4,199 karma · joined November 3, 2011
Magic Leap, meanwhile, 4+ years later, still feels like we are several breakthroughs away from getting the kind of device quality one would need for a mass market device.
I’ve tried Magic Leap and HoloLens, and in my opinion, the tech is just too early for a successful consumer product.
The very first Oculus made me think “I want this now”. Magic Leap made me think “Interesting, but I don’t actually want to use this until it’s far more advanced, which feels like it’s probably decades away”.
At least that’s my understanding, anyone reading should confirm with a DI broker.
Of course, it's likely harder to prove such a claim, as the insurance companies look out for fraud. But if you have a clear and well-documented history, medical files, etc., I would think you should be eligible.
Note that your megacorp group insurance policy is likely more limited, e.g. it may not have any coverage for partial disability.
Happy to be corrected by those more knowledgeable.
“to support the "discovery" push, which requires extra computing power for artificial intelligence to surface popular posts from across Facebook and Instagram in users' feeds.”
Obviously he wants underperformers to quit and not his best people.
1. Google Glass: This is the most underwhelming and lamest thing ever. Tried for 20 seconds and never thought about it again.
2. 3DTV: meh, I’dr rather watch 2D.
3. Magic Leap / HoloLens: this is way less cool than the commercials, tiny field of view, incredibly far way from something actually usable.
4. Oculus DK2: jaw dropped, holy shit moments. WOW!
That’s not to say VR is perfect. In fact, it’s far enough away from perfect I currently never use it. But it is so much more impressive and close to being amazing than these other categories.
Making the headsets much much lighter, less hot, wireless, better optics, higher res, higher refresh rates, etc., will improve the experience massively.
Look into what is already public: companies are exploring eye tracking, varifocal lenses (so your eyes are not always looking at the same focal plane), etc.
You can even compare the Index versus the Quest 2 to see what a difference a better screen can make.
People already deal with eye strain by staring at a bright screen from a fixed distance for most of their life.
Neural link, sure, eventually. For now, if you don’t think ten years of progress won’t lead to hundreds of millions of devices sold, well, wait and see.
But I do think VR has the potential to be "huge" like cellphones, in the way that nearly every kid in the world has a headset, and spends hours of time in there each day. I think it can eat up a ton of time currently spent on movies, TV, video games, socializing in places like Minecraft or Roblox, concerts, sports games, etc. The average person spends way too much time watching TV for example, but if every kid in the world wants to spend 2 hours per day in VR instead of watching TV, that will be an enormous TAM notwithstanding that people won't want to literally live in VR with all day battery life. Although there will always be outliers, and I think there will be many people that will easily choose to spend 8 hours + per day in VR.
And even currently, the Quest 2 provides hours of battery life without wires, which will only continue to improve.
How old are you by the way? Today phones last nearly all day, but people used to carry around multiple phones for their batteries and swap them out. IF they are at home, they could do the same with VR until the battery life improves.
I would be shocked if VR/metaverse does not massively grow within the next 10 years. I think the headsets alone will continue to get massively better which will convert most of humanity, just like how much better iPhones got since the first one. In fact, I would bet anything on the foregoing, as I have near total confidence in that aspect.
It’s much harder to figure out which companies will profit off of that, so it’s certainly possible Meta will miss. But they have a leader with a vision, and are pouring more money into this than any other major player. Will that be enough? Who knows. But I think it’s a mistake to count them out so early in the process, when they are the ones putting R&D into this.
In my mind, it’s like starting an auto company right when cars arrive and people are still skeptical of them, and being the company to pour the most money into developing them. That’s who you want to bet against?
Taxes and moderation are considerations, sure, and may backfire partly, but I think the users will go where the tech is. Just like people buy iPhones not withstanding the cost, moderation, App Store tax, etc, because the iPhone is what users want. If Meta makes an excellent headset and software platform, people will use it. Most people don’t care about the things HN cares about (like App Store fees).
Nate is not a scammer, but was a product manager at a very successful A16Z-backed startup. He is the type of guy that was already going to be successful and wealthy, but decided to make a little more after incorrectly assuming that either (x) what he was doing wasn't illegal since he wasn't trading stocks or (y) the government wasn't looking into this type of thing. The DOJ is now disincentivizing others in his shoes from following the same path. This type of person was never going to move to a random country without extradition to straight up scam people.[0]
Your comment is akin to someone saying it's a waste of time to charge a US F500 employee or hedge fund employee with insider trading since a true scammer would just be sending phishing emails from Russia. They are different types of crimes and criminals, and I think for this type of crime/criminal, there is a deterrence effect to these cases.
And regardless of your view on NFTs, nobody was scammed here, he just front-ran to make a profit and used confidential information of his employer to do that. This is akin to a production intern for Jim Cramer buying stocks that he knows Jim will talk about on his show that evening, to profit from any short-term pump from the exposure.
[0] I don't actually know Nate or any of the details here, so I am assuming, but this is the sense I get from following this drama on Twitter.
The company tried to do something beneficial for its employees, although perhaps it was misguided. They gained nothing here except the marketing benefit of trying to be employee friendly.
Margin loans are risky because you can get liquidated and lose your other principal. This was a cashless loan, that was only 50% recourse, so the only risk is that you may have to pay back half of what you bought the stock at if it ends up worthless.
I don’t think there was any incompetence or negligence here, and even if there was some incompetence, that’s not a theory of liability.
The risks here are not rocket science. If the most recent round of preferred stock financing was $100, and your exercise price is $20, the risk is that if the stock ends up being worth less than $20, it's a mistake in hindsight. You can talk all day about the risks, the numbers, etc. What's currently happening is macroeconomic -- inflation, fed tightening, asset prices dropping across the board, etc. This was not some Bolt-specific issue. People assumed it was more likely that the stock would be worth at least their exercise price (which still may be the case). A full half of the people this was offered to declined, because they were prudent and the risks were probably clear. The other half was probably optimistic, and also gambling on crypto and other startups at the same time.
If you were to get a private loan, the interest would be much higher.
The company does not want to be in the business of making loans, but this is a way to allow the employee to exercise upfront (and thus potentially get certain benefits, like in a good exit scenario, of having gains be subject to LTCG and not ordinary income), in the best way possible. But in a downside scenario, like the company folding, the person is on the hook for the loan just like if they had decided to exercise with their own money.