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Hyundai acquires controlling stake in Boston Dynamics for $880M

412 points by sidcool 5y ago

justicezyx 5y ago
Good move. I think the next step of mobility is a mobile robot. The cars of the future should be a central hub for move people between places, but able to do a lot more through physical manipulation, instead of becoming a enlarged mobile information terminal. Thus, developing cars as robots are going to be more useful in that future. I personally will invest time in building products that are mobility robots, not cars with giant screen.
- powerapple 5y ago
  A car can take you to work and instead of waiting in carpark, it can help you do stuff, that would be awesome XD
  - mrweasel 5y ago
    I just want my car to drive itself to service checks, when I'm at work. Save all that trouble of having to gamble that they have a car you can use, or there's a bus route that won't take you an hour back and forth. Self-driving done right could save me from having two cars. It could take me to work, drive back home, pickup the wife, drive her to work. Go back and pick me up in the afternoon, drop me of at home and the drive back to get the wife.
    - jahller 5y ago
      this would be the best usage for what we consider cars imaginable. also would negate the need to personally own a car. just order one from a fleet of autonomous cars if you are in need of mobility.
      - mrweasel 5y ago
        Ideally yes, but there's a lot of hurdles to overcome. For many it would work just fine, but for other there's going to be minor details that makes it work less well. Firstly we need to spread out peoples work day. We can't all be at the office a 8:00, and go home at 16:00. it wouldn't make economical sense in have a fleet large enough to handle peak hours, but have the cars do nothing most of the day. There's also details like: I would like a car to pick me up at 15:45, and drive me to the kindergarten, and that car MUST have a seat for a three year old (but not a seat of brand X, Y, or Z, because they're to small). Or I need a car with a trailer, or a truck, because I'm moving 500kg of dirt to the recycling station. Most people shop around for cars and pick very specific cars that fit their needs. So renting for a fleet of cars also need a rather large variety and flexibility in allowed usage. I believe that many would still want to buy their own cars, even if it's self-driving, to ensure it's available when they need it, and that it fulfil their specific needs. If we didn't have all these specific needs, most of us could just take the bus, which in turn would make it feasible to have all the bus routes people would need.
        gilbertbw 5y ago
        > it wouldn't make economical sense in have a fleet large enough to handle peak hours, but have the cars do nothing most of the day. But that’s the current state of the world. Even if you have enough cars to meet peak demand you will have an efficiency saving (at least where I live you see a lot of cars in driveways during rush hour traffic). That said I agree that for a lot of people their car is an extension of their home, they’ll keep the golf clubs and a coat in the boot etc. But for the 80% case of just carrying a rucksack to and from work there is a massive efficiency improvement to be had.
        mrweasel 5y ago
        > But that’s the current state of the world. True, but the difference is who's carrying the financial risk of the buying the car. Right now it's the individual consumers, who are mostly forced to do so, because better alternatives are not available. Leasing companies would never buy a fleet of cars that would sit mostly unused. Their cars needs to be on the road most of the time. This puts us back in Uber vs. taxis. Uber works because (depending on area and regulation) there cannot be sufficient taxis to handle peak demands, that wouldn't be financially sound for the taxi companies. Uber tries to fix this, by taping into idle cars in the driveways. A company that maintains a fleet of cars that you can just order on-demand, would always have to few cars for rush hour.
    - prawn 5y ago
      This made me think of something I hadn't considered before - whether we'll first see automated driving, but only when the vehicle is empty. e.g., you drive yourself somewhere, then the vehicle moves on to another job. If the vehicle is privately owned, it would park or drive home for your wife to use. If part of a fleet, it would just drive on to the next request. Cars in that mode could be constrained to a less dangerous speed to limit damage in an accident. I don't want to drive to work at 20km/h, but once I'm out of the car, I don't really care how slowly it goes. Of course, it wouldn't necessarily work to combine too broadly differing speeds on the same roads. But it would remove a bit of the "I'm not putting on my VR goggles to do work and trusting this car to drive to the office" fear.
      - slavik81 5y ago
