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Apple's Acquisition of AR Startup Leap Motion Fell Through Twice, Due to 'Eccentric' Founders and Poor Management
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I would say “just as” likely. If they were just fishing they wouldn’t have put a number on the table, probably.
Probably would’ve given them the “Dropbox speech”. “You’re a feature not a product!”
It makes sense that Apple would want this — the fact that the device works with nothing physical in your hands is a perfect match for Apple's design philosophy and also simplifies VR/AR in general.
I backed Leap’s crowdfunding launch and have the original device, which works very well, though the use-case for it is very limited on desktop.
It would be a shame if the tech fizzles with too small a client base, yet remains locked out via patents for decades, like 3D printing.
I backed Leap’s crowdfunding launch and have the original device, which works very well, though the use-case for it is very limited on desktop.
It would be a shame if the tech fizzles with too small a client base, yet remains locked out via patents for decades, like 3D printing.
I've worked for a number of startups over the years. My key takeaways from these experiences are:
1) Founders are often extremely young, have virtually no work experience at all (let alone leadership experience), and are exceptionally poor at doing business; they know their technology and little else.
2) 99 times out of 100, the company's technology is not nearly as valuable as thought.
3) Founders are in total denial.
1) Founders are often extremely young, have virtually no work experience at all (let alone leadership experience), and are exceptionally poor at doing business; they know their technology and little else.
2) 99 times out of 100, the company's technology is not nearly as valuable as thought.
3) Founders are in total denial.
From a company founder and CEO's perspective, getting sucked up into the Apple void, to lose all control of your life's dream, to be told what to do by "managers" that know less about your technology than you do, to ultimately quit the company due to "irreconcilable differences" doesn't sound like a happy way to follow one's life dream.
There's plenty of historic presidence of this happening at Apple. The founders of Siri are one example.
There's plenty of historic presidence of this happening at Apple. The founders of Siri are one example.
The article worded it poorly. The point was that they spent a lot of money on flashy stuff they didn't need, instead of focusing on what they did as a small startup. Engineers are most certainly needed but it does sound like they hired far too many, without a real need for them all. The invested poorly and are being lead by people who don't know what they're doing from the standpoint of growing a startup.
We see this happen often. Generally the person to grow a business from 1-100 people isn't the person who can take it from 101-500, etc. Some recognize that and bring in the people that can help make that happen. Others fail to do so and suffer, as this company is.
Apple is a massive pain in the ass to negotiate deals with. They are serious bullies. I know this from people high up in the industry who have dealt with them. Now, perhaps Leap's founders are being childish and this one is totally their fault, but I can't help but think this serves Apple right. Anyway, this is Silicon Valley for ya.
Pity, iFAP would slot quite neatly into the product range.
This is EXACTLY what I was expecting from the Touchbar! I wonder if 2020 MacPros will come with Touchbar 2™ with gesture support just like leap, and maybe their own CPU's.
Someone save this comment, I've got a good feeling....
Someone save this comment, I've got a good feeling....
$50M in your bank account will more than ease the pain of "losing your life's dream". On top of that, for most people their life's dream *is* the $50M in their bank account.
I do find it funny that Apple pulled their offer. Couldn't be a little vindication on their side, could it?
And last but not last - I bet whoever wrote the article was from New York City or some other hell hole. They clearly have no clue what a "pricey San Francisco neighborhood is". SoMa is ok but it far from being truly pricey by SF standards.
I'd swear I've seen that guy in these forums...
The venture capital and startup culture is entirely driven by the hype cycle. Leap Motion's founders may have made the mistake of believing their own hype rather that cashing out at the right moment. LM will never compete with the big guys in AR-- their best play would have been acquisition before they got relegated to being a component supplier or, more likely every month, auctioning their IP in a fire sale to repay investors.
Hyperbole much? Let me give you some perspective. There's a LARGE gulf between minimum wage and 240-300k in salary that I've seen some engineers in the Bay Area bring in. Also, good luck with moving those product that YOU think are the only thing that makes a company valuable when attitudes like the one Mr Holz displayed would turn off any business partner. Feel free to see how much that company is worth without the sales people, operations, support staff, and financial departments that run that company as well, but that certain engineers seem to think are beneath them. Without a lot of those people, your work is worth absolutely nothing because, frankly, no one would want to buy from you.
