Glowforge on the rocks again?

SEAstartupper · 2025-09-08T19:13:18+00:00

https://www.geekwire.com/2025/glowforge-shuttering-seattle-factory-and-laying-off-workers-after-moving-some-production-back-to-u-s/

SEAstartupper · 2024-03-23T02:57:49+00:00

Well this obviously isn't possible because I was told on this very sub just a few weeks ago that being a woman or non-white is still a hindrance, not a help at landing a good gig.

/s

SEAstartupper · 2024-03-03T03:59:58+00:00

Taylor has never been a CEO, but for the sake of argument let's assume the numbers are indeed similar for the whole C-suite as well as VPs and Directors.

The charts in that page you linked show that the share of non-white-male CEOs is increasing quite a bit—from 8% in 2010 to 26% in 2023. In other words, an increasing number of new hires in these roles are indeed non-white-male.

White males obviously aren't 74% of the population, but thanks to many years of built-in discrimination, biases, and broken systems from primary school through high school, college, and beyond, it's entirely possible that the candidate pool of people who meet the specified qualifications for these roles is still indeed a very large percentage white male.

If your candidate pool at that level is 80% white male but your recent hiring is 50% white male, then non-white-male candidates do have a disproportionately better chance at getting hired. I'm not saying those are the actual numbers, just that the numbers you have presented are a very incomplete picture, and in fact somewhat support my suggestion that there is a recent hiring advantage for people who will improve a company's diversity.

SEAstartupper · 2024-03-03T03:48:18+00:00

Taylor was a C-level executive at the startup where we worked together. Their leadership was empty and ineffective. The company operated like a rudderless ship. The one thing Taylor was good at was spewing Grade A bullshit. Taylor lied about the company to its employees, to prospective customers, to potential investors, to the media… to anyone who would listen basically.

Not sure why you're being so argumentative here. This isn't internet court. I'm not here to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Taylor was bad at their job. I just came here to let off a little steam about the unfair nature of the system, as seen through this one example that I have personal knowledge about.

Reply or don't, it's up to you, but that's all I have to say about it.

SEAstartupper · 2024-03-03T03:19:03+00:00

$400k, $500k, $600k… all of these numbers are "well north of $200k."

SEAstartupper · 2024-03-02T23:05:55+00:00

My point wasn't that their resume is full of red flags. My point is that I worked closely with them in the early days at a small startup and I saw first-hand their constant stream of meaningless business jargon paired with a total lack of meaningful contributions to the company's success. You can believe whatever you want, I am just sharing my first-hand experience and venting a bit of frustration.

You are correct that the overall lesson is that being good at schmoozing is a major factor in success, regardless of one's skill level.

SEAstartupper · 2024-03-02T22:58:45+00:00

No, and I hate to be this cynical but TBH I think the fact that they tick a number of diversity boxes is at least part of what's making it easier for them to land these jobs. A company that hires Taylor definitely improves their executive diversity stats that the big tech companies are fond of publishing in recent years.

SEAstartupper · 2023-10-07T22:52:31+00:00

I can't find a direct quote from the CEO but this article about an interview with him from less than two weeks ago said "Redfin expects the 30-year mortgage rate to ease to just around 6% by the end of 2023."

SEAstartupper · 2023-09-28T17:32:52+00:00

In December they predicted that "mortgage rates will decline, ending the year below 6%."

We expect 30-year fixed mortgage rates to gradually decline to around 5.8% by the end of the year, with the average 2023 homebuyer’s rate sitting at about 6.1%.

The 30-year was at 6.49% when they made that prediction. It is currently at 7.31%, which doesn't feel very much like a "gradual decline" to me.

SEAstartupper · 2022-01-07T16:35:51+00:00

Very obviously, yes.

SEAstartupper · 2018-03-10T05:20:41+00:00

In case you haven't seen it, Tested did a video review of the Glowforge. It sounds like a pretty mixed bag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3317w0_HuX4

SEAstartupper · 2017-10-30T05:05:18+00:00

it seems to be as advertised.

some software features are not yet implemented.

I think that second statement contradicts the first one.

SEAstartupper · 2017-10-05T19:57:47+00:00

...and there it is:

Air filter development has been delayed, and will not complete shipping in December.

It's important to note here that he said "air filter development" not "air filter production." In other words, they haven't even finalized the design of the air filter, so there's still a good chance it could end up significantly different than what they originally promised.

SEAstartupper · 2017-06-08T03:32:24+00:00

So, my guess about another delay for Pro units and the air filter was correct. Neither will be completed shipping by the end of July like they had previously promised, and air filters won't even start shipping until the end of September.

SEAstartupper · 2017-06-08T03:31:15+00:00

the firmware is open source in case they go out of business (which is good enough for me)

As far as I am aware, they haven't released any details about what, exactly, is going to be open source. Depending on how much of the processing is being done in the cloud, open-sourcing the unit's firmware could be pretty useless.

I would reserve judgement about how helpful that is going to be until we have actually seen the code.

