Lidar startup goes public, makes founder a billionaire:
Luminar founder Austin Russell has become one of the youngest self-made billionaires after the lidar maker debuted on public markets on Thursday. Russell, 25, was just 17 when he founded Luminar in 2012. Shares of Luminar rose above $30 a share on Friday, a massive 43 percent gain for the day on top of big gains on Thursday.
Luminar has emerged as one of the leading companies in the fast-growing lidar industry. Carmakers are expected to begin offering lidar as an advanced option for their vehicles in the next few years to enable better driver-assistance technology. Right now, lidar companies are vying to win contracts to supply these sensors.
Luminar had a major win in May when it signed a deal with Volvo to supply lidar sensors for vehicles starting in 2022. It was one of the first such deals in the industry.
More recently, Luminar struck a deal to supply lidar sensors to Mobileye, the Intel subsidiary that supplies many of the camera-based driver assistance systems in today's cars. Luminar is supplying sensors for Mobileye's self-driving prototypes, not production vehicles, so it wasn't a huge deal on its own. But if Mobileye winds up building its next-generation technology around Luminar's lidar—far from a sure thing—it could lead to a lot of Luminar lidar sales in the future.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2020, @04:12PM (8 children)
Is he actually rich now, or just valued to be so? They don't make that distinction anymore these days.
Also, I wonder if they've actually made a lidar unit or whether it is still vaporware?
(Score: 4, Informative) by hemocyanin on Saturday December 05 2020, @04:37PM (7 children)
Maybe not quite vapor, but still mist:
I'm reminded of Breakfast of Champions: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/562762-i-had-no-respect-whatsoever-for-the-creative-works-of [goodreads.com]
It feels like Russell, with this high valuation, has entered into a conspiracy with billionaires to make poor people feel stupid. I could be wrong, but this all depends on the honesty of Luminar -- it sounds like it is repackaging a fairly well known technology but claiming it can do so cheaper than established companies:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2020, @05:05PM
He just needs to stall long enough to make the big car makers nervous that they'll lose out and eventually one of them will buy their IP for billions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2020, @05:12PM (5 children)
He's not trying to make poor people feel stupid, he's trying to get stupid rich people to give him their money.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2020, @05:22PM (4 children)
I've heard of a recently defeated US president that fits the bill perfectly.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2020, @05:24PM (3 children)
Are you sure he's defeated? I've been hearing some crack strike team legal arguments that says otherwise.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2020, @06:17PM
All the networks!!! All The Networks!!!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Saturday December 05 2020, @09:25PM
The "crack" I understand. Perhaps the "strike" refers to lighting a match to something so you can smoke it.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2020, @01:28AM
"Release the Crackhead!" - Sidney Powell
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Booga1 on Saturday December 05 2020, @04:44PM (18 children)
Congrats to the dude on being rich, but calling him "self-made" is a lie made fantasy land about how he got there. I really hate how people seem to call most of these people "self-made" because they're anything but. I say "most" because there are always exceptions, but I often see a few common themes in these "teenager becomes millionaire CEO" stories.
Phrases like "if I can do it, anyone can" frequently pop up as well.
This guy didn't earn that money. His company didn't sell that much product. This is stock market gamblers making him rich far beyond all actual effort put into the business. Do you think he really worked hard enough to be worth a thousand millionaires?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Saturday December 05 2020, @05:11PM (11 children)
Yes, I expect that like most others playing at entrepeneur, he probably has very wealthy parents who got him on his feet through repeated investments of money, time, and connections over the last decade.
If hard work made people rich then jobs like janitor or stockboy would have people rolling in money, and farmers would be at the very top of the biggest of those heaps of cash.
I won't read an Ars Technica link. However, on another publisher's site there was an interesting comment by Thiel himself, who had given him start money. That comment was, while it is not exactly rare to launch a billion dollar (valuated, not real money) company these days, what is rare is for one of the founders to hold on to so much of the valuation. It looks like he was able to game the system better than the incumbent players, that and he himself points out that there was no competition in the self-driving car LIDAR market. So it is special that he is a billionaire, but not for any of the reasons many people are projecting on him.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2020, @05:28PM (6 children)
But ! But ! All right-wingers always told me that all rich people are rich because they made smart choices in life and worked hard, and all poor people are poor because they are lazy slobs who made poor choices in life !
Have I been lied to all these years ?
