I am skeptical that Rivian has "proven its chops". Consider Magic Leap, a company with a some impressive prototypes that used its $2.6 billion of funding to… sell 6,000 headsets, out of a goal of one million.
It's an inaccurate comparison. The problems are very different. Magic Leap is trying to create a viable product for a market that doesn't exist. What they are actually going to ship and how it's going to be useful is still up in the air.
Autonomous is going to be incredibly valuable and it's a hard problem that we'll have to keep hacking away at for a long time. Waymo has made more advancements than any other company. There is a big pack of companies all trying to get a piece of this pie and none of them may succeed in the short term, but Waymo looks to have the best shot.
Well... Magic Leap has no market, it literally has to invent one out of thin air. There is a gigantic market for trucks, and the market price for trucks is well established.
In one people invested in something that was unproven with an unknown market, the other people are investing in something the market already has show demand for... Seems pretty damn different to me /shrug
They weren't smashing atoms together to discover world-changing new physics. They didn't send people to space or develop some new revolutionary type of transport that could transform society.
They made some really average AR glasses.
Two point four BILLION dollars.
The Tesla Model S cost ~500M to develop from start to finish[0], so Magic Leap has spent 5 times that amount.
The ENTIRE Starlink satellite network will cost ~$10B total to develop, build, and deploy [1]. So Magic Leap spent a quarter of that.
Apple developed and released the original iPhone on a budget of $150M. Magic Leap has spent 16 times that.
These aren't apples to apples, of course. But I think it puts in perspective just how much of a scam Magic Leap is in general.
I don't see how Magic Leap and General Magic have anything in common besides the name and the eventual failure. Magic Leap hasn't innovated anything new compared to the HoloLens or other AR devices (see Leap Motion's AR device), while General Magic seemed to have pioneered portable touch screen communication devices.
The Magic Leap device at least worked and had a wow factor even though it didn't have a market fit. I prefer Juicero. That's really a prime example of overhyped and overpriced tech investments.
From what I’ve read, especially on Karl Guttag’s blog, Magic Leap is a sort of running joke. They’ve pivoted to make something a bit less useful than Hololens, with a patent history that reads like a fever dream. Bullshitting about the price after so many outright lies abou fiber scanning nonsense seems tame.
actually, I think you're missing out by ignoring that article.
'technology ... is “not really what we’re ultimately going to be shipping,” but that his company’s prototypes were good for showing investors and others'
Unlike Theranos, Magic Leap has received investment from people with knowledge in the industry, so I think it is less smoke and mirrors than Theranos, but similar in that they are doing a big promotion on technology that is not ready yet. I'm not going to call it vaporware, and I don't think Tharanos was vaporware either, but they were selling to investors and their customers a product that didn't exist as they had sold it.
I'm not saying Magic Leap is better, I'm just saying what is their tech advantage and innovation and how is it comparable to people doing novel nuclear physics? So far they have lost money and paid out more in a celebrity fundraiser bonus than all profitable quarters combined.
Isn't it more a classic case of a company underestimating the challenges of bringing a prototype to market? Didn't magic leap's tech demo work on like a supercomputer strapped to the user's back?
Magic Leap is proof that first mover advantage is fictional (or at least it's not an iron law that guarantees success). They spent large sums of money to put out the least half-baked AR product on the market. They would be in better shape now if they hadn't grown so fast.
That being said, AR truly is the future. In a few years there will be multiple digital universes overlaid onto our world. Magic Leap should be commended for their technical accomplishments, but can they stay solvent until their dream of the future is realized? I honestly hope they pull through.
And Rivian is a variation on a proven technology. Magic Leap is a completely new one. Not comparable in the slightest.
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