Here we have another claim of an earth shattering product.

It’s not software, it’s an actually a real world high tech physical device, and he is promising to be able to deliver a Lidar (Laser Radar) for things like self driving cars for pennies.

Am I the only one who thinks that this reads like an article about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos:

In the sixth grade, Austin Russell turned a Nintendo gaming handset into a cell phone. At 15, he built a holographic keyboard. By 17, he’d filed for a patent. Now at 22, he’s running a startup at the heart of Silicon Valley’s latest technology mania.

As founder and chief executive officer of Luminar Technologies Inc., Russell and his team are building lidar, a hyper-accurate laser sensing technology crucial for self-driving cars. Google parent Alphabet Inc. is suing Uber Technologies Inc. for allegedly stealing lidar designs, while startups Velodyne Lidar Inc. and Quanergy Systems Inc. have raised at least $150 million apiece from giants like Ford Motor Co., Baidu Inc., Daimler AG and Samsung Electronics Co.

Russell has raised a similar amount, according to people familiar with Luminar’s finances. The company, founded in 2012, had sought a valuation above $1 billion when it was raising money last year, one of the people said. It’s unclear who invested — Luminar is in “stealth” mode, meaning it hasn’t announced itself to the world yet. A spokeswoman declined to comment, as did Russell’s father Michael, a commercial real estate veteran who serves as chief financial officer. A message sent to Austin Russell through his LinkedIn profile was answered by his assistant, who declined to comment.Russell has raised a similar amount, according to people familiar with Luminar’s finances. The company, founded in 2012, had sought a valuation above $1 billion when it was raising money last year, one of the people said. It’s unclear who invested — Luminar is in “stealth” mode, meaning it hasn’t announced itself to the world yet. A spokeswoman declined to comment, as did Russell’s father Michael, a commercial real estate veteran who serves as chief financial officer. A message sent to Austin Russell through his LinkedIn profile was answered by his assistant, who declined to comment.

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That a relatively unknown college dropout of barely drinking age can raise millions of dollars shows the appetite for lidar. “It’s a gold rush and we’re selling pickaxes,” said Velodyne President Mike Jellen, who graduated college years before Russell was born. Several car companies want autonomous vehicles on the road by 2020 or 2021, which means they’re starting to order lots of lidar systems. Velodyne expects to ship 12,000 units this year, 80,000 in 2018 and 1.7 million by 2022.

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A top-of-the-range lidar from Velodyne sells for more than $50,000. It offers cheaper lidar, which generates lower-definition 3-D images, for about $8,000, while Quanergy has a product that sells for some $4,000. Autonomous cars often require two or more lidar sensors, so having a capable system can get expensive.

Russell is trying to develop a lidar priced significantly less than $1,000, according to people with knowledge of Luminar’s planning. Quanergy aims to have one that sells below $100 in three to four years.

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In a recent demonstration, the images generated by Luminar’s lidar system were higher-definition than those produced by competing equipment made by Velodyne or Quanergy, according to someone who saw the equipment first-hand, but was not allowed to discuss it publicly. Another version generated even sharper images, but the information was processed with a slight delay — because of a lack of computing power to crunch all the data rather than a problem with the core technology, the person said.

Another “unicorn”, only because it’s not a clever internet idea and actually have to deliver a physical product that is bound by the laws of physics, it ain’t quite so easy.

What we have here is the Silicon Valley investors distracted by a shiny bauble.

A few buzz words about the current in technology, and they go crazy.

Kind of like how all of big movers and shakers in tech declaring that Dean Kaman’s “Ginger”,  now known as the Segway scooter was going to transform the world.

Way too much of the US tech market seems startlingly close to snake oil sales.

If someone suggests investing in this, run in the other direction.