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dgellow 5 hours ago

That feels so low of a price when compared to the insane valuation people attribute to Tesla robots

glaslong 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The problem is Boston Dynamics makes actual robots, which are much more limited than robots constructed from pure hype.

theptip 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> If you show revenue, people will ask 'HOW MUCH?' and it will never be enough. The company that was the 100xer, the 1000xer is suddenly the 2x dog. But if you have NO revenue, you can say you're pre-revenue! You're a potential pure play... It's not about how much you earn, it's about how much you're worth. And who is worth the most? Companies that lose money!

Being less cynical, I do think it’s fair to say that they just didn’t quite find PMF; they aren’t good enough for factory work, Spot is niche, and Atlas is too scary for in-home.

The robot butler business model just hasn’t been tested in the same way AFAIK.

insane_dreamer 43 minutes ago | parent [-]

you don't make it into the tres commas club by showing revenue

groundzeros2015 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

*actual robot demos

criddell 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yesterday I read about Cursor being sold for $60bn. Cursor being worth more than 50x Boston Dynamics seems insane.

jonas21 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

$325M for 9.65% implies a valuation of around $3.4 billion, so it's more like 18x.

Regardless, Boston Dynamics has been burning cash for 35 years and all they have to show for it are some fancy demos and trial deployments. Eventually you have to wonder what their future prospects are.

quickthrowman 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> Eventually you have to wonder what their future prospects are.

Boston Dynamics is a defense contractor, their future prospects are designing and manufacturing war machines, the same thing they’ve always done.

The dog robots are meant to carry stuff/support combat troops.

The humanoid robots are designed to rescue injured soldiers and possibly other risky tasks.

They may have plans to commercialize these robots, but I’m not sure where the consumer/commercial market for robotic dogs is. Jobs that need machines to carry heavy stuff already have solutions and have had them for a long time, and they’re safe to operate as long as you’re not in a combat zone. I guess it would be nice to have a robot dog portage my packs and canoe for me in the BWCA but I’m not spending new car money for that.

raincole 20 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I know quite a lot of people who use (or used to use) Cursor. I don't personally know one single person who owns a humanoid robot. YMMV.

dehugger 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I was trying to think about the why with Cursor, and the only thing that makes sense to me is they wanted experts in making harnesses so that they can pivot that expertise towards building harnesses intended for autonomous agents to use instead of humans. There's no world where a 60 billion IDE makes sense.

monocasa 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I think it's more that Space X's valuation is ridiculous, and they need acquisitions that are ridiculous to pretend that the emperor is still wearing clothes.

When cursor is selling for $60B, then grok has to really be worth several times that, right?

dehugger an hour ago | parent [-]

I don't know that I disagree, but this had to be in the works before the IPO right? Acquisitions don't typically materialize in a timeline of <1 week (or perhaps they do when someone walks in and offers 60B...)

lokimedes 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Not just an IDE, look at the prospect, they’ll soon lead in farming, genetics, AGI and teleportation. Remember to price in the TAM of that!

skipants 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because it is.

The average (and above-average?) investor really does not understand tech.

void-star 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This was just ~10% of boston dynamics at that price. HN pro-tip: before commenting, read the articles not just the headlines.

georgemcbay 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> This was just ~10% of boston dynamics at that price. HN pro-tip: before commenting, read the articles not just the headlines.

I'm not sure if you're following your own advice...?

The ~10% just sold was bought for $325 million.

The total price they paid was $1.205 billion ($880 million in 2021, $325 million now).

The $1.1 billion figure in the HN headline is kind of just wrong and presumably based on what they considered to be Boston Dynamics' total valuation in 2021, but represents neither what they paid for the ~10% nor the actual total they paid over both transactions.

NewJazz 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Still only 3b valuation, or 20x less than Cursor.

void-star 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Ack Yep my bad. Actually my bad for reading the “comment” incorrectly and being out of the loop with the cursor sale til now.

readme 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Boston Dynamics robots can do gymnastics...

Hey, Hyundai isn't "just a car company"

gowld 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The insane valuation is for Elon meme vibes and the "vision" of "colonizing Mars", not any of the products.