zlacker

Yet everyone was so optimistic and believed the hype. And it happens again and again! Whenever some early stage company/product gets some traction on HN that looks like hype-ware, the default reaction always seems to be excitement and optimism, rather than doubt and skepticism. Nobody's learned from Theranos. It's like we all adhere to that X-files poster "I WANT TO BELIEVE" over and over.

>>ryandr+(OP)
Not everybody believed the hype. The first time I saw their original TedX video I knew for sure that Magic Leap was totally full of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8J5BWL8oJY

>>ryandr+(OP)
I don’t think this was ever the case for Magic Leap. All threads were always full of ‘I think this is waaaay too much funding for something we haven’t even seem yet’.

I’m just confused how the press and investors were misled in such a miraculous way.

>>ryandr+(OP)
I think this is generally a good thing about Silicon Valley culture.

It’s the reason you get successes like Tesla or SpaceX and it’s generally good to bias towards optimism over pessimism - you get more people able to try more things and successes that have exponential returns make up for the failures.

Otherwise you get stagnation which ends poorly for everyone.

That said, optimism still requires a plan that makes sense and shipping a real product.

>>Aeolun+25
The most convincing "argument" for them was "well, they fooled Google into giving them a half a billion dollars, so they must have something there."

>>ryandr+(OP)
Definitely not. HN is more pessimistic than any other forum I'm on besides Slashdot (the famous iPod burn, of course).

Are you forgetting Dropbox / "that's just rsync" and various other skeptics? No one likes anything here that seems flashy. And that's a good thing.

>>DonHop+77
Well, trust by proxy is what makes civilization work. But having some percentage of the populace that's always skeptical of the trust imparted like that is also essential.

Usually, Google being willing to give a company hundreds of millions of dollars is enough, because you assume whoever's job it is to give out all that money takes it seriously. Unfortunately, sometimes the more money is involved the harder it is for skeptics to get their own message out, since nobody wants to believe that all the money they've invested has been a poor choice. Just look at Uber. Any company that didn't have so many billions invested in it would have failed because of the internal problems they have long ago.

>>DonHop+77
My understanding is that sergey wanted to do it and he can effectively write checks right off the balance sheet. Google Ventures passed, as folks were always eager to tell me.

>>gumby+mu
Sounds like that's the same way Google Glass got funded, too. I wonder what Sergey Brin thought of the nepotism at Magic Leap that he funded, documented in the sexual discrimination lawsuit?

http://valleywag.gawker.com/meet-the-google-founders-mistres...

>Since Google Glass launched to our awe and horror, the company's co-founder, Sergey Brin, hasn't been spotted without a pair. He's placed himself atop the privacy-eroding project, publicly, and inside Google's secret labs. Maybe it's because he's fucking the Glass marketing manager, Amanda Rosenberg.

>According to a startling report by AllThingsD's Liz Gannes and Kara Swisher, Brin and his wife of six years, Anne Wojcicki, are no more, now that he's found himself a PR girlfriend at Google. AllThingsD also reported this girlfriend was recently attached to another (totally coincidentally departing) top Googler, Hugo Barra, to make Brin's relationship with the recent San Francisco transplant behind the backs of his wife and children all that much worse.

https://regmedia.co.uk/2017/02/14/magic-leap-sex-discriminat...

>"Eric Akerman, vice president of IT, is a high school buddy of Abovitz. He is a loud and outspoken and several misogynistic comments have emanated from his department and from him."

>"Vice president of IT Akerman, on Nov. 8, 2016, told a large group of people who asked why he voted for Trump that it was 'because Melania is hot.'"