        A basic form of low-speed self-driving would be automated valet parking. Drop people off or pick them up at the entrance, then go park far away. If there was a common communication standard, the vehicles could also park much more tightly than is done in a normal parking lot. You don't need to keep empty space behind each car when you can coordinate the parked cars to move and clear a path. My guess is that you could park almost twice as many cars in the same space. The combination of reducing parking lot size and freeing people from walking to/from the lot would open up many interesting options for increasing density and walkability in commercial areas.
      - itsoktocry 5y ago
        >I don't want to drive to work at 20km/h, but once I'm out of the car, I don't really care how slowly it goes. The other people on the road trying to get to work probably do.
        prawn 5y ago
        Yes, figured that went without saying. From my comment: "Of course, it wouldn't necessarily work to combine too broadly differing speeds on the same roads."
        curryst 5y ago
        There are other options. They could take surface roads instead of highways. Or they could potentially use the emergency lane if there's some kind of communication standard to let them know when to get out of the emergency lane.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - blackoil 5y ago
    Autobots, collect the grocery and parcel.
- thingsgoup 5y ago
  Riding a robot horse could be fun! Such a thing would likely have an easier time navigating complicated terrain than any vehicle with wheels.
  - justicezyx 5y ago
    4 pods shelled tank in ghost in the shell! The most impressive design I know of from any entertainment piece.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    Almost as fun as riding a real horse and only several thousand times more expensive!
jmcgough 5y ago
They've gone from Google -> Softbank -> Hyundai in a few years. Does anyone know where their revenue is coming from currently? For all the flashy videos they put out, you so rarely see them that I'm not sure if they're just doing well on the B2B side (warehouse automation? military contracts?), or if they've been in the red for the last decade.
- ackbar03 5y ago
  I asked something like this last time as well. I don't think they have any meaningful revenue except for their dog bot "spot" which they only launched very recently. They basically just survive on funding, kind of like some university research group
- jmcgough 5y ago
  Looks like they've just been bleeding money for years: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-17/boston-dynamics-needs-to-start-making-money-off-its-robots https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-17/boston-dy...
- jahller 5y ago
  i'm not sure if they operate in the classical sense of a company with a budget. i see them more as a research facility with huge interest from the military and law enforcement complex.
- 88840-8855 5y ago
  They bleed money and are not revenue positive yet. And all those re-acquisitions indicate that none of their parent company could provide a nurturing environment to enable the company to make profit. My two cents. If not military use or a very expensive niche use, e.g. for emergency services, then those things will have a pretty hard time to enter the mass-consumer market. What will probably happen is that a Chinese company will be able to produce a 80% version of those machines for less than 1k. This is when those things will become interesting to consumers for whatever purpose those things can be used. As long as the SPOT robot costs over 70k, nobody will even consider buying it.
MichaelMoser123 5y ago
i thought that boston dynamics were a former DOD contractor, did this cause any problems with the authorization of the sale? (here it says that they got a lot of initial DARPA funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Dynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Dynamics )
- numair 5y ago
  We just sold South Korea a bunch of actual weapons so I don’t think these could-be weapons are going to attract too much controversy. And if you think there’s some actual weaponry among the could-be weapons technology, well... Take a look around the neighborhood. Maybe that’s the point? (I don’t think this is true; I am of the belief that the hidden secret within most companies, regardless of size or industry, is that they’re way more boring and way less sophisticated than they would like to appear.)
  - smhost 5y ago
    > Take a look around the neighborhood. Maybe that’s the point? Probably not, since South Korea maintains pretty good relations with its neighbors. South Korea (as well as the rest of the world) doesn't see the U.S. anymore as a rational partner, but as something to be managed with caution. North Korea is unironically seen as a more predictable and reliable enemy than the U.S. is seen as a reliable ally. Nobody is happy about this, but that's the reality.
    - jgilias 5y ago
      Are you actually from South Korea to be able to comment on what the South Korean perception on their neighborhood is? Like, this is a no offense intended genuine question. Because from an outside perspective the neighborhood really looks challenging. China is growing stronger and throws muscle around a lot with diplomatic rows ensuing even over traditional ways of cabbage preparation. Relationships with Japan are cordial at best due to WWII legacy. North Korea seems to be a pretty big liability.
      - 5y ago
mrweasel 5y ago
