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And Boston Dynamics just sold for only $1B. Something is not right.
by bufferoverflow 6y ago
And Boston Dynamics just sold for only $1B. Something is not right.
- timdaub 6y agoSo basically you're saying that a robotics company that periodically ships impressive robot demos should be worth more than a weird video game for kids? IMO while I tend to agree that achieving what Boston Dynamics did is surely the bigger engineering achievement, that doesn't say much in the company's position in the market. Also here's a more positive narrative: Why not celebrate that online kids games are now evaluated more than military technology!
- newswasboring 6y ago>Why not celebrate that online kids games are now evaluated more than military technology! I am not sure I get your point here. First, boston dynamics is not only for military technology, sure its initial and I think a lot of current funding comes from defense stuff but so did the Internet and early web technology's funding. So if we ignore that spin, the narrative is that online kids game is being valued more than advances in robotics. Now that does not sound positive in many ways.
- emteycz 6y agoBoston Dynamics is not a proxy for advances in robotics. It's a company on the market, and it doesn't have much business. Academic research continues to be valued and thus funded.
- newswasboring 6y ago>Academic research continues to be valued and thus funded. Is it though? Do you have a source for that? Now I understand its hard to actually calculate how much funding is going to which field, after all Robotics is an interdisciplinary field if there ever was one. Last year the AI budget in US was around 1Billion and another half billion or so for quantum computing. Those numbers are so small its astounding considering a kids game is valued at 29.5 billion american dollars. edit: Source for numbers https://syncedreview.com/2020/08/22/trump-slashes-research-funding-but-raises-the-us-federal-ai-budget-by-34-percent/ https://syncedreview.com/2020/08/22/trump-slashes-research-f...
- timdaub 6y agoI think what you're neglecting here is that narratives are just subjective viewpoints. There's no one true narrative. And my point with choosing a THAT narrative was to put the headline into a positive light: More money towards kids games than military tech! Hooray! Apart from that, there's of course a very logical argument too. Which is that a digital economy like Roblox is a novelty. That means it's difficult to evaluate and often it's evaluated by its potential. The economics for robots on the other hand are drastically different. They'll have to be researched, developed, built, and maintained. Whereas for any software: You write it once and copy it for "free" to as many customers as you want. Anyways, anyone is free to pick and chose their narrative according to their liking.
- newswasboring 6y agoI think that is a very weird way to look at it. I think we are using the word narrative differently. I used it as the "story" which fits all known facts. Cherry picking facts can lead to false narratives. Now my read that boston dynamics is a signal to indicate robotics advances may be wrong, after all I know very little about the industry, but then my narrative is also wrong. There are true and false narratives.
- ike77 6y agoSometimes, when I look at my "smart" robot vacuum cleaner repeatedly banging his head against my table, I think that this poor creature would deserve some of the behavioral innovations that video game characters got.
- bkanber 6y agoYes, valued... on the market... as a company... whose goal is to make money. Ask any IT pro if they've heard of Boston Dynamics: yes! Do you own any Boston Dynamics products? No. Ask a normal person if they've heard of Boston Dynamics: no. Ask a normal person if they've heard of Roblox: yes! Do you own any Roblox products? Yes! My kids love it! You can't take some highfalutin notion of 'potential progress in engineering' and directly translate it to market value. Market value comes from performance in the market.
- Barrin92 6y agoto be fair I still have no real idea what the use case for all of these Boston Dynamic robots is, primarily they seem to make funny Youtube content with them to be honest. Take the 'Spot' robot. It costs 75k and can carry 14kg of weight. For that cash you can hire a human who is way smarter and can carry much more for like, a fraction of that price.
- catmanjan 6y agoBut that human has rights and can't work 24 hours a day...
- Barrin92 6y agoneither can the robot, I think it lasts 90 minutes or so. And employers don't mind human rights if it's still cheaper than the machine
- throwmemoney 6y agoIt is more to do with volumes of product, hardware is costly and the margins are thin if targeting less than 1000 per year. The problem is the product is not versatile to be adopted in a more general sense. The Engineering accomplishment of the company are great, but it does not have a broad enough market and hence reflected in the cost of the product. Similarly, you can compare that to technical books and why they cost so much as the expected sales volumes are not high enough unlike a fictional character book, prime example Harry Potter, it also became a big screen hit with fans.
- candiodari 6y agoHiring cheap human labor in the US costs (for minimum wage) $36 to $40k per year. So according to [1] spot costs 1 year of a decent-wage employee or 2 years of a minimum wage employee. And of course that's disregarding that spot will happily pull nighttime duty, work on weekends, Christmas, and will happily walk into a chemical plant risking his life for you ... [1] https://beebole.com/blog/how-to-calculate-the-real-cost-of-an-employee/ https://beebole.com/blog/how-to-calculate-the-real-cost-of-a...
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- Kiro 6y agoWhile $29.5B is a crazy valuation we should not underestimate the powerhouse that Roblox is. It's not just some random overhyped fad. It's dominating the younger demographics right now with no signs of stopping.
- catmanjan 6y agoI think younger demographics are an overhyped fad, tech companies are just becoming long arms of the financial sector
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- newswasboring 6y ago> long arms of the financial sector Not familiar with this phrasing. I tried to google it but didn't turn up something I could understand. Care to explain?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- the-dude 6y agoMaybe he is hinting at TINA ( There Is No Alternative ).
