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Hyundai to acquire Boston Dynamics
- karmicthreat 6y agoI wonder if this is because of the SoftBank cash crunch. Or if it's just nobody has figured out how to make money with Boston Dynamics. Though if the 1 billion sale price is true, maybe flipping BD is the only way to make money with it.
- sradman 6y agoFrom the article: > In early November, Bloomberg first reported that Hyundai was in talks to acquire Boston Dynamics from Tokyo-based SoftBank Group. The Japanese conglomerate is selling off non-core business assets after it was hit hard by a series of soured bets, including WeWork and Uber. In September 2020, Softbank sold Arm to NVIDIA for $40 billion.
- stingrae 6y agoI wonder how much this has changed with the continued increase in stock values and new companies going public. Uber, Doordash, etc. aren't the losers that they appeared to be even just a couple months ago.
- dragonelite 6y agoIf one thing i have seen stock market != real world economics. You had a car rental go broke and its stock got pumped 500% or so after the fact.
- stingrae 6y agosure. But for Softbank, this current bump (which is think is artificial and going to pop) could allow for them to liquidate some of their positions (likely without making too much of a price disturbance) to allow for diversification.
- itsoktocry 6y ago>to allow for diversification. I'm not sure that is or was ever in the plans for SoftBank. "Pump and dump" gets thrown around a lot, but hasn't that been their model? Get in as early your massive dollars allow, promote the hell outta the company, feed the tech/SV/VC ecosystem, cash out, repeat.
- rtx 6y agoStock market is real, what's fake is all the modelling they do in excel.
- ASalazarMX 6y agoStock market is real for the few privileged insiders, the rest of us have modest profits or even loses that pay for someone else's profits.
- marcusverus 6y agoSilliness. The market is effectively a free money machine for people who are capable of delaying gratification. The fact that most people are not capable of this is not the fault of the market. And, for the record, the rich aren't getting better returns than the rest of us--the S&P beats the vast majority of Hedge Funds, year after year. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/15/active-fund-managers-trail-the-sp-500-for-the-ninth-year-in-a-row-in-triumph-for-indexing.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/15/active-fund-managers-trail-t...
- eckmLJE 6y agoHalf of Americans own stocks at all, and the rich don't have all their money in hedge funds.
- XorNot 6y agoAnyone who can consistently beat the market with the their process doesn't stay in the public investment game for long - why would they? They turn into self-funding private investment firms.
- Jorge1o1 6y agoGP is actully referring to just earning the market rate of return, not beating it. Stocks for the Long Run and all that
- hshshs2 6y ago
- dnautics 6y agoyes but for investors the stock market matters, real world be damned.
- senko 6y agoLooks like they bought it for around $100m, and then pumped additional $37m into it, which would be 7x increase. Not terrible, but probably nothing to write home about, considering Softbanks "world-changing bets" scope. This does sound like shedding off bets that didn't quite live up to the expectation, and making a small[0] profit off of it. [0] Small in the eye of Softbank. If you have a $100B fund and got 0.7B profit, those 0.7% are going to move your needle very much.
- homero 6y agoHonda has robots, maybe they're monetized in other countries
- jelliclesfarm 6y agoThere is some merit to that theory. Also..historically robotics companies get acquired by Asian companies because that’s where manufacture and production is happening. Also..in America, we are not as tech forward and don’t embrace robots on our intersections like they’d do in Asia..China, Singapore, Japan, Korea etc. Can you imagine if SPOT mini went around asking people to mask up in American public parks? But Singapore deployed SPOT minis during covid and no one batted an eyelid. When I approached my city’s PD and FD to acquire a couple of SPOT minis, I got a response that I wish I can share here..but sadly I can’t.. suffice to say that it was jaw dropping. With calls for defunding police departments, they are already on financial survival mode.. high tech will never reach American cities never mind be well adopted as in Asian cities. KUKA for example became a Chinese company and was bought out for a pittance. At least Boston Dynamics had a good valuation. I guess SoftBank in America are better deal makers than German KUKA. I have consistently been amazed by the demise and/or sell off of robotics companies for cheap. If the $1 billion number is true, I think that would be the highest number for an acquisition for a robotics company.