David Holz and his behavior are exactly the reason why people spit in food at restaurants.
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The space is the perk. The stupid stuff like beanbag chairs are unnecessary and extraneous. The same nonsense went on at Groupon after this started to get big, with a live llama in the office, ridiculous stunts and roving bars, etc. They were a huge reason the company was bleeding money and Andrew Mason got thrown out but his own investors. He cashed out, but cost everyone else in the place a bundle.
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I've negotiated with them contractually in a couple of capacities and they were not "bullies." They just didn't get overly flexible and treat everyone like they were deserving of a lot of concessions. As for it "serving Apple right," Apple is the one who pulled out of this second deal. A legal relationship and deal negotiation is not a friendly lunch. It's business, and pats on the back and smiles and rainbows/ponies don't mean squat, and shouldn't. No one cares about starry eyes, they care about dollars.
That would make the touchbar even worse.
If they are going to keep it, it needs haptics, not yet another way for it to constantly register false touches and gestures.
Yes, we can all agree Money is the most important thing in the world. The best creations in the world are done by people looking to get more money.
Immature young people and 'fanbois' running companies and heading up engineering divisions. Tech in general has taken a compete nosedive in recent years because of this and advanced features are focused on to the detriment of basic functionality. I was using a piece of software recently with incredible image enhancing algorithms but the creators never bothered to put in a 'Save' function. I asked them why and they said it never occurred to them to do that.
In the bad old days, tech was buggy and crashed a lot but at least it was feature-complete. You didn't have to ask for a Strikethrough button to be added to Word, unlike Evernote who can't even see the need for it.
In the bad old days, tech was buggy and crashed a lot but at least it was feature-complete. You didn't have to ask for a Strikethrough button to be added to Word, unlike Evernote who can't even see the need for it.
There used to be a choice: salary or options. You could take the steady job and make a comfortable living, or live like a pauper for the better part of a decade taking the 1 in 10 bet that you'd wind up rich.
Not only has that tradeoff gone away, startups seem to pay the same or more than established companies, but there's this tendency to front load all the trappings of success before the actual success. Bust your ass to build something before you seat it in a bean bag chair and snack on free sushi.
Some of it is the insane competition for talent, some of it is just the Googlization of Silicon Valley. Play spaces and free lunch...
It depends on how the company was funded. What usually happens in these situations is that the founders and employees only get a portion of that money; they have sold their souls (usually in the form of lots of pre-IPO shares in the company) to venture capitalists in exchange for tens of millions of dollars in investment money just to pay salaries, lease office space, etc.
Without venture capital, the company cannot get off the ground; many of these startups have NO marketable product and thus no revenue coming in for the first year at least (often 2–3+ years). They are almost never profitable even after several years in business—if they're solvent enough to last that long. This is where young, inexperienced founders get into major trouble by burning huge amounts of borrowed money on posh San Francisco office space and ridiculous perks; free, catered lunch for 50 people will cost you thousands of dollars per week. They will often have to solicit more venture capital as they run low on funds, in exchange for even more shares. This can go on for a while.
Many of the engineers are enticed to work for the company by being offered stock options—sometimes a generous amount—to make up for below-market salaries, or to entice highly skilled engineers away from more stable employment to work on the Next Big Thing at Startup, Inc. There are a lot of shares in the company floating around, even pre-IPO, and all of those need to be satisfied somehow in an acquisition. Employees might purchase shares at $X, but if the acquisition values the company at $X-5 per share, those employees have lost money on any shares they own.
When the acquisition offer comes in "too low," founders might reject it outright and/or shop the company around to others to get better offers. This seldom ends very well, frankly; see my previous post above about founders being in denial about the value of their technology!
LinkedIn shows about 60 people who work for this company (and there might have been many more who used to work there who also own shares). By the time all obligations are settled, taxes paid, etc., probably no one is going to get very wealthy off of a $50 million acquisition in that situation. Still, for a founder, an acquisition and a high-6- or low-7-figure profit in your pocket isn't too bad when you compare it to going bankrupt and selling your tech at fire sale prices!
AR hasn't fizzled...at all.
It's is the future, no denying it. It's just implementing it in a useful, fun way that will be a challenge. What you've seen so far is the very first step in AR. Imagine it working with no limitations because of computing. Computing will not stop getting faster. Once we get there, it's going to happen. Currently, it's limited by computing power and the software to control it.