- kelchqvjpnfasjl 6y agoRoblox was released like 15 years ago. I don't think it is a fad. When users grow out of it there will be new young users to take their place.
- onion2k 6y agoRoblox has more than 150 million monthly active users, and many of them actually spend money on the platform. Boston Dynamics has some very impressive tech demos. I know which I think should be worth more.
- philliphaydon 6y agoIf they have 150m active users of which many spend money... why do they need to raise money?
- blowfish721 6y agoMy thought exactly. If they can’t make enough money on their own with that many users then how can they be valued so high.
- anonytrary 6y agoIf you can do X, then you will imagine X + 1.
- onion2k 6y agoSame reason as any other company needs to raise money - to grow faster than their cashflow will allow. A business having healthy revenue, or even healthy profit, doesn't mean they can afford to achieve their ambitions right now. Raising enables them to do more. The fact a business is raising money is rarely a sign that they actually need money; companies raise because they want money to do something. Heck, if your company genuinely needs money raising is much harder because there's a real risk of the business failing.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoHow so? How much revenue does Boston Dynamics generate?
- postalrat 6y agoHow much profit has Roblox made?
- austhrow743 6y agoRoblox has a product that people pay for. Boston Dynamics has a handful of YouTube videos.
- marktangotango 6y agoThis is true in a very real sense, plus Boston dynamics has been bought and sold with some regularity, indicating there seems to some obstacles monetizing the tech.
- cptnapalm 6y agoAnd, for me, the major impact of those YouTube videos has been the adorable parody of a robot and its robodog: https://youtu.be/y3RIHnK0_NE https://youtu.be/y3RIHnK0_NE
- jsnell 6y agoThe crazier comparison is to other gaming companies. $30G is more than the market cap of Take Two (think GTA V). It's about Ubisoft + Capcom + Square Enix + Sega combined. And presumably the people who just invested half a billion at $30G expect it to go significantly up from that after the company goes public.
- candiodari 6y agoBut it's pretty clear that Ubisoft + Capcom + Square Enix + Sega are the dinosaurs. They haven't had reasonable growth in sometimes decades. They have never even approached 150 million players, never mind on a sustained monthly basis. Man that statement makes me feel old, but Sega is the biggest, their growth happened in the previous century, decades ago. Sega genesis, which I'm randomly assuming was the best selling product of this group of companies, got to about 30 million players. Nowhere near 700 million revenue. To put it mildly, this was not something they could sustain. So I have little doubt that Roblox is indeed worth more than the sum of these companies. I don't like the games either, sort of a second life but for kindergarten, but clearly they are commanding more success in the market than those companies.
- eterm 6y agoDo you know who Ubisoft are? They are huge, own many studios and their sales are orders of magnitude higher than the Genesis, which is an odd assumption to make.
- Aeronwen 6y agoAn Ubisoft badge is a warning label that says you should avoid buying this new game. They may have made decent stuff 15 years ago, but now they make pretty garbage.
- marcinzm 6y ago>Nowhere near 700 million revenue. Ubisoft alone makes more than $2 billion in revenue per year. edit: Square-Enix is another $2.3 billion in revenue. Capcom is around $700 million per year. And Sega is even more at $3.4 billion per year.
- keithnz 6y agonearly every parent I know, including myself, has sunk a bunch of money into "robux", none have sunk any money into boston dynamics robots.
- wtf_is_up 6y agoWhat are BD's sales?
- loosetypes 6y agoOn the other hand, Away luggage raised $100 million relatively recently. I have an Away carry-on and it’s nice, but no technical wonder. Surely Roblox’ platform’s sophistication, reach, and financial potential are orders of magnitude higher than.. a suitcase.
- bufferoverflow 6y agoAway luggage raised $100 million at $1.4B valuation. Which is nuts.
- vallas 6y agoRoblox is a platform, Boston Dynamics is not. Boston Dynamics in Roblox can exist.
- alisiddiq 6y agoIn a world where Tesla is worth over 700B, it makes sense
- bufferoverflow 6y agoTesla valuation makes sense to me. They control the market of expensive electric cars that sell like hot cakes. And they will for many years. They build robotic factories at incredible rates. They have a great solar roof business. They have a great battery business. They innovate battery tech. They have a truck and a semi and a model Y coming out. And they promised a cheap electric car.
- mint2 6y agoHardware is hard. Margins and expansion is so different. Building real things is hard and expensive. Building software, sure it’s hard, but it’s nowhere near as hard.
- bluedino 6y agoMincraft/Mojang only sold for $2.5B if that's any help
- sjg007 6y agoRoblox is beating Minecraft in MAUs. Roblox is also a platform.
- lhorie 6y agoA counter way of looking at it: kids today are the Boston Dynamics of tomorrow. Roblox is selling pickaxes.
- Taylor_OD 6y agoCome up with a clear path to $ within X years and you could be the next buyer of Boston Dynamics too. I want the cool robot company to be worth more than the online game company too but revenue is what drives these things. I'm sure BD could make more money if they exclusively signed military contracts. But I'm sure that's not what a lot of people here would want either.
- PlsDontBan 6y agoWalking robots are great, but they aren't actually very practical. I wouldn't be suprised if the majority of their sales are to rich people who just want to have a robot dog as a status symbol/toy.
- grzm 6y agoFor variable terrain, legged robots have advantages over tracks or wheels. That doesn't preclude some—even a large number—being sold as luxury items, but it doesn't mean they aren't more practical in some circumstances.