Normally tech companies tend to be overpriced, but $880M for 80% of Boston Dynamics (total value of $1.1 billion), doesn't that seem a little low? Other tech companies can seemingly lose millions, as long as there's an advertising or data-mining angle to the product. Because Boston Dynamics aim to actually create physical products they then get valued lower?
- eric4smith 5y ago
  I doubt they want BD for the products they're making. They want BD for all the hundreds of tiny little innovations they're making. For example, a motor that has more torque with low power consumption. A joint that can flex a certain way. All those things are worth $100000000x more than a robotic Spot when it comes to industrial applications.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  The research they've done is undeniably awesome, but valuations aren't based on awesomeness, they're based on ability to make money. So far, Boston Dynamics hasn't done much there. There's potential to make a lot of money, but that's far off.
- qeternity 5y ago
  It's the same issue faced by other "moonshot" R&D enterprises like DeepMind. They burn tremendous amounts of cash, and as other comments have noted, the path to profit is unlikely to be a direct path through their core competency, whether that be general purpose robotics or AGI. DeepMind's greatest commercial achievement seems to have been around optimizing energy usage in Google's datacenters, which as a standalone product would have a relatively small addressable market. The progress that BD has made is likely similar: immediately valuable to a small number of players, even if the long term winds up being something far more grand.
- balfirevic 5y ago
  > Normally tech companies tend to be overpriced According to what criteria?
  - 5y ago
eric4smith 5y ago
These are one of the few times I can say that I don't care if Boston Dynamics are making money as yet. Boston Dynamics are one of the few real serious players in the robotics space worldwide doing deep R&D. Hyundai are basically paying for the BD Labs research. And they are well positioned to reap the products and techniques from the lab with their own manufacturing and engineering prowess and experience over the next decade. And it won't be walking dogs. It will be things like a little flexi-joint in a car that you buy without knowing (or caring) it's in there. Or some industrial machine that Hyundai builds that gives them a 5% competitive edge in the manufacturing of it that 99.9999% of us never hear about. But for that it's worth it. Very happy to see people put good money into this Lab.
- nly 5y ago
  Robots that build cars seem most likely? Not sure how many staff your average car factory has, but due to sheer product complexity it's still more than other industries like food manufacturing. Maybe we'll see vast car factories, churning out thousands of cars per day, with only a half dozen staff in years to come?
  - eric4smith 5y ago
    That's a good assumption to make. They for sure see 800M+ value in it.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - weego 5y ago
    Robots already build cars, and supply of new cars is often out-stripped by demand. It's not really new ground. The limitations in car production are always the component supply chain, not the actual manufacture.
    - nly 5y ago
      Google image search "car factory" and it's super obviously it's quite labour intensive. I'm not sure why an investment in robots has to be "new ground".
yarg 5y ago
Why leave the word "controlling" out of the title?
- elliekelly 5y ago
  The headline definitely downplays Hyundai’s involvement: > The deal will involve Hyundai and its affiliates, including Hyundai Motor Co., Hyundai Mobis Co., and Hyundai Glovis Co. > Hyundai Motor, Hyundai Mobis, Hyundai Glovis, and Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun will have 30%, 20%, 10%, and 20% share respectively. It’s been a while since I’ve had to think about consolidated financial reporting for subsidiaries and — if anyone happens to know — I’d be curious to understand how (or whether) these ownership tranches will make it onto Hyundai Parent Co’s financial statements?
- sammyaxe 5y ago
  I believe that word is in the title
  - yarg 5y ago
    It is now; it was left out of the submission title despite being part of the article's.
jeffrallen 5y ago
I, for one, salute my new dog-shaped robot overlords.
Shadonototro 5y ago
korea taking over USA, hahaha that's funny, America really is dying
nr2x 5y ago
Seems like they’d be a good fit for Disney, making theme park attractions.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  I'd be a little sad if this technology only ended up being useful as a toy, but then again the biggest disruptors are at one point thought of as toys, so maybe that's about where we are in the process?
  - nr2x 5y ago
    If they monetized their YouTube channel I’m guessing it would be their biggest revenue source, as far as I’m concerned they are an entertainment company already.
pcurve 5y ago
Probably one of the better companies to acquire controlling stake in BD because several of their own companies would directly benefit from robotics.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
What's the difference between a "controlling stake" and just owning the company?
- tomhoward 5y ago
