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bingosherlock t1_iud37vo wrote

there's a bunch of folks on linkedin effectively confirming this via posts about being laid off. ive not seen any official comms from the company itself, but it seems over.

i'm really into hydroponics and nerd shit, so i'm a bit sad this didn't work out. im wondering if maybe the scale needs to be significantly larger before all the nerd shit starts making financial sense?

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leadfoot9 t1_iudevze wrote

One of the biggest hurdles to automation is just how hard our economy exploits human workers. Why invest in an expensive robot when the minimum wage is $7.25*/hour? Not too mention, humans are much easier to replace when they break.

*except for disabled workers, gig workers, undocumented immigrants, etc.

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bingosherlock t1_iudl8d8 wrote

I agree with this 100% and generally believe that most people are wildly underpaid these days, but I suspect the bigger issue in this specific case is more along the lines of trying to be both a 'vertical farming' company and a robotics company at the same time without the scale needed to make vertical integration worthwhile or the market needed to pay for the robotics part of the company

like if i spent $20 million on developing hair cutting robots and then opened a couple robot barber shops that made $500,000/year, you could accurately describe me as a revenue generating hair cutting company. that doesn't necessarily mean it's good business sense to keep pouring money into r&d. if the market for the robots isn't there or if the robots aren't even market-ready, it might just be a bad idea, even if the haircuts themselves are really good (or if the robots start making really good salads)

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__she__wolf t1_iufk51w wrote

They had such a hard on for being a “robotics” company (previously called RoBotany) but the reality is, you can have a vertical farm run completely by humans if it is done safely.

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Big-Cockroach-5986 OP t1_iud4630 wrote

That's disappointing, was really hoping it would work for them and their employees. Also, thought other local media outlets may pick up on the fact a second ai-based Pittsburgh tech company laid off a 100 or so employees in the span of a week. Local effect of economic trends impacting growth start-up companies?

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bingosherlock t1_iud64fp wrote

> Local effect of economic trends impacting growth start-up companies?

yeah i think if you're funded by VC money right now and aren't looking at being profitable in the short term, you might be in for a rough time. i get that fifth season was generating revenue, but that might not be enough to justify ongoing R&D costs or even enough to cover operational costs at the scale they were working in (pure, pulled-from-ass speculation here, please don't take it as fact.)

a lot of companies / investors seem to be bracing for the worst. couple that with interest rates rising and i wouldn't be looking for employment at VC backed jobs anytime soon.

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war321321 t1_iudmct0 wrote

Yep there’s a lot of cold feet in this investing world right now due to the political climate, Ukraine, inflation, etc etc. It’s not the golden age of investing like it was a few years ago

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Willow-girl t1_iuhjzya wrote

I also wonder about the viability of a lot of these business models and whether investors got all razzle-dazzled with the 'tech' aspect.

I mean, take something like food delivery -- if there was actual money to be made there, don't you think stores and restaurants would have been delivering their goods all along?

Throwing an app into the mix evidently makes it sexy enough to warrant investment, but ... color me unconvinced.

I think the next couple of years are going to see a lot of these ventures go belly-up ... in fact, it has the potential to be the next crash.

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PGH-RealEstate t1_iug1s2e wrote

People are still sitting on mountains of high value cash, but the risk appetite is super low at the moment. Add that to financials finally catching up the tech that all of this capital was funding and here we are.

And let’s be honest, vertical farming is far less efficient than just actual farming in a country with nearly unlimited arable soil.

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