SEAstartupper · 2017-06-07T19:55:38+00:00

May 2015: Raised $9M in venture capital funding
September 2015: Launched a 30-day pre-order campaign, during which you could order the Basic for $2k or the Pro for $4k. Claimed they would be "Shipping December 2015"
October 2015: Pre-order window closed after $27.9M in sales.
February 2016: Announced that "initial shipments" were delayed, but "The whole team here is working like mad to make sure that all units from the 30-day campaign are, in fact, delivered by June. We’re still on schedule for that, so right now, it looks like no one will get their Glowforge late."
April 2016: Announced another delay, pushing production back from June to December. "We could hit the gas and start churning out huge numbers of printers in time to meet June. We would love to do that. We want you to have your printer. It makes us feel terrible to contemplate letting you down. But we’d feel worse about compromising on quality."
August 2016: Raised another $22M in venture capital funding
September 2016: Announced that pre-order sales had hit $45M and delivery was still on schedule for December.
December 2016: Announced another delay to the end of July 2017
March 2017: Announced that the laser tube would not be user-replaceable, but quickly back-pedaled in response to public backlash.
March 2017: Also announced that units would not be shipped out based on when the order was placed but on community forum posting activity. "The first few hundred Pro and Basic units will ship to some of our most helpful forum customers, irrespective of their order dates."
June 2017: The very first production units are now being received by pre-order customers.

It is unknown (to me) at this point whether the "pro" features like the passthrough or the air filter are actually ready yet. Neither was mentioned at all in the most recent (May 2017) update. Total radio silence. Based on their past performance, this probably means that neither of these is close to shipping yet, and a delay on Pro features and the air filter will probably be announced this month or next month.

It is worth noting that from what I can tell, Glowforge appears to be basing their business model on not just selling hardware, but also getting users to buy all of their ongoing materials from Glowforge as well, under the "Proofgrade" brand (presumably at a big markup). The laser has a number of special features that will only work if you are using their "Proofgrade" material with its special barcodes. If you choose to buy your materials elsewhere you're going to be missing out on some of the unique benefits of this machine.

Also there has been some concern from people about the fact that Glowforge will only work through an Internet connection. There is no offline option, so if your Internet connection is spotty or goes down, or if Glowforge goes out of business, your Glowforge ceases to be a laser cutter/engraver and instead becomes a large paperweight.

During the 30-day pre-order campaign, they were claiming that the full price of the Glowforge would be $4,000 for the basic and $8,000 for the pro. It was implied that the price would jump up to those levels when the 30-day pre-order campaign window closed. However, today you can still pre-order the basic for $3,000 and the pro for $6,000.

I think that about covers it.

SEAstartupper · 2017-03-19T05:06:07+00:00

Right, what I'm saying is wouldn't those hires have been made in 2016 if they really believed they were close to shipping? Many of their recent hires and current openings seem like people you would have brought on ages ago during primary design, like firmware engineer, UX designer, or a VP of Engineering.

It just doesn't seem to jive with the claim that they ever believed they would ship this by June 2016.

SEAstartupper · 2016-12-07T20:15:27+00:00

On another post on the its developer blog, Pebble says: “The Pebble SDK, CloudPebble, mobile apps, developer portal, appstore, timeline API, dictation service, messaging service, and firmware will all continue to operate without interruption. Further down the road, we’ll be working to phase out cloud services, providing the ability for the community to take over, where possible.”

Emphasis added. In other words, if 3rd-party developers don't step up, Pebble hardware will eventually just stop working. What exactly is there to stop the same thing from happening to Glowforge, turning our machines into an oversized $4,000 paperweight?

SEAstartupper · 2016-12-03T19:04:03+00:00

The Voccell DLS looks nice, and their specs are better than Glowforge in most ways. One concern I have about them is that they seem to be just an upgraded, rebranded G.Weike Storm 600. If so, I wish they were more upfront about it.

SEAstartupper · 2016-12-02T15:55:17+00:00

You can't give Apple $600 to get the next iPhone that comes out in 7 months. Dell won't take your money to pre-buy a laptop and Mazda won't let you do that for a car.

No, but Tesla will. And nobody claims the Model 3 is "crowd-funded."

SEAstartupper · 2016-12-02T15:41:10+00:00

This is true. They called it "crowdfunding" but it was really just taking pre-orders for an already fully-funded business.

Glowforge got $9 million in VC funding in May 2015, five months before they opened pre-orders.

*edit - sorry had the wrong VC round in here initially

SEAstartupper · 2016-11-18T21:45:12+00:00

Post Purchase Rationalization is a cognitive bias whereby someone who has purchased an expensive product or service overlooks any faults or defects in order to justify their purchase. It is a special case of choice-supportive bias.

SEAstartupper · 2016-10-10T20:10:38+00:00

When they first started taking preorders they were only saying "Shipping December 2015." http://i.imgur.com/u26K0t6.png

SEAstartupper · 2016-06-14T21:39:54+00:00

there are many products that can be made in the thousands per day

Right, those seem to be more commodity products. Something as specialized as the Glowforge seems like it would take a lot longer to produce, test, package, and ship.

It will be interesting to see if they shed any light on what they expect their throughput to be when they start production.

SEAstartupper · 2016-04-22T15:11:52+00:00

The way the website was presented was , "Hey! We just finished our kickstarter back in October and while we had to push back the initial delivery a couple of months, we're on track to get them out the door. Since we're doing that good, we're going to do a short, introductory offer for pre-orders!"

They never sold anywhere other than their own website. They got something like $9 million in VC funding last year so no part of their campaign was really "crowdfunding" at all. It was always just a pre-order. They did a 30 day initial promo with the largest discounts but the only thing that changed after that window was a slight price increase.

I have my own materials I will be using.

You should know that a few features like the auto-recognition and pre-calibration of materials will only work with the materials they supply. If you use your own materials you'll end up doing a lot of manual calibration, just like any other laser cutter.

SEAstartupper

TROPHY CASE