Sources: Magic Leap is laying off about half its employees, or around 1,000 people, as it winds down its consumer business; Magic Leap has raised over $2B
50 percent of its workforce — and shutting down its consumer division: https://www.bloomberg.com/... Jon Evans / @rezendi : This is going to go down as one of the biggest failures in the history of technology. Raised ~$3B over many years, released almost nothing, and now laid off reportedly half the company. https://twitter.com/... -Izma / @iwazaru91 : Well there it is. As of today I have been laid off of my job at Magic Leap. Definitely sad and stressful to figure out what is next for me. https://www.magicleap.com/... Robbie Tilton / @robbietilton : Sad to see so many amazing people get laid off from Magic Leap. I hope to see the birth of a lot of amazing AR founders/companies from it. https://www.magicleap.com/... Steve Kovach / @stevekovach : Reading between the lines: Magic Leap has effectively no revenue (no one buying the headsets), next product won't be ready for some time, and zero appetite from investors to dump more money in the company. https://www.magicleap.com/... Alexandria Heston / @ali_heston : An incredible time. An incredible company. So many talented people, I was happy to have learned from them in the time I had there. No matter what people say about Magic Leap's success or failure, it was a pleasure working there every day doing what I loved. Onward and upward! https://twitter.com/... Joseph Flaherty / @josephflaherty : I have a feeling Magic Leap is going to get lumped in with Juicero as a heavily-funded hardware startup that failed to launch, but it's a very different case. Technical risk has taken a back seat to market risk over the last decade, but there's nothing dishonorable in failure. https://twitter.com/... Robert Scoble / @scobleizer : Magic Leap announces layoffs. Sad for Spatial Computing. https://twitter.com/...
BloombergEd Hammond
Context & Ripple Effects
Magic Leap's retreat was telegraphed months ago: the company had already sold only ~6,000 headsets in six months against a stated goal of 100,000 in the first year and laid off dozens at the end of 2019. Today's move — roughly 1,000 people cut, about half the workforce, and the consumer division wound down entirely — converts that demand shortfall into a formal exit from selling headsets to consumers.
The stakes are unusually high because Magic Leap raised over $2 billion to chase this market, making it one of the most heavily funded failures in consumer tech. The related coverage shows what comes next: within weeks the company was reportedly in talks to raise $100M from a major health company, pointing to an enterprise-and-healthcare future rather than a retail one.
First-order effects
Around 1,000 Magic Leap employees lose their jobs immediately, including engineers and creatives whose departures were visible across social media the same day.
Magic Leap exits the consumer headset business outright, stranding early buyers of a device built on the premise that spatial computing was ready for living rooms.
Second-order effects
With over $2B already spent and no consumer revenue to show for it, Magic Leap must find new capital outside its original investor thesis — hence the reported courtship of a major health company weeks later.
Rival AR headset makers inherit a cleared field on the consumer side but also a cautionary data point that makes their own consumer fundraising harder.
The episode hardens investor skepticism toward consumer hardware moonshots, pushing capital in spatial computing toward applications with paying institutional customers rather than mass-market bets.
The trend: Consumer spatial computing is collapsing into enterprise and licensed-technology plays, with Magic Leap's layoffs marking the moment the mass-market headset thesis lost its biggest backer.
If you worked at Magic Leap and are looking for a new opportunity, @oculus/@Facebook are hiring! Get in touch, I'd be happy to recommend you! https://twitter.com/...
Sorry to hear the unfortunate news. Having been on both sides I can empathize with those losing their jobs and those who had to make the hard decisions. Happy to make introductions from my LinkedIn and to pass resumes to our team @tiltfive My DM is open https://techcrunch.com/...
Another one bites the dust. Google Glass, HoloLens, and now Magic Leap are now for the enterprise. This is disappointing for consumers. Where's that Minecraft AR Microsoft promised? But also: w/o a killer app, all AR headsets are DOA https://www.inputmag.com/... via @inputmag
I'm genuinely open-minded here and willing to hear that I'm wrong about these suspicions. But if I'm not, using COVID-19 as cover for layoffs you had to do anyway does not seem like behavior that aligns with saying you really care for your employees.
Quest is sold out. Portals are sold out. I can't even buy a link cable for my Quest. But the pandemic is making AR/VR look *less* attractive to investors? Also - Magic Leap raised $2.6B in capital. How could they possibly need revenue so badly already? https://en.wikipedia.org/..…
I can't help feeling like, in the posts about all the folks let go from @magicleap today, nobody's touching the elephant in the room - their post uses COVID-19 as cover, saying their AR IP is highly valuable but the virus made investment dry up... ?? https://www.magicleap.com/...
I was in Florida in early March and had lunch w someone who had just gotten a demo of the ML-2. He couldn't say enough good things about it. It reportedly built on the innovations of the ML-1 while solving many of its shortcomings. I'm still hopeful. https://techcrunch.com/...
Magic Leap just fired half its employees after failing to deliver a compelling consumer products from $2.6b in VC funding, but would like COVID-19 to be the focus of the blame here. https://techcrunch.com/...
1) really ahead of its time tech wise 2) hyped pre launch video way overblown 3) not much great content at launch 4) raised so much $ from top investors 5) users aren't interested yet 6) will get acq hired for tech/people 7) waiting for Apple to launch something... https://twitte…
Magic Leap, which managed to raise more than $2 billion in venture funding without even a public prototype, is laying off about a thousand people — 50 percent of its workforce — and shutting down its consumer division: https://www.bloomberg.com/...
This is going to go down as one of the biggest failures in the history of technology. Raised ~$3B over many years, released almost nothing, and now laid off reportedly half the company. https://twitter.com/...
Well there it is. As of today I have been laid off of my job at Magic Leap. Definitely sad and stressful to figure out what is next for me. https://www.magicleap.com/...
Sad to see so many amazing people get laid off from Magic Leap. I hope to see the birth of a lot of amazing AR founders/companies from it. https://www.magicleap.com/...
Reading between the lines: Magic Leap has effectively no revenue (no one buying the headsets), next product won't be ready for some time, and zero appetite from investors to dump more money in the company. https://www.magicleap.com/...
An incredible time. An incredible company. So many talented people, I was happy to have learned from them in the time I had there. No matter what people say about Magic Leap's success or failure, it was a pleasure working there every day doing what I loved. Onward and upward! htt…
I have a feeling Magic Leap is going to get lumped in with Juicero as a heavily-funded hardware startup that failed to launch, but it's a very different case. Technical risk has taken a back seat to market risk over the last decade, but there's nothing dishonorable in failure. ht…