  A controlling stake means you own enough shares to have full voting control (i.e., you control the board votes, can appoint the executives and set the company direction) without having to pay for 100% of the shares. There are a few reasons to only acquire a controlling stake rather than 100% of the shares; you might want to preserve capital for other uses, or leave some shares to be traded on public markets so the stock still has a market valuation.
  - Ensorceled 5y ago
    Or to leave key executives and tech leaders with some shares.
- dharmab 5y ago
  A controlling stake doesn't have to own the majority of the company, just the majority of voting shares. It gives you meaningful influence over the board and executives but does not entitle you to all (or even a majority of) of any profit.
ConcernedCoder 5y ago
I can imagine those dancing robots being used to replace workers in an auto assembly plant.
orliesaurus 5y ago
BD was once under Google/Alphabet's control - then they let them go, what does that mean? Was their robotics efforts not useful to Google's own research branch? Did acquihired the talent and then resold what was left to SoftBank? I have no clue...then SoftBank sold it again.. What I know is surely BD must have gone through a lot of turmoil (acquisitions) for such a small company (300ish employees?) since its inception!
ManuelKiessling 5y ago
And a fricking messenger app sold for $21.8 billion. Unbelievable.
- didip 5y ago
  When you look at how scared Facebook was of WhatsApp and combined that with FB market cap... $22 billion makes so much sense.
- macspoofing 5y ago
  To be fair, nobody was under any illusion that this valuation had anything to do with the technology WhatsApp developed. Any half competent team could recreate WhatsApp. The price was for 1 billion active users. That's a little harder to get.
- analognoise 5y ago
  Real stuff isn't highly valued.
- jokoon 5y ago
  Being able to do sentiment analysis on all the consumers of the world is a goldmine for revenue. Marketing doesn't have a good reputation, but information is power.
- ncr100 5y ago
  Believe the numbers, with more numbers: Comparing numerically, the revenue generated from ($21.8b) WhatsApp is higher than from Boston Dynamics ($880M). For 2020 WhatsApp approximately == $5.5b (Forbes https://www.businessofapps.com/data/whatsapp-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/whatsapp-statistics/) For 2020 Boston Dynamics == $53m (GrowJo https://growjo.com/company/Boston_Dynamics https://growjo.com/company/Boston_Dynamics)
luxuryballs 5y ago
Let’s go robot that steps out of the trunk and pumps my gas for me!
ufmace 5y ago
Hyundai's interests are broad enough that I really wonder what they intend to do with it. Are they just going to do factory helper robots that are super-specialized and we'll never see? Or will they actually commercially sell some version of these types of robots?
crsv 5y ago
I think it's quite the loss for the US to allow a foreign company to gain controlling interest in such a cutting edge firm. Some of what they've built I'd have to imagine could be of very real national interest as it relates to any of the military applications.
sergiotapia 5y ago
Boston Dynamics is the one company on this planet that inspires me and makes me believe in a wonderful future that we have yet to even glimpse. I hope they keep doing what they're doing and elevate our species to new heights. God bless them.
ineedasername 5y ago
For years they made the news with bots that seemed to have direct defense/militaristic use. Not too long ago, or at least the last time I remember them hitting my news streams, was when they demonstrated a bot capable of handling moderately complex warehouse tasks. If my reading of this sequence of events is correct, it is probably no coincidence that foreign investment came in after applications shifted from tactical militaristic use that would likely be restricted to the US & allies, and now also includes applications more generally applicable to uses outside of warfare. It seems that military applications may be compelling, but plowshares are more economically interesting.
- Judgmentality 5y ago
  That's not what happened. The military flat out rejected their robots for being too big, too loud, and too slow. So they pivoted to try to find a new customer.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    I think my comment generally still holds: after their pivot they received more commercial interest. But no, I wasn't aware that they had failed to keep military interest, thank you.
Baeocystin 5y ago
Honestly, of all the mega-corps that could have been the ones for this round of BD bailout, this isn't a bad choice at all. Hyundai already has a strong background in robotics, and hopefully they'll be able to help Boston Dynamics to finally capitalize on their excellent work. I do wish controlling interest had managed to stay stateside, but, well, it is what it is.
kingsuper20 5y ago
I'm surprised it wasn't Amazon buying them. There's bound to be more than a few people that steal from their warehouses.
michael1999 5y ago
I’m picturing a waking digger for specialized terrain. I think Hyundai/BD combo has a chance to do it safely. Maybe something small like a Kubota. https://kubota.ca/en/products/power-equipment/excavators/k008 https://kubota.ca/en/products/power-equipment/excavators/k00...

