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It's interesting they're willing to push back the release so much, not falling to the sunk cost fallacy. A lemon would be a reputation hit. That's kind of why

It's interesting they're willing to push back the release so much, not falling to the sunk cost fallacy. A lemon would be a reputation hit. That's kind of why I'm pretty interested in the Vision Pro, another product in secret-ish development for a decade. They wouldn't have greenlit it if it didn't show potential right? It's interesting to think about what must be going on behind the scenes on products like this, deciding if they're ready to see the light of day.

rconti 3y ago
Maybe continuing the project and pushing back the date rather than cancelling it is falling to the sunk cost fallacy. Or, maybe they truly believe this is the right market for them to enter. (or, don't have any better ideas about how to spend the cash and find future growth).
matsemann 3y ago
> not falling to the sunk cost fallacy Or it's the opposite? It's a dead end, but they will keep pouring money into it since they've "already invested so much".
- droopyEyelids 3y ago
  It's interesting how, from my average man perspective, it's impossible to say whether a company operating at the scale of Apple is or is not victim to the sunk cost fallacy. On one hand, a push to deliver can be leadership setting a sink-or-swim deadline to avoid sunk costs. On the other hand, maybe they've already gone too far down a dead end. I think it has to be tricky because a tech company that does manufacturing at Apple's scale is kind of obligated to explore these possibilities. But how can you or I calculate what constraints should be in place so exploration can be effective while avoiding waste?
deleted 3y ago
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airstrike 3y ago
I don't think the two products demand an equal level of commitment. Car manufacturing is notoriously hard and low margins, with very complex supply-chain and scale requirements that could make a bad bet tragically costly both financially and to their reputation, as you said. Consider also that there are no Level 3 cars out today (IIRC Mercedes-Benz recently got permission for the first such car), so launching a Level 5 seems virtually impossible. On the other hand, VR devices do exist and, even if they don't quite perform to people's expectations, releasing a marginally superior product isn't too far-fetched.
kj99 3y ago
I think these 'push back the release' reports are mostly just sensational reporting. Apple is constantly adjusting plans for things that aren't ready to be made public yet. Part of the reason they are so secretive is because anything that hasn't been announced yet is subject to change and they don't want to promise something until they are certain they can deliver it. So unless they actually announced a release date, they haven't 'pushed anything back'. This is just an internal review being leaked in a sensationalist way.
gen220 3y ago
As another commenter pointed out [1], I'm not sure if 100% of the expenses of this project are sunk cost, because it's yielded tangential but real value in other product lines. I totally agree, it'd be really interesting to learn more about how they do internal accounting for these kinds of moonshot projects. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39108792 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39108792

rconti 3y ago

Maybe continuing the project and pushing back the date rather than cancelling it is falling to the sunk cost fallacy. Or, maybe they truly believe this is the right market for them to enter. (or, don't have any better ideas about how to spend the cash and find future growth).

matsemann 3y ago

> not falling to the sunk cost fallacy Or it's the opposite? It's a dead end, but they will keep pouring money into it since they've "already invested so much".

droopyEyelids 3y ago
It's interesting how, from my average man perspective, it's impossible to say whether a company operating at the scale of Apple is or is not victim to the sunk cost fallacy. On one hand, a push to deliver can be leadership setting a sink-or-swim deadline to avoid sunk costs. On the other hand, maybe they've already gone too far down a dead end. I think it has to be tricky because a tech company that does manufacturing at Apple's scale is kind of obligated to explore these possibilities. But how can you or I calculate what constraints should be in place so exploration can be effective while avoiding waste?

deleted 3y ago

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airstrike 3y ago

I don't think the two products demand an equal level of commitment. Car manufacturing is notoriously hard and low margins, with very complex supply-chain and scale requirements that could make a bad bet tragically costly both financially and to their reputation, as you said. Consider also that there are no Level 3 cars out today (IIRC Mercedes-Benz recently got permission for the first such car), so launching a Level 5 seems virtually impossible. On the other hand, VR devices do exist and, even if they don't quite perform to people's expectations, releasing a marginally superior product isn't too far-fetched.

kj99 3y ago

I think these 'push back the release' reports are mostly just sensational reporting. Apple is constantly adjusting plans for things that aren't ready to be made public yet. Part of the reason they are so secretive is because anything that hasn't been announced yet is subject to change and they don't want to promise something until they are certain they can deliver it. So unless they actually announced a release date, they haven't 'pushed anything back'. This is just an internal review being leaked in a sensationalist way.

gen220 3y ago

As another commenter pointed out [1], I'm not sure if 100% of the expenses of this project are sunk cost, because it's yielded tangential but real value in other product lines. I totally agree, it'd be really interesting to learn more about how they do internal accounting for these kinds of moonshot projects. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39108792 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39108792