Apple's Beats brand in April unveiled the Powerbeats Pro, a redesigned wire-free version of its popular fitness-oriented Powerbeats earbuds.
Apple's Acquisition of AR Startup Leap Motion Fell Through Twice, Due to 'Eccentric' Founders and Poor Management
A new article by Business Insider today takes a look into failed talks that occurred between Apple and startup Leap Motion, which the Cupertino company tried to acquire twice in less than five years. Leap Motion is a company that focuses on making advances in the fields of virtual reality, augmented reality, and hand tracking technology.
According to multiple unnamed insiders, the most recent deal was nearing completion in spring 2018 before poor management, "swirling negatives," and "eccentric behavior" of Leap Motion's young co-founders Michael Buckwald and David Holz halted the talks.
Prior to that, in 2013 the first meeting was held between the two companies and things reportedly went very poorly after Holz -- then 24 years old -- said he had no interest in joining Apple. Sources say Holz was insulting to Apple's staff, told the company representatives that Apple was no longer innovative, its technology "sucked," and discussed the ways that Google's Android was better than iOS. During this time, Apple was said to have been mainly interested in Leap Motion's team to help work on its own AR and gesture-based projects.
Despite this poor first meeting, Apple continued to express interest in acquiring Leap Motion in the ensuing years, particularly as augmented reality and virtual reality technologies began to be more mainstream. Some of Leap Motion's original employees even left the company to work for Apple over the years, and are now helping with Apple's various AR projects, some former Leap Motion employees said.
The latest rumors point towards Apple developing AR smart glasses, which could potentially include a VR component. Apple's interest appears to lean more towards AR, since it has already backed AR as a service with the ARKit developer platform, and CEO Tim Cook often talks excitedly about the potential of AR.
Because of this, Apple made another attempt to acquire Leap Motion earlier this year, but talks fell through once again. Apple was on the verge of acquiring Leap Motion for between $30 million and $50 million in the spring, and had already started talks with the startup's human resources department and sent out offer letters to employees. As Leap Motion celebrated the upcoming acquisition, Apple pulled its offer.
Business Insider says it remains unclear why exactly Apple made this move at the last minute, but one thing appears certain: "the founders ultimately thought [Leap Motion] was more valuable than the offers on the table."
Apple makes acquisitions of smaller companies like Leap Motion all the time, with news coming just in the past month of Apple acquiring Asaii and Spektral. Asaii is a music analytics platform that Apple will likely integrate into Apple Music and iTunes, while Spektral creates real-time green screens that can intelligently separate people and objects from their original backgrounds to overlay a new setting, which could be integrated into a future iPhone.
According to multiple unnamed insiders, the most recent deal was nearing completion in spring 2018 before poor management, "swirling negatives," and "eccentric behavior" of Leap Motion's young co-founders Michael Buckwald and David Holz halted the talks.
Prior to that, in 2013 the first meeting was held between the two companies and things reportedly went very poorly after Holz -- then 24 years old -- said he had no interest in joining Apple. Sources say Holz was insulting to Apple's staff, told the company representatives that Apple was no longer innovative, its technology "sucked," and discussed the ways that Google's Android was better than iOS. During this time, Apple was said to have been mainly interested in Leap Motion's team to help work on its own AR and gesture-based projects.
Despite this poor first meeting, Apple continued to express interest in acquiring Leap Motion in the ensuing years, particularly as augmented reality and virtual reality technologies began to be more mainstream. Some of Leap Motion's original employees even left the company to work for Apple over the years, and are now helping with Apple's various AR projects, some former Leap Motion employees said.
The latest rumors point towards Apple developing AR smart glasses, which could potentially include a VR component. Apple's interest appears to lean more towards AR, since it has already backed AR as a service with the ARKit developer platform, and CEO Tim Cook often talks excitedly about the potential of AR.
Because of this, Apple made another attempt to acquire Leap Motion earlier this year, but talks fell through once again. Apple was on the verge of acquiring Leap Motion for between $30 million and $50 million in the spring, and had already started talks with the startup's human resources department and sent out offer letters to employees. As Leap Motion celebrated the upcoming acquisition, Apple pulled its offer.