412 points by sidcool 5y ago

Good move. I think the next step of mobility is a mobile robot. The cars of the future should be a central hub for move people between places, but able to do a lot more through physical manipulation, instead of becoming a enlarged mobile information terminal. Thus, developing cars as robots are going to be more useful in that future. I personally will invest time in building products that are mobility robots, not cars with giant screen.

powerapple 5y ago
A car can take you to work and instead of waiting in carpark, it can help you do stuff, that would be awesome XD
- mrweasel 5y ago
  I just want my car to drive itself to service checks, when I'm at work. Save all that trouble of having to gamble that they have a car you can use, or there's a bus route that won't take you an hour back and forth. Self-driving done right could save me from having two cars. It could take me to work, drive back home, pickup the wife, drive her to work. Go back and pick me up in the afternoon, drop me of at home and the drive back to get the wife.
  - jahller 5y ago
    this would be the best usage for what we consider cars imaginable. also would negate the need to personally own a car. just order one from a fleet of autonomous cars if you are in need of mobility.
    - mrweasel 5y ago
      Ideally yes, but there's a lot of hurdles to overcome. For many it would work just fine, but for other there's going to be minor details that makes it work less well. Firstly we need to spread out peoples work day. We can't all be at the office a 8:00, and go home at 16:00. it wouldn't make economical sense in have a fleet large enough to handle peak hours, but have the cars do nothing most of the day. There's also details like: I would like a car to pick me up at 15:45, and drive me to the kindergarten, and that car MUST have a seat for a three year old (but not a seat of brand X, Y, or Z, because they're to small). Or I need a car with a trailer, or a truck, because I'm moving 500kg of dirt to the recycling station. Most people shop around for cars and pick very specific cars that fit their needs. So renting for a fleet of cars also need a rather large variety and flexibility in allowed usage. I believe that many would still want to buy their own cars, even if it's self-driving, to ensure it's available when they need it, and that it fulfil their specific needs. If we didn't have all these specific needs, most of us could just take the bus, which in turn would make it feasible to have all the bus routes people would need.
      - gilbertbw 5y ago
        > it wouldn't make economical sense in have a fleet large enough to handle peak hours, but have the cars do nothing most of the day. But that’s the current state of the world. Even if you have enough cars to meet peak demand you will have an efficiency saving (at least where I live you see a lot of cars in driveways during rush hour traffic). That said I agree that for a lot of people their car is an extension of their home, they’ll keep the golf clubs and a coat in the boot etc. But for the 80% case of just carrying a rucksack to and from work there is a massive efficiency improvement to be had.
        mrweasel 5y ago
        > But that’s the current state of the world. True, but the difference is who's carrying the financial risk of the buying the car. Right now it's the individual consumers, who are mostly forced to do so, because better alternatives are not available. Leasing companies would never buy a fleet of cars that would sit mostly unused. Their cars needs to be on the road most of the time. This puts us back in Uber vs. taxis. Uber works because (depending on area and regulation) there cannot be sufficient taxis to handle peak demands, that wouldn't be financially sound for the taxi companies. Uber tries to fix this, by taping into idle cars in the driveways. A company that maintains a fleet of cars that you can just order on-demand, would always have to few cars for rush hour.
  - prawn 5y ago
    This made me think of something I hadn't considered before - whether we'll first see automated driving, but only when the vehicle is empty. e.g., you drive yourself somewhere, then the vehicle moves on to another job. If the vehicle is privately owned, it would park or drive home for your wife to use. If part of a fleet, it would just drive on to the next request. Cars in that mode could be constrained to a less dangerous speed to limit damage in an accident. I don't want to drive to work at 20km/h, but once I'm out of the car, I don't really care how slowly it goes. Of course, it wouldn't necessarily work to combine too broadly differing speeds on the same roads. But it would remove a bit of the "I'm not putting on my VR goggles to do work and trusting this car to drive to the office" fear.
    - slavik81 5y ago
      A basic form of low-speed self-driving would be automated valet parking. Drop people off or pick them up at the entrance, then go park far away. If there was a common communication standard, the vehicles could also park much more tightly than is done in a normal parking lot. You don't need to keep empty space behind each car when you can coordinate the parked cars to move and clear a path. My guess is that you could park almost twice as many cars in the same space. The combination of reducing parking lot size and freeing people from walking to/from the lot would open up many interesting options for increasing density and walkability in commercial areas.
    - itsoktocry 5y ago
      >I don't want to drive to work at 20km/h, but once I'm out of the car, I don't really care how slowly it goes. The other people on the road trying to get to work probably do.
      - prawn 5y ago
        Yes, figured that went without saying. From my comment: "Of course, it wouldn't necessarily work to combine too broadly differing speeds on the same roads."
      - curryst 5y ago
        There are other options. They could take surface roads instead of highways. Or they could potentially use the emergency lane if there's some kind of communication standard to let them know when to get out of the emergency lane.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- blackoil 5y ago
  Autobots, collect the grocery and parcel.
thingsgoup 5y ago
Riding a robot horse could be fun! Such a thing would likely have an easier time navigating complicated terrain than any vehicle with wheels.
- justicezyx 5y ago
  4 pods shelled tank in ghost in the shell! The most impressive design I know of from any entertainment piece.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  Almost as fun as riding a real horse and only several thousand times more expensive!