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Saturday December 05 2020, @06:39PM (1 child)
Obviously it's not that simple. If you don't have money to start with, being lazy will almost guarantee that you stay poor. If you work hard, you may or may not achieve an unusual amount of wealth. If you start with a lot of wealth, you may or may not manage to hold on to it.
"Work hard and you'll get rich" and "All the rich got it unfairly" are both lies fronted by people with political agendas.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2020, @09:19PM
Work hard, and the democrats will Corona you out of business while letting big boxes thrive.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2020, @11:12PM (3 children)
Rich is not a realistic goal to aim for in life. Self-supporting with a family and house with a yard is a realistic goal. I don't burn with envy because I don't live in a mansion. That will obviously always be exceptional.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2020, @04:28AM (2 children)
> Self-supporting with a family and house with a yard is a realistic goal.
Ha! In which country or past decade?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2020, @04:43AM
Even if it doesn't happen as soon as you'd like, you can't just give up. Humanity didn't get to where it is by people quitting. As long as you are alive, there is hope and a chance.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 06 2020, @06:51PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2020, @06:01PM (2 children)
What’s wrong with Ars Technica? It’s one of the better tech mags out there
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2020, @12:31AM
if you have to ask... I have this bridge..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 07 2020, @02:35PM
(Score: 4, Informative) by jelizondo on Saturday December 05 2020, @11:13PM
Clearly his parents are well-off but I can't find how well-off.
Then he had funding from three billionaries [forbes.com] (Peter Thiel, Alec Gores and Dean Metropoulos) , so probably they are onto something but calling Russell "self-made" is a big exageration.
Indeed, Russell looks to be quite smart but he's also had a lot of luck getting Thiel to invest first and bringing other big-money players along.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 06 2020, @06:49PM (4 children)
Yes, I think he checked that box off. It's not the hardness of the work that matters. It's creating a company that produces a product that someone is willing to value in billions of dollars. He didn't work harder than a thousand millionaires. He sure didn't work harder than say 50,000 near minimum wage burger flippers. But those other people didn't make Luminar.
And I can't help but notice that you claim that not just anyone can create companies like Luminar. Sounds like the premium is deserved on that basis alone!
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Sunday December 06 2020, @11:06PM (3 children)
You missed the point. I didn't say he didn't deserve the valuation or the money. The point was that he didn't get there except via input of money, resources, and connections that were not his own. His situation is that he is not a "self-made" billionaire by any stretch of the word.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 06 2020, @11:44PM (2 children)
Does a carpenter make the wood that they use? Does a singer make the language they sing in? Did you make the keyboard you typed the above on? We don't expect anyone to make anything purely from scratch.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Monday December 07 2020, @06:40AM (1 child)
Very excellent points. "If you wish to make a cake from scratch, you must first invent the universe."
If nobody gets anything significant done on their own, why do they make that distinction? Why make the claim they did it "on their own" when they know it is false? If anything, the term "self-made billionaire" is simply an impossibility.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 07 2020, @02:29PM
Why do you not make that distinction? Here, the work is making something new out of existing materials, be it capital and connections, or the examples I mentioned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 07 2020, @05:53AM
Agree with the points about rich parents and connection.
However disagree on the stock market gamblers. That part is "actual effort" within the system. That is how the system works. Sure I'm with you that that isn't "honest" elbow-grease work to "earn" money - but it is the system we live in today.
People who sit there an gripe about hard work and other getting rich because they take full advantage of the system and conditions are idiots really - and the it shows as the ones rolling in cash are the ones that actually take advantage of the system. We can complain that all the stock market speculation and folks getting obscenely rich out of it didn't do "hard work" all we want, but that is the system we live today and it is a perfectly valid way to get rich like it or not.
The rich parents and ivy league connection is a bummer though and it does lower the barrier a heck of a lot for folks that happen to be lucky enough to be in that category.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 05 2020, @06:44PM (1 child)
i like to go ding dong
say it out loud right now, "ding dong!"
not like a doorbell but like the Christmas song!
I know you can do it!
YOU CAN DO ITTTTTTTTTTT
FEED ME SEYMOUR!
FEED ME ALL NIGHT LONG
HA HA HA HA
CAUSE IF YOU FEED ME SEYMOUR
I CAN GROW UP *BIG* AND STRONG!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 06 2020, @02:21AM
...
I let my eyes rise to the big tower clock
And I heard those bells chimin' in my heart
Going ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong.
Ding dong ding dong ding dong ding dong
Counting the time, then you came to my room
And you whispered to me and we took the big plunge
...
[from Gloria, Patti Smith]