- abhisuri97 6y agoHyundai Cars + Boston Dynamics Robots = Transformers?
- williamtwild 6y agoI wonder how this will factor into the military contracts that Boston Dynamics has/will have.
- nr2x 6y agoDidn't Google exit those?
- jessaustin 6y agoHopefully they'll all be cancelled. BD military robots call to mind the terrifying introduction to the first "Terminator" movie.
- aussiegreenie 6y agoThis just demonstrates the "price gap" between virtual and "real world" companies. An app with a few thousand uses with worth more than one of the world's best engineering companies. Even if either has a path to profitability.
- ialyos 6y agoAgreed. Robots are very hard, and Boston Dynamics has been around for almost 40 years and still isn't anywhere close to making a lot of money. Apps have added a lot more value to my life than BD ever has. Fwiw I interviewed with BD a few years ago, and am focusing on robotics, so I'd like the opposite to be true
- tibiahurried 6y ago> Apps have added a lot more value to my life than BD ever has. This thinking will never take humans on Mars! Someone must work on hard, expensive problems. Human race does won't move forward with a chat but with the hard work of scientist, engineers etc ...
- jskajakzkjx 6y agoA lot of the hard work of scientists and engineers is enabled by chats, though.
- jessaustin 6y ago"On the joyous and satisfying occasion of this, our first successful journey to Mars, we think back not only on all those who died along the way, but also on the Slack clone that allowed us avert disaster on this mission..."
- teknopaul 6y agoI do wonder why we want humans on Mars. Given the huge amount of fossil fuels that must be burned on this planet to get us there. We may find Mars is dry and arid when we get there, and so is Earth.
- thefourthchime 6y agoDidn't Google buy and then sell them already?
- forgotmysn 6y agoyes, to softbank.
- hervature 6y agoIn order for Google to have sold it, there would have to be a buyer who then becomes the new owner. The new owner then owns the company and can, among other things, sell the company.
- chaostheory 6y agoYup, after Andy Rubin's sexual harassment allegations forced him to leave Google.
- ipsum2 6y agoFTA: > It is not yet clear how Boston Dynamics will fit into Hyundai, which becomes the third owner of Boston Dynamics in seven years. It was acquired by Google in 2013 and sold to Softbank Group in 2017
- dhruvarora013 6y agoCould someone explain why this acquisition makes sense? The core competencies between the two companies seem to have little overlap from my outsider perspective. Is this diversification or does Hyundai make more than automobiles?
- Krasnol 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Motor_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Motor_Group
- dharmab 6y agoHyundai has a robotics subsidiary, which they plan to expand: https://www.hyundai-robotics.com https://www.hyundai-robotics.com
- msandford 6y agoHyundai is more like a GE than a GM. Nobody would really wonder why a conglomerate like GE bought yet another company. People just don't realize that Hyundai is a conglomerate because they sell cars too.
- pitaa 6y ago> does Hyundai make more than automobiles? Much more. "It is the second largest South Korean chaebol or conglomerate, after Samsung Group, related to other Hyundai-name industries following a specialized development split and restructuring which resulted in Hyundai Motor group, Hyundai Heavy Industries Group, Hyundai Development Company Group, Hyundai Department Store Group, and Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance."[0] They even build ships and oil rigs. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Motor_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_Motor_Group
- rmah 6y agoHyundai is a South Korean chaebol (sort of like a conglomerate). While it was ostensibly restructured into "independent" groups a while back, let's just say that, in practice, they're not really independent in the western sense. In addition to building cars and trucks, Hyundai does the following: * building construction (everything from homes to office and factories) * civil engineering (bridges, dams, shipyards, etc.) * trains of various kinds * military vehicles, including tanks * construction equipment (cranes, etc.) * manufacturing equipment (furnaces, presses, etc) * shipbuilding (both civilian and military) * shipping * offshore oil rigs * powerplants and electrical grid equipment * has a large retail department store chain * insurance * chemicals and plastics * lighting and, of course... robots (currently just industrial and medical)
- cpach 6y agoSounds like a quite low valuation...?