jmcgough 5y ago

They've gone from Google -> Softbank -> Hyundai in a few years. Does anyone know where their revenue is coming from currently? For all the flashy videos they put out, you so rarely see them that I'm not sure if they're just doing well on the B2B side (warehouse automation? military contracts?), or if they've been in the red for the last decade.

ackbar03 5y ago
I asked something like this last time as well. I don't think they have any meaningful revenue except for their dog bot "spot" which they only launched very recently. They basically just survive on funding, kind of like some university research group
jmcgough 5y ago
Looks like they've just been bleeding money for years: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-17/boston-dynamics-needs-to-start-making-money-off-its-robots https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-17/boston-dy...
jahller 5y ago
i'm not sure if they operate in the classical sense of a company with a budget. i see them more as a research facility with huge interest from the military and law enforcement complex.
88840-8855 5y ago
They bleed money and are not revenue positive yet. And all those re-acquisitions indicate that none of their parent company could provide a nurturing environment to enable the company to make profit. My two cents. If not military use or a very expensive niche use, e.g. for emergency services, then those things will have a pretty hard time to enter the mass-consumer market. What will probably happen is that a Chinese company will be able to produce a 80% version of those machines for less than 1k. This is when those things will become interesting to consumers for whatever purpose those things can be used. As long as the SPOT robot costs over 70k, nobody will even consider buying it.

MichaelMoser123 5y ago

i thought that boston dynamics were a former DOD contractor, did this cause any problems with the authorization of the sale? (here it says that they got a lot of initial DARPA funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Dynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Dynamics )

numair 5y ago
We just sold South Korea a bunch of actual weapons so I don’t think these could-be weapons are going to attract too much controversy. And if you think there’s some actual weaponry among the could-be weapons technology, well... Take a look around the neighborhood. Maybe that’s the point? (I don’t think this is true; I am of the belief that the hidden secret within most companies, regardless of size or industry, is that they’re way more boring and way less sophisticated than they would like to appear.)
- smhost 5y ago
  > Take a look around the neighborhood. Maybe that’s the point? Probably not, since South Korea maintains pretty good relations with its neighbors. South Korea (as well as the rest of the world) doesn't see the U.S. anymore as a rational partner, but as something to be managed with caution. North Korea is unironically seen as a more predictable and reliable enemy than the U.S. is seen as a reliable ally. Nobody is happy about this, but that's the reality.
  - jgilias 5y ago
    Are you actually from South Korea to be able to comment on what the South Korean perception on their neighborhood is? Like, this is a no offense intended genuine question. Because from an outside perspective the neighborhood really looks challenging. China is growing stronger and throws muscle around a lot with diplomatic rows ensuing even over traditional ways of cabbage preparation. Relationships with Japan are cordial at best due to WWII legacy. North Korea seems to be a pretty big liability.
    - 5y ago

mrweasel 5y ago

Normally tech companies tend to be overpriced, but $880M for 80% of Boston Dynamics (total value of $1.1 billion), doesn't that seem a little low? Other tech companies can seemingly lose millions, as long as there's an advertising or data-mining angle to the product. Because Boston Dynamics aim to actually create physical products they then get valued lower?

