Apr. 18 at 8:14 PM
$LAZR That article didn't articulate what really happened to Luminar and why Austin Russell failