Hacker News Reader

Comment by teej | Hacker News Reader

Along these lines - is there an example of a technology company that succeeded after raising so much money without proving their product in the market?

View on HN

Screw the market. Personally, I don't care if this even sells (to make the general population buy it, they'll have to invent most silly possible applications imaginable). The question is - does it really work as advertised? Both Magic Leap and HoloLens look way beyond the state-of-the-art, I'm still not convinced that what they show us isn't just plain marketing fabrication.

Their first (older) video was clearly marketing fluff. That may be their long-term vision, but I'm skeptical they are anywhere close. Even if they had the capable display, code & computing power for a game in a dynamic environment like that would be incredibly challenging.

The second video (newer) though looked legit. Simpler interactions, and the disclaimer was pretty explicit.

Screw the market. -- Haha..you will soon realize the hard way in business.

When your product has been featured in nearly every science fiction movie of the last few decades does "the market" really need to be proven?

Yes?

Looking cool on TV doesn't mean it'll sell. Movie OSes have every keystroke and action make a sound and use 48pt font for everything. I wouldn't bet much on such an OS selling in the market.

Given the former omnipresence of flying cars in science fiction movies, I would say yes.

Flying cars don't exist. That's a technology problem, not a market problem.

To be fair... consumer-grade lightfield displays (or whatever you want to call the MagicLeap display) don't exist yet either -- so it's a technology problem too.

Except that Magic Leap's technology problem has had $1B in investment capital thrown at it -- much more than flying cars, no?

Yeah, that's pretty much my point. $1B might solve the technology problem, but no amount of money will solve the market problem (which I suggest Magic Leap, and hypothetical flying cars, don't have)

A large part of that $1B is going to solving the market problem (for example, with content deals).

There have been a number of flying cars over the years, such as the Model 59H AirGeep II. They're just expensive and impractical, so nobody ever builds more than a handful of them.

I never thought the "flying" part was the core technology... it seemed to be the invention some non-traditional, low-noise, propulsion & power source that could levitate heavy objects. I don't think we have that ... if we did, the expensive and practical part might be solved and we'd have them everywhere :)

I agree and interestingly I think the first technology problem that needed to be solved was not the flying element, but instead with autonomy self driving capabilities, which we will soon see within the next 3-5 years.

Aren't helicopters effectively flying cars?

Not yet, but there are startups working on them!

http://www.gizmag.com/flying-car-zee-aero/29890/

Case in point: PADD -> iPad.

There's a big difference between being really cool and being something people will pay for.

The tech demos are undeniably, but after "Wow!" my second thought was, "If I'm not a gamer, why would I buy this?"

Because they will be able to put ads in front of your face all the time.

And that means that first, they'll make it do enough desirable things that you will accept ads.

And those will make you want it.

That's not a very convincing argument and doesn't answer the question at all. I already can't think of a reason I'd buy one, and telling me it'll be full of spam isn't helping.

I'm also a little disappointed they've raised so much money if their long term goal is just spamming people in "augmented reality".

Is there an example of a technology company that took billions in that had succeeded by their product?

Most of these companies that get bought for billions or multi-billions just have eyeballs -- and little to monetize them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com