- admiralspoo 6y agoIndeed
- dalbasal 6y agoOn what basis? I'm not disagreeing, but BD doesn't really have a business. There isn't even really an industry/market for these kind of robots. How do you value an R&D lab? A billion dollars is still a lot of money.
- cpach 6y agoGood point. I guess that’s key, there’s no straight-forward path to monetization.
- tibiahurried 6y agoA chat sold for $27.7bn just few days ago, and a far more valuable company with real hard engineering, robotics challenges just for $1b ??? This is the world we live in !
- syntaxing 6y agoNot bad for a company they reportedly bought for 100M and pumped about another 400M over these three years. But all these ownership changes really show how hard it is to find the product and market fit for complex robotics.
- zxcvbn4038 6y agoThis should be very interesting, I'm not clear on the relationships after their split but Hyundai has a huge reach across every sort of heavy industry you can think of. I found another article that says it is the motor division that is acquiring Boston Dynamics. I'm surprised the US allowed this, Boston Dynamics seems like the sort of company they would keep close to home. https://www.kedglobal.com/newsView/ked202012080011 https://www.kedglobal.com/newsView/ked202012080011
- nwsm 6y agoWhat reason would there be to disallow it?
- lemax 6y agoNational security, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (Cfius), has gone as far as requiring the repatriation of Grindr after it approved a deal for it to go to a Chinese company. https://www.ft.com/content/30408b0e-50e2-11e9-b401-8d9ef1626294 https://www.ft.com/content/30408b0e-50e2-11e9-b401-8d9ef1626... edit: not the FTC, it was Cfius
- rdsubhas 6y agoHyundai is South Korean
- kevin_thibedeau 6y agoThey've been kept afloat with a lot of DARPA funding. Not a good ROI for the taxpayer.
- souprock 6y agoITAR or even classified The robots are practically weapons. Imagine the 4-legged one chasing you down like a large cat could, then pouncing on you. Imagine the 2-legged one with armor, relentlessly stalking you like Terminator.
- 6y ago
- dec0dedab0de 6y agoAnyone else hoping for rideable robot horses?
- llboston 6y agoI have been secretly hoping Tesla to buy Boston Dynamics and revolutionize autonomous manufacturing. One day, a Starship fleet will send an army of robots to Mars and build out a city.
- mxskelly 6y agoWhat makes you think that Tesla would be able to do that, given their reputation of not being able to manufacture cars that don't fall apart immediately upon rolling off the factory line? They kinda have to be able to build cars in the first place in order to build them faster with more robots.
- dang 6y agoPlease don't take HN threads into flamewar. The GP comment may have been lightweight but this is basically trolling. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you've already been breaking the site guidelines quite a bit with this account. Can you please not? Comments like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25333233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25333233 are particularly not ok here.
- mxskelly 6y agoI frankly can't see how this is inciting a flamewar. Tesla has a pretty good record of being terrible at manufacturing. I've seen innumerable comments on this site where people make similar "what makes you think that..." comments that are inciting argument. I don't see why mine is special. Furthermore, in the linked comment, the person I was replying to did, in fact, completely miss the point of my comment and make an entirely non sequitur resposne. Will they be getting warned too?
- dang 6y agoTesla is a divisive topic with passionate feelings on both sides, and a swipe like "they [can't] build cars in the first place" is tossing a Molotov cocktail into the thread. Would you mind taking the spirit of the site more to heart? We'd appreciate it greatly. Note this, from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." Re the other person: I'd don't know which specific comment you're referring to, but generally it's not against the site guidelines to miss someone's point, or to be wrong, or to make a non sequitur. Such rules would be impossible to impose and would wipe out half the discussion anyhow (I'm being generous with "half"). If they broke the guidelines then we probably should have moderated it too, but that runs up against a different issue—we can't see everything that gets posted here, or even come close. We often don't read the threads in linear (depth-first?) order either, so a comment that appears adjacent to a normal reader might escape our attention. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=likeliest%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
- karmasimida 6y agoBoston Dynamics is such a hyped company, yet it constantly gets shoveled from one mega corp to another...Does it mean none of those companies see a profitable future with it?
- 317070 6y agoWord has it Marc Raibert is not the easiest person to work with as an acquiring company, in a sense that he will keep control of the company, and do whatever he wants with it. Good for him, I think.
