These are one of the few times I can say that I don't care if Boston Dynamics are making money as yet.

Boston Dynamics are one of the few real serious players in the robotics space worldwide doing deep R&D.

Hyundai are basically paying for the BD Labs research. And they are well positioned to reap the products and techniques from the lab with their own manufacturing and engineering prowess and experience over the next decade.

And it won't be walking dogs.

It will be things like a little flexi-joint in a car that you buy without knowing (or caring) it's in there. Or some industrial machine that Hyundai builds that gives them a 5% competitive edge in the manufacturing of it that 99.9999% of us never hear about.

But for that it's worth it.

Very happy to see people put good money into this Lab.

Normally tech companies tend to be overpriced, but $880M for 80% of Boston Dynamics (total value of $1.1 billion), doesn't that seem a little low?

Other tech companies can seemingly lose millions, as long as there's an advertising or data-mining angle to the product. Because Boston Dynamics aim to actually create physical products they then get valued lower?

They've gone from Google -> Softbank -> Hyundai in a few years.

Does anyone know where their revenue is coming from currently? For all the flashy videos they put out, you so rarely see them that I'm not sure if they're just doing well on the B2B side (warehouse automation? military contracts?), or if they've been in the red for the last decade.

And a fricking messenger app sold for $21.8 billion. Unbelievable.

Good move.

I think the next step of mobility is a mobile robot. The cars of the future should be a central hub for move people between places, but able to do a lot more through physical manipulation, instead of becoming a enlarged mobile information terminal.

Thus, developing cars as robots are going to be more useful in that future.

I personally will invest time in building products that are mobility robots, not cars with giant screen.

For years they made the news with bots that seemed to have direct defense/militaristic use.

Not too long ago, or at least the last time I remember them hitting my news streams, was when they demonstrated a bot capable of handling moderately complex warehouse tasks.

If my reading of this sequence of events is correct, it is probably no coincidence that foreign investment came in after applications shifted from tactical militaristic use that would likely be restricted to the US & allies, and now also includes applications more generally applicable to uses outside of warfare.

It seems that military applications may be compelling, but plowshares are more economically interesting.

Seems like they’d be a good fit for Disney, making theme park attractions.

BD was once under Google/Alphabet's control - then they let them go, what does that mean? Was their robotics efforts not useful to Google's own research branch? Did acquihired the talent and then resold what was left to SoftBank? I have no clue...then SoftBank sold it again.. What I know is surely BD must have gone through a lot of turmoil (acquisitions) for such a small company (300ish employees?) since its inception!

I think it's quite the loss for the US to allow a foreign company to gain controlling interest in such a cutting edge firm. Some of what they've built I'd have to imagine could be of very real national interest as it relates to any of the military applications.

What's the difference between a "controlling stake" and just owning the company?

Boston Dynamics is the one company on this planet that inspires me and makes me believe in a wonderful future that we have yet to even glimpse. I hope they keep doing what they're doing and elevate our species to new heights. God bless them.

Probably one of the better companies to acquire controlling stake in BD because several of their own companies would directly benefit from robotics.

I’m picturing a waking digger for specialized terrain. I think Hyundai/BD combo has a chance to do it safely. Maybe something small like a Kubota.

https://kubota.ca/en/products/power-equipment/excavators/k00...

Honestly, of all the mega-corps that could have been the ones for this round of BD bailout, this isn't a bad choice at all. Hyundai already has a strong background in robotics, and hopefully they'll be able to help Boston Dynamics to finally capitalize on their excellent work.

I do wish controlling interest had managed to stay stateside, but, well, it is what it is.

Hyundai's interests are broad enough that I really wonder what they intend to do with it. Are they just going to do factory helper robots that are super-specialized and we'll never see? Or will they actually commercially sell some version of these types of robots?

I'm surprised it wasn't Amazon buying them. There's bound to be more than a few people that steal from their warehouses.

i thought that boston dynamics were a former DOD contractor, did this cause any problems with the authorization of the sale? (here it says that they got a lot of initial DARPA funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Dynamics )

I can imagine those dancing robots being used to replace workers in an auto assembly plant.

Let’s go robot that steps out of the trunk and pumps my gas for me!

Why leave the word "controlling" out of the title?

I, for one, salute my new dog-shaped robot overlords.