Boston Dynamics, the company behind the popular robot dog Spot, has laid off 5% of its staff as it faces financial difficulties, in what management says is a “very difficult short-term decision in favor of a long-term strategy.”
Boston Dynamics, the company behind the popular robot dog Spot, has laid off 5% of its staff as it faces financial difficulties, with executives saying it is “a very difficult short-term decision in favor of a long-term strategy.”
Last week, Boston Dynamics laid off 45 employees, about 5% of the staff, writes Futurism.
“This decision was not made lightly,” Boston Dynamics CEO Robert Player wrote in a memo to employees, candidly speaking about the company’s business struggles, even after its work received huge media coverage.
“Our long-term outlook remains positive: Spot continues to scale steadily with industrial and government customers, Stretch is proving its value to logistics and retail players, and our R&D work on Atlas is progressing at an encouraging pace,” he added, referring to the company’s three main consumer robot offerings.
However, Boston Dynamics is also burning cash at a rate that exceeds commercial progress to date, Player noted, so the company needs to optimize its operations and manufacturing processes to support sustainable growth.
“Today is about making a very difficult short-term decision for the sake of our long-term strategy and profitability goals,” the company’s CEO added.
The company also faces increasing competition, especially when it comes to humanoid robots, with companies like Tesla , Agility Robotics , and Figure AI raising huge sums to bring such robots to market.