- PopeDotNinja 6y agoDoing what you want works until the money runs out.
- PicassoCTs 6y agoIf your potential grows faster then the money runs out, you can play this game indefinitely. Source: River in Brazil
- alborzb 6y agoPardon my ignorance. What is 'River in Brazil'? I tried googling a phew phrases to find something to no avail.
- tngranados 6y agoAmazon
- vaughnegut 6y agoI think the poster is referring to Amazon
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Animats 6y agoWow. That's a good exit. Hyundai builds real things in quantity. This could work out.
- freeflight 6y ago> In April 2019, Boston Dynamics acquired Kinema Systems, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based startup that uses vision sensors and deep learning to help robots manipulate boxes. Kinema’s Pick system was rebranded as the Boston Dynamics Pick System. It was the company’s first commercialized product. Interesting, I thought Spot was the first commercial product BD sold. But the Pick System seems like it would be much more viable for commercial application and adaption. Particularly when combined with Hyundai's experience and presence in manufacturing, construction, healthcare [0] and even logistics [1] automation. [0] https://control.com/news/a-look-into-hyundai-robotics-latest-efforts-in-automation/ https://control.com/news/a-look-into-hyundai-robotics-latest... [1] https://www.supplychaindigital.com/technology/hyundai-improve-smart-logistics-solutions-korea-telecom https://www.supplychaindigital.com/technology/hyundai-improv...
- cptskippy 6y agoIt's shame it's Hyundai Motor Company and not Hyundai Construction Equipment.
- howmayiannoyyou 6y agoInsightful comment. The demand for robotics in industrial machinery is growing and the sales cycle is faster.
- kube-system 6y agoI assumed the headline meant the conglomerate parent Hyundai Motor Group until you pointed this out. I figured it made more sense to be aligned with their other defense and heavy industry subsidiaries.
- sys_64738 6y agoI would never buy a Hyundai motor. Not sure how I’d feel about buying their robots.
- cjmaria 6y agoSeems like this fits in well with Hyundai's autonomous car project Motional, which is also based in Boston. https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21362322/hyundai-aptiv-motional-autonomous-vehicle-joint-venture https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21362322/hyundai-aptiv-mo...
- UncleOxidant 6y agoSeems like this deal has more to do with automated manufacturing than it does with autonomous driving.
- ActorNightly 6y agoBD isn't really about precision robotics though, they are definitely more of environment estimation and motion planning company first, and legged robot company second. My guess is they got acquired for some research they have done in dynamic trajectory planning, which can be useful in self driving cars.
- blackrock 6y agoPerhaps Boston Dynamics should make a robotic vacuum cleaner. One that’s more intelligent than the Roomba. Or even a lawnmower. This can become their cash cow, that they use to fund the R&D into their serious industrial robots.
- nikolay 6y agoReally?! Only $1B for a real company with unique and futuristic products? When I look at the valuations of some Internet companies - it is sad!
- the-pigeon 6y agoThat's just software versus hardware. If you have a solid software platform you can scale it up to millions of users at very little operation cost per user. But a robot? You have a very significant cost per unit. Not to mention lots of risk if you have any warranties and for your brand. Like if you ship 100k units and they have a critical component that gives out after 2 months due to a bad manufacturing run that's a huge cost. You don't have that type of risk with software. Software is just way less risky and way more profitable.
- Triv888 6y agoThen you have Tesla....
- robotresearcher 6y ago> with unique and futuristic products ... that hasn't found a scalable business model in 28 years of operation. Hence the low valuation despite great tech. I seriously admire their work and it's great that they've been able to fund it in various ways when almost all the robot businesses come and go quickly. They've been able to grind away at very hard problems. But so far no scalable product. I hope they (and the mobile robot business in general) finds some more killer apps after weapons, vacuums, warehousing and (almost) cars. They seem to come along pretty slowly.
- dukeofdoom 6y agoAny benefit to cars having legs. Sideway parking?
- totorovirus 6y agoI thought they were related to U.S army funded projects which were highly confidential to foreigners.. I think they split the company into sensitive department and public department and hyundai is buying the public one.