eric4smith 5y ago
I doubt they want BD for the products they're making. They want BD for all the hundreds of tiny little innovations they're making. For example, a motor that has more torque with low power consumption. A joint that can flex a certain way. All those things are worth $100000000x more than a robotic Spot when it comes to industrial applications.
TulliusCicero 5y ago
The research they've done is undeniably awesome, but valuations aren't based on awesomeness, they're based on ability to make money. So far, Boston Dynamics hasn't done much there. There's potential to make a lot of money, but that's far off.
qeternity 5y ago
It's the same issue faced by other "moonshot" R&D enterprises like DeepMind. They burn tremendous amounts of cash, and as other comments have noted, the path to profit is unlikely to be a direct path through their core competency, whether that be general purpose robotics or AGI. DeepMind's greatest commercial achievement seems to have been around optimizing energy usage in Google's datacenters, which as a standalone product would have a relatively small addressable market. The progress that BD has made is likely similar: immediately valuable to a small number of players, even if the long term winds up being something far more grand.
balfirevic 5y ago
> Normally tech companies tend to be overpriced According to what criteria?
- 5y ago

eric4smith 5y ago

These are one of the few times I can say that I don't care if Boston Dynamics are making money as yet. Boston Dynamics are one of the few real serious players in the robotics space worldwide doing deep R&D. Hyundai are basically paying for the BD Labs research. And they are well positioned to reap the products and techniques from the lab with their own manufacturing and engineering prowess and experience over the next decade. And it won't be walking dogs. It will be things like a little flexi-joint in a car that you buy without knowing (or caring) it's in there. Or some industrial machine that Hyundai builds that gives them a 5% competitive edge in the manufacturing of it that 99.9999% of us never hear about. But for that it's worth it. Very happy to see people put good money into this Lab.

nly 5y ago
Robots that build cars seem most likely? Not sure how many staff your average car factory has, but due to sheer product complexity it's still more than other industries like food manufacturing. Maybe we'll see vast car factories, churning out thousands of cars per day, with only a half dozen staff in years to come?
- eric4smith 5y ago
  That's a good assumption to make. They for sure see 800M+ value in it.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- weego 5y ago
  Robots already build cars, and supply of new cars is often out-stripped by demand. It's not really new ground. The limitations in car production are always the component supply chain, not the actual manufacture.
  - nly 5y ago
    Google image search "car factory" and it's super obviously it's quite labour intensive. I'm not sure why an investment in robots has to be "new ground".

yarg 5y ago

Why leave the word "controlling" out of the title?

elliekelly 5y ago
The headline definitely downplays Hyundai’s involvement: > The deal will involve Hyundai and its affiliates, including Hyundai Motor Co., Hyundai Mobis Co., and Hyundai Glovis Co. > Hyundai Motor, Hyundai Mobis, Hyundai Glovis, and Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun will have 30%, 20%, 10%, and 20% share respectively. It’s been a while since I’ve had to think about consolidated financial reporting for subsidiaries and — if anyone happens to know — I’d be curious to understand how (or whether) these ownership tranches will make it onto Hyundai Parent Co’s financial statements?
sammyaxe 5y ago
I believe that word is in the title
- yarg 5y ago
  It is now; it was left out of the submission title despite being part of the article's.

jeffrallen 5y ago

I, for one, salute my new dog-shaped robot overlords.

Shadonototro 5y ago

korea taking over USA, hahaha that's funny, America really is dying

nr2x 5y ago

Seems like they’d be a good fit for Disney, making theme park attractions.

TameAntelope 5y ago
I'd be a little sad if this technology only ended up being useful as a toy, but then again the biggest disruptors are at one point thought of as toys, so maybe that's about where we are in the process?
- nr2x 5y ago
  If they monetized their YouTube channel I’m guessing it would be their biggest revenue source, as far as I’m concerned they are an entertainment company already.

pcurve 5y ago

Probably one of the better companies to acquire controlling stake in BD because several of their own companies would directly benefit from robotics.

