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The one I know most about seemed to be corrupt af from top to bottom, including all thru HR, incompetent af at many key upper-level positions, and had the worst

The one I know most about seemed to be corrupt af from top to bottom, including all thru HR, incompetent af at many key upper-level positions, and had the worst culture of any company i've ever been at. It's actually the experience that, 20+ years into IT, I finally started to believe that 'company culture' could potentially matter at least a little bit -- i.e. maybe it wouldn't make you win, but it could def help you lose. The product management function, to the extent it existed, was ass. I suspect that was because it wasn't allowed to be run by people who either knew what they were doing, or were actually hired to do it -- not sure tho. There were other factors too, that almost certainly played an important, potentially deciding, role in the company's fate -- but naming it/them would give it away. So, any number of factors could have killed the company. imo. I do remember being on one call where prospects were trying to invest in the company -- it just seemed like the tech, once experienced, could have that effect on some people.

newark 5y ago
I can guess which company that was. Management and company culture were specific issues for that company, and they were serious issues that caused their demise. But for AR companies, more generally, what critical challenges (technical, usability, etc) were they facing, and if only they had surmounted those, they would have brought about AR adoption sooner?
- readonthegoapp 5y ago
  i suspect the tech for AR (as opposed to VR) was just not there yet. and prob is still not. looks cool? check. works well/reliably? uhhhhhh. some of the problems that Tesla is having with self-driving seem reminiscent of what the AR tech needs to deal with -- just in terms of, the problem space is stubborn -- how to get much more compute power into a much smaller footprint? maybe you can piggyback on a nearby computer/phone, but then you're strapped in -- you need near-real-time communication, so no networking tech except a cable is going to work, so now you're physically bound to a workstation as you try to move around your lab, the worksite, etc. and Apple/Cook came out and said, basically, VR is nothing, AR is everything. that was good for AR. but did it cause any movement? Snap seemed to get maybe a small lift. but is anyone actually using AR for anything in production? Maybe the 'advanced forward-looking tech division' of comglomerate 'x' gets a $100M slush fund to go out and buy and play with cool tech each year -- but it never has to use the tech in any meaningful way -- it's already an R&D write-off. prob some medical training folks are using it a bit -- train your biochem/vaccine lab workers -- that's not nothing, but... the VR space just seems much more mature, and maybe that's because it's just a much easier problem to solve. not sure - not my tech area of expertise.

newark 5y ago

I can guess which company that was. Management and company culture were specific issues for that company, and they were serious issues that caused their demise. But for AR companies, more generally, what critical challenges (technical, usability, etc) were they facing, and if only they had surmounted those, they would have brought about AR adoption sooner?

readonthegoapp 5y ago
i suspect the tech for AR (as opposed to VR) was just not there yet. and prob is still not. looks cool? check. works well/reliably? uhhhhhh. some of the problems that Tesla is having with self-driving seem reminiscent of what the AR tech needs to deal with -- just in terms of, the problem space is stubborn -- how to get much more compute power into a much smaller footprint? maybe you can piggyback on a nearby computer/phone, but then you're strapped in -- you need near-real-time communication, so no networking tech except a cable is going to work, so now you're physically bound to a workstation as you try to move around your lab, the worksite, etc. and Apple/Cook came out and said, basically, VR is nothing, AR is everything. that was good for AR. but did it cause any movement? Snap seemed to get maybe a small lift. but is anyone actually using AR for anything in production? Maybe the 'advanced forward-looking tech division' of comglomerate 'x' gets a $100M slush fund to go out and buy and play with cool tech each year -- but it never has to use the tech in any meaningful way -- it's already an R&D write-off. prob some medical training folks are using it a bit -- train your biochem/vaccine lab workers -- that's not nothing, but... the VR space just seems much more mature, and maybe that's because it's just a much easier problem to solve. not sure - not my tech area of expertise.