scarring to show for it :) Daqri was really good at recruiting amazing people, and really bad at turning them into a functioning company. Communication between teams (and particularly offices) was really lacking; I remember back when the helmet was built on Android (in LA) and all the vision scientists were working on iOS (in Sunnyvale), they had this amazing world-tracking demo that we just couldn't use. The Two Trees photonics tech is absolutely amazing, check it out if you get a chance - field programmable holograms. Point the thing at any glass surface and you get a hologram "in" it. Blew my mind the first time I saw it! Dunno if it ever made it into headware.

RangerScience 7y ago
PS - I can't actually offer an AMA - there's things I can't or shouldn't talk about - but I am absolutely up for questions :)
- ladon86 7y ago
  Are there any videos of the Two Trees tech, or does that not do it justice? How far out do you think consumer AR is realistically?
  - therein 7y ago
    I believe it should be essentially what Envisics has, which is probably represented best below. What we are used to: https://youtu.be/p-lH4mufXHw?t=44 https://youtu.be/p-lH4mufXHw?t=44 What they have: https://youtu.be/p-lH4mufXHw?t=63 https://youtu.be/p-lH4mufXHw?t=63
  - RangerScience 7y ago
    I don't know either way, but, it's supposed to be in every 201x Land Rover, I think? If you see a hologram projected into a car windshield on behalf of the driver, that might be the tech. 3-5 years, would be my optimistic guess? The tech is getting there (Magic Leap and Hololens), but it's not there yet, and it's not going to seriously accelerate until there's a really compelling consumer use-case / app to go with it.
aimablerex 7y ago
Where do you feel the fault was, wrt communication problems and leadership? Was it because of incentives being wrong in the company, the wrong people in charge, something else?
- dchichkov 7y ago
  It didn't look like a particular fault of anyone. Building a viable AR headset is a Tony Stark type of affair. The complexity is on par to AV.
- RangerScience 7y ago
  Senior leadership didn't talk to individual contributors enough. They'd try all sorts of things to set us up for success, but it was generally the wrong thing, or at the wrong time, or the right thing in the wrong way. Re-orgs were really common but really inneffective; I'd find myself on a new team with a new boss and a week later I'd find myself working with the original team and the original boss again, because to do what I needed to do those were the people I needed to work with, not the new team and the new boss. I could generally see what they'd be trying to accomplish with such re-orgs, but not why they thought it would actually accomplish that. The last re-org I was a part of before I left, our team was dissolved and I was re-assigned to a new boss I'd had a pretty terrible time with in the past to do exactly what I'd been doing on the dissolved team, minus many of the best parts. He was absolutely surprised that I was not excited at this change, and could not answer when I asked what the org change was supposed to fix and/or improve. If they'd actually talked to any of us - including my direct manager at the time - prior to springing the change on us, could've probably gotten us on-board and aligned, but that wasn't a thing that usually happened. Incentives and having the right people in charge are a structure to facilitate good communication, they are not a surrogate for that communication. Thanks for the question!

RangerScience 7y ago

PS - I can't actually offer an AMA - there's things I can't or shouldn't talk about - but I am absolutely up for questions :)

ladon86 7y ago
Are there any videos of the Two Trees tech, or does that not do it justice? How far out do you think consumer AR is realistically?
- therein 7y ago
  I believe it should be essentially what Envisics has, which is probably represented best below. What we are used to: https://youtu.be/p-lH4mufXHw?t=44 https://youtu.be/p-lH4mufXHw?t=44 What they have: https://youtu.be/p-lH4mufXHw?t=63 https://youtu.be/p-lH4mufXHw?t=63
- RangerScience 7y ago
  I don't know either way, but, it's supposed to be in every 201x Land Rover, I think? If you see a hologram projected into a car windshield on behalf of the driver, that might be the tech. 3-5 years, would be my optimistic guess? The tech is getting there (Magic Leap and Hololens), but it's not there yet, and it's not going to seriously accelerate until there's a really compelling consumer use-case / app to go with it.

aimablerex 7y ago

Where do you feel the fault was, wrt communication problems and leadership? Was it because of incentives being wrong in the company, the wrong people in charge, something else?

dchichkov 7y ago
It didn't look like a particular fault of anyone. Building a viable AR headset is a Tony Stark type of affair. The complexity is on par to AV.
RangerScience 7y ago
Senior leadership didn't talk to individual contributors enough. They'd try all sorts of things to set us up for success, but it was generally the wrong thing, or at the wrong time, or the right thing in the wrong way. Re-orgs were really common but really inneffective; I'd find myself on a new team with a new boss and a week later I'd find myself working with the original team and the original boss again, because to do what I needed to do those were the people I needed to work with, not the new team and the new boss. I could generally see what they'd be trying to accomplish with such re-orgs, but not why they thought it would actually accomplish that. The last re-org I was a part of before I left, our team was dissolved and I was re-assigned to a new boss I'd had a pretty terrible time with in the past to do exactly what I'd been doing on the dissolved team, minus many of the best parts. He was absolutely surprised that I was not excited at this change, and could not answer when I asked what the org change was supposed to fix and/or improve. If they'd actually talked to any of us - including my direct manager at the time - prior to springing the change on us, could've probably gotten us on-board and aligned, but that wasn't a thing that usually happened. Incentives and having the right people in charge are a structure to facilitate good communication, they are not a surrogate for that communication. Thanks for the question!