JohnWhigham 5y ago

What's the difference between a "controlling stake" and just owning the company?

tomhoward 5y ago
A controlling stake means you own enough shares to have full voting control (i.e., you control the board votes, can appoint the executives and set the company direction) without having to pay for 100% of the shares. There are a few reasons to only acquire a controlling stake rather than 100% of the shares; you might want to preserve capital for other uses, or leave some shares to be traded on public markets so the stock still has a market valuation.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  Or to leave key executives and tech leaders with some shares.
dharmab 5y ago
A controlling stake doesn't have to own the majority of the company, just the majority of voting shares. It gives you meaningful influence over the board and executives but does not entitle you to all (or even a majority of) of any profit.

ConcernedCoder 5y ago

I can imagine those dancing robots being used to replace workers in an auto assembly plant.

orliesaurus 5y ago

BD was once under Google/Alphabet's control - then they let them go, what does that mean? Was their robotics efforts not useful to Google's own research branch? Did acquihired the talent and then resold what was left to SoftBank? I have no clue...then SoftBank sold it again.. What I know is surely BD must have gone through a lot of turmoil (acquisitions) for such a small company (300ish employees?) since its inception!

ManuelKiessling 5y ago

And a fricking messenger app sold for $21.8 billion. Unbelievable.

didip 5y ago
When you look at how scared Facebook was of WhatsApp and combined that with FB market cap... $22 billion makes so much sense.
macspoofing 5y ago
To be fair, nobody was under any illusion that this valuation had anything to do with the technology WhatsApp developed. Any half competent team could recreate WhatsApp. The price was for 1 billion active users. That's a little harder to get.
analognoise 5y ago
Real stuff isn't highly valued.
jokoon 5y ago
Being able to do sentiment analysis on all the consumers of the world is a goldmine for revenue. Marketing doesn't have a good reputation, but information is power.
ncr100 5y ago
Believe the numbers, with more numbers: Comparing numerically, the revenue generated from ($21.8b) WhatsApp is higher than from Boston Dynamics ($880M). For 2020 WhatsApp approximately == $5.5b (Forbes https://www.businessofapps.com/data/whatsapp-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/whatsapp-statistics/) For 2020 Boston Dynamics == $53m (GrowJo https://growjo.com/company/Boston_Dynamics https://growjo.com/company/Boston_Dynamics)

luxuryballs 5y ago

Let’s go robot that steps out of the trunk and pumps my gas for me!

ufmace 5y ago

Hyundai's interests are broad enough that I really wonder what they intend to do with it. Are they just going to do factory helper robots that are super-specialized and we'll never see? Or will they actually commercially sell some version of these types of robots?

crsv 5y ago

I think it's quite the loss for the US to allow a foreign company to gain controlling interest in such a cutting edge firm. Some of what they've built I'd have to imagine could be of very real national interest as it relates to any of the military applications.

sergiotapia 5y ago

Boston Dynamics is the one company on this planet that inspires me and makes me believe in a wonderful future that we have yet to even glimpse. I hope they keep doing what they're doing and elevate our species to new heights. God bless them.

ineedasername 5y ago

For years they made the news with bots that seemed to have direct defense/militaristic use. Not too long ago, or at least the last time I remember them hitting my news streams, was when they demonstrated a bot capable of handling moderately complex warehouse tasks. If my reading of this sequence of events is correct, it is probably no coincidence that foreign investment came in after applications shifted from tactical militaristic use that would likely be restricted to the US & allies, and now also includes applications more generally applicable to uses outside of warfare. It seems that military applications may be compelling, but plowshares are more economically interesting.

Judgmentality 5y ago
That's not what happened. The military flat out rejected their robots for being too big, too loud, and too slow. So they pivoted to try to find a new customer.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  I think my comment generally still holds: after their pivot they received more commercial interest. But no, I wasn't aware that they had failed to keep military interest, thank you.

Baeocystin 5y ago

Honestly, of all the mega-corps that could have been the ones for this round of BD bailout, this isn't a bad choice at all. Hyundai already has a strong background in robotics, and hopefully they'll be able to help Boston Dynamics to finally capitalize on their excellent work. I do wish controlling interest had managed to stay stateside, but, well, it is what it is.

kingsuper20 5y ago

I'm surprised it wasn't Amazon buying them. There's bound to be more than a few people that steal from their warehouses.

michael1999 5y ago

I’m picturing a waking digger for specialized terrain. I think Hyundai/BD combo has a chance to do it safely. Maybe something small like a Kubota. https://kubota.ca/en/products/power-equipment/excavators/k008 https://kubota.ca/en/products/power-equipment/excavators/k00...