You deserved to be downvoted for that because (a) it's a baseless accusation and (b) it was intellectually lazy.

Theranos committed crimes and their fraudulent behaviour directly impacted on people's lives. There is no evidence Magic Leap has done either and there is nothing illegal or immoral about pivoting on your product.

I agree with what you said, except, is making big promises then not delivering really "pivoting"?

Yes.

I got downvotes,which is fair because my comment was stupid because I didn't read the comments I was replying to carefully enough. I missed the "delete" deadline so sorry about the baseless noise.

Of course delivering shitty results isn't pivoting.

I see karma as a bank for paying for incredibly trashy comments: for every upvote I vow to write at least one thoughtless hot take and defend it to the death

Here take my upvotes :P take them!

Actually I don't think you're that wrong to be honest :)

There's a huge difference between a highly funded startup that is trying to build something completely revolutionary and hasn't quite gotten there yet, and a company actively and knowingly engaging in fraud in the medical space.

Nobody is going to die because of Magic Leap.

> highly funded startup that is trying to build something completely revolutionary and hasn't quite gotten there yet

That's exactly what Theranos was, until it wasn't.

Sure, but so far Magic Leap hasn't done anything illegal or unethical or immoral... they've just been a bit behind schedule.

They also aren't in the medical space. Nobody is going to die because of them.

With all of their secrecy, you have no idea if they're being unethical or not. Their marketing materials are certainly nothing near reality.

You're being completely disingenuous.

Magic Leap is a glorified toy. It is not going to affect your life.

Seems like you're moving the goalposts though: the original question was whether Magic Leap is "unethical," not how much damage they could do by being unethical. Releasing much-hyped, highly-produced, and very compelling marketing content while knowing your company can't possibly deliver on it certainly meets my bar for unethical.

It's certainly not as bad as Theranos, sure - but bilking consumers (or investors) can still be unethical too. If your bar for a company acting unethical requires literally killing people, you'll be overlooking a lot of bad behavior...

I’d agree otherwise, but the article mentions that Magic Leap is bidding for a $500M military contract.

Putting these toy lenses on soldiers can get people killed — both the fighters themselves as well as civilians are at risk from these digital goggles that block 86% of incoming light unless the AR graphics can do something really, really useful in the battlefield.

I doubt it's for the battlefield. More likely for planning, where you'd have a briefing with several people around a tabletop projection of the ground scene and AR tanks and characters moving around.

FTA: “for use with troops in the field (as opposed to training).”

Not quite clear either way. You could still be right, but the implication seems to be otherwise.

Until they start faking results to the DoD, the analogy falls completely flat

I wonder what legal repercussions one would be open to for faking results to DoD.

If the F35 is an example, I’d say a trillion dollar, ten year contract?

The Theranos board is looking for work and just the right people to move such a deal forward :)

> That's exactly what Theranos was, until it wasn't.

You conveniently skipped the part where Magic Leap isn't actively engaging in medical fraud.

Imagine comparing Theranos to a toy.

I don't think Theranos is a good comparison... but I don't think it's fair to characterise AR as a toy either, some people probbaly said the same about early incarnations of the technology that drove high resolution colour displays, lots of technology looks like shiny toys to begin with, but that's only because you cannot forsee it's applicaiton... AR is definately general enough to have very useful applications.