[Abishek_Muthian]

A ~30 years bet on a company is difficult in any country or any sector for the matter of fact unless it has potential to change the landscape of future wars, thereby providing ROI in the form of strategic superiority or at least that's what U.S. DoD hoped for with Boston Dynamics and it didn't happen.

On the same context,

Imagine if Boston Dynamics was only involved with drones, it would have never changed hands.

[jitix]

And it’s fine. Boston Dynamics paved a way with research and prototypes and some company will come along and commoditize it.

My point was that the economic culture in the US supports and this kind of innovation. No other country - maybe barring China, can do that.

I’m not praising the US as a country either (infact I’m moving to Canada). The US has deep flaws but it’s one redeeming quality is industrial innovation.

[Abishek_Muthian]

>Boston Dynamics paved a way with research and prototypes and some company will come along and commoditize it.

BD had already started selling its robots(Spot, Pick) commercially and had even had projected a plan for profitability[1].

Current sale is not really an indicative of its inability to make money but rather desperate situation of Softbank VF after string of poor bets, this must have been hard as Masayoshi Son is a self-acknowledged robophile.

[1]https://venturebeat.com/2020/09/14/boston-dynamics-ceo-profi...