- ajit_singh 6y ago$1 billion! I understand that the valuation of a company is also determined by its earning potential but did Boston Dynamics have that so much that it justified this crazy valuation. From what I know it barely made any revenue while being in business for more than 25 years. It couldn't find a customer to produce any of its hyped robots at scale. It was clearly a loss-magnet entity for Softbank which is in a selling mode in the wake of Uber/Wework disaster. In any other country valuation like this would have become the subject of enormous assessment because outside the US, $1 bn still means a lot of money. But I think USA is beyond but I really do not understand the system which facilitates such transaction without the corresponding exchange in value. How is the money being made?
- jitix 6y agoAs an immigrant engineer I feel this is actually good because it shows that the market in the US is bullish on new technologies. I believe this is what has led to most of the major inventions in the past 100 years to come from the US. In my home country (India) it’d be impossible for a company to reach such valuations based only on research and prototypes, which in turn leads to low salaries for STEM people, culminating in brain drain.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y agoA ~30 years bet on a company is difficult in any country or any sector for the matter of fact unless it has potential to change the landscape of future wars, thereby providing ROI in the form of strategic superiority or at least that's what U.S. DoD hoped for with Boston Dynamics and it didn't happen. On the same context, Imagine if Boston Dynamics was only involved with drones, it would have never changed hands.
- jitix 6y agoAnd it’s fine. Boston Dynamics paved a way with research and prototypes and some company will come along and commoditize it. My point was that the economic culture in the US supports and this kind of innovation. No other country - maybe barring China, can do that. I’m not praising the US as a country either (infact I’m moving to Canada). The US has deep flaws but it’s one redeeming quality is industrial innovation.
- valuearb 6y agoCutting edge high tech company goes to die under ownership of massive conglomerate. It’s an old but consistent story.
- birdsbirdsbirds 6y agoIsn't Hyundai cutting edge on its own? I had the impression that Hyundai is quite innovative. This could be a good match where BD profits massively from Hyundai's resources.
- bobsmooth 6y agoHyundai has been in robotics for a long time. They're precisely the type of company to develop BD's technology.
- calcifer 6y agoHow does that apply to this case? Hyundai is a massive player with cutting edge technology in a wide variety of heavy industries. Acquiring a robotics company seems to make perfect sense to me.
- postingpals 6y agoCrunchyroll acquired by Sony, BD acquired by Hyundai, Slack acquired by Salesforce... Our economic system seems to have a natural tendency towards monopoly. This is happening before our eyes and we don't even realise it.
- throwbacktictac 6y agoCan you expand upon you thought? How do each of these acquisition make a case for the acquirer tending towards a monopoly? It seems Boston Dyanmics is a solution looking for a problem. It can be a great company but it's going to take a long investment by Hyundai. It's been in the hands of some huge companies and none of them have been able to squeeze a profit out of it.
- postingpals 6y agoThese are just 3 examples of thousands of acquisitions by big companies with dominance in their industry. The trend is very clear, a handful of companies buy out competition and own virtually every serious competitor in the market. There are ongoing lawsuits against tech companies for doing this, and unfortunately companies can lobby to keep the laws on their side. Also, businesses like BD are always going to tend to want to sell rather than compete, this is obvious. I don't see how one could argue there is no natural tendency towards monopoly capital given these key facts.
- blahblahblogger 6y agoThis is a key point of Peter Thiel's in his talk at YC from some years ago. He expands on it to great effect in a few other videos too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtJ0C0UHFfE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtJ0C0UHFfE.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> Our economic system seems to have a natural tendency towards monopoly We had this in post-War America. What broke it up? Activist investors. Corporate raiders. The stereotypical bad guys of 1990s media. (Also, antitrust action. The situation is a product of public and private sector failures combined.)
- osdotsystem 6y agoA partnership might have been more valuable! It still intrigues me how it's not the other way round! Anime effect!
- christmm 6y agoWhat happened to those 5 robotics companies Google acquired in 2014?
- rakkhi 6y agoIn Korea the dog eats you... Slightly racist but lighten up its funny
- dancemethis 6y agoWhat does Hyundai want with an erectile disfunction clinic?