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Anyone know anything else about the company? Founders, investors, etc? The only thing I could dig up is that Manu Kumar has Lytro's Twitter account on his "port

by irq 15y ago

Anyone know anything else about the company? Founders, investors, etc? The only thing I could dig up is that Manu Kumar has Lytro's Twitter account on his "portfolio" list [1] and that the domain was, interestingly, created in 2003. Formerly known as "Refocus Imaging". EDIT: And a few job listings [2] [3]. [1]: https://twitter.com/#!/ManuKumar/portfolio/members https://twitter.com/#!/ManuKumar/portfolio/members [2]: http://www.indeed.com/q-Lytro-l-Mountain-View,-CA-jobs.html http://www.indeed.com/q-Lytro-l-Mountain-View,-CA-jobs.html [3]: http://www.jobnum.com/Manufacturing-jobs/296905.html http://www.jobnum.com/Manufacturing-jobs/296905.html

apu 15y ago
Ren Ng, a former student of Marc Levoy's (at Stanford), started the company. Ng was widely believed to be one of the rising superstars in computer graphics/computational imaging when he decided to leave academia and start Refocus Imaging. The company seems to be doing well, and recently changed names to Lytro in order to not be pigeonholed into refocusing applications only.
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  A bit off-topic, but do you think that's the right approach? A niche field like that can be really good for a company, and if you want to broach another field, don't you think it's a good idea to start a separate brand and image for that field instead of generalizing away from your niche? McDonald's bought Chipotle but didn't rename it "McDonald's", neither did they rename McDonald's Chiptole. McDonald's is for hamburgers and Chipotle is for burritos even if the money ends up in the hands of the same people. It is almost never beneficial to merge existing brands (unless one of the brands has a horrible reputation), so why should someone generalize away from a successful niche application and lose the associated branding instead of just starting a new brand for the new field?
  - apu 15y ago
    I don't know -- I'm a computer vision researcher, not a marketer ;-)
    - mattdeboard 15y ago
      And thank God for both those facts. Too many of one and not enough of the other.

by irq 15y ago

apu 15y ago

Ren Ng, a former student of Marc Levoy's (at Stanford), started the company. Ng was widely believed to be one of the rising superstars in computer graphics/computational imaging when he decided to leave academia and start Refocus Imaging. The company seems to be doing well, and recently changed names to Lytro in order to not be pigeonholed into refocusing applications only.

cookiecaper 15y ago
A bit off-topic, but do you think that's the right approach? A niche field like that can be really good for a company, and if you want to broach another field, don't you think it's a good idea to start a separate brand and image for that field instead of generalizing away from your niche? McDonald's bought Chipotle but didn't rename it "McDonald's", neither did they rename McDonald's Chiptole. McDonald's is for hamburgers and Chipotle is for burritos even if the money ends up in the hands of the same people. It is almost never beneficial to merge existing brands (unless one of the brands has a horrible reputation), so why should someone generalize away from a successful niche application and lose the associated branding instead of just starting a new brand for the new field?
- apu 15y ago
  I don't know -- I'm a computer vision researcher, not a marketer ;-)
  - mattdeboard 15y ago
    And thank God for both those facts. Too many of one and not enough of the other.