Business Insider says it remains unclear why exactly Apple made this move at the last minute, but one thing appears certain: "the founders ultimately thought [Leap Motion] was more valuable than the offers on the table."
Many people close to the company say that the issues afflicting Leap Motion are a case of poor management: Much of the company's venture capital was spent on sleek office space in San Francisco's pricey SoMa neighborhood, complete with tech industry perks including beanbag chairs and daily lunches, and costly engineering salaries.Now, Leap Motion is said to have new meetings lined up to explore other potential deals outside of Apple's offer, but it may be too late for the startup. According to sources familiar with the company, Apple's latest bid for Leap Motion was the AR/VR company's "last-ditch opportunity" to sell the business, which has faced financial instability for years.
That Leap Motion should fall upon dire financial straits when the company's core technology had such great potential was described by many as a failure that could have been easily avoided.
Increasingly, it looks like Leap Motion's technology might end up bought as a hidden gem for a company looking to add its hand-tracking technology to future smartglasses products — but only if it can get the founders on board with the deal.
Apple makes acquisitions of smaller companies like Leap Motion all the time, with news coming just in the past month of Apple acquiring Asaii and Spektral. Asaii is a music analytics platform that Apple will likely integrate into Apple Music and iTunes, while Spektral creates real-time green screens that can intelligently separate people and objects from their original backgrounds to overlay a new setting, which could be integrated into a future iPhone.
Tag: Apple acquisition
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11 months ago
told the company representatives that Apple was no longer innovative, its technology "sucked," and discussed the ways that Google's Android was better than iOS.
Sounds like some days here on MR lol wonder if he is a member ?
11 months ago
I see people reacting negatively to this but there is some truth to it, and it's good to see that there are people willing to tell the executives at Apple the unvarnished truth. Apple has been phoning it in for a long time now.
LOL. Just because you don’t like some of their design decisions doesn’t mean apple is the evil empire. They are the most valuable company on Earth, and clawed their way up from near ruin. When you liked what they were doing, they were probably almost out of business. Clearly they are making many millions of people happy with their products and services; far more than they made happy in the past.
11 months ago
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.
11 months ago
Prior to that, in 2013 the first meeting was held between the two companies and things reportedly went very poorly after Holz -- then 24 years old -- said he had no interest in joining Apple. Sources say Holz was insulting to Apple's staff, told the company representatives that Apple was no longer innovative, its technology "sucked," and discussed the ways that Google's Android was better than iOS.
I see people reacting negatively to this but there is some truth to it, and it's good to see that there are people willing to tell the executives at Apple the unvarnished truth. Apple has been phoning it in for a long time now.
And in case we've all forgotten in the rush to denounce any tech people showing disrespect to Apple, Steve Jobs wasn't exactly cuddling up to corporate tech companies in his early days. The next Steve Jobs won't be a corporate suck-up.
11 months ago
Yeah, those beanbag chairs are super-expensive.
And damn those "costly engineering salaries." They should just pay minimum wage to the people who make the actual products/software that make the company valuable in the first place.
And damn those "costly engineering salaries." They should just pay minimum wage to the people who make the actual products/software that make the company valuable in the first place.
11 months ago
I got to use a Magic Leap the other day, and it’s pretty astounding.
Most of the push has been around nifty little novelties, but 30 seconds into using real AR glasses and you realize how life-altering they will eventually be, in most every facet of your life.
Having a few desktops open and floating in space, but perfectly readable, while still being able to see and converse with people around you is amazing.
Whether Leap or Apple or Google or whoever is the company to bring it to us, it will arrive sooner than later, and now i’m More eager than ever.
This article is not about Magic Leap (which has a valuation in the billions of dollars), rather it's about Leap Motion, a completely different company. Leap Motion's primary product is a hand tracking device for VR/AR. It can track the motion of individual fingers in midair with fairly good precision, no gloves, etc. required. I have one, and it's a pretty cool device.
11 months ago
Steve Jobs would have assembled his own engineers to do his own motion gestures and put Leap out of business.
11 months ago
Sounds like hubris leads before the fall here. Maybe Apple will buy their IP when it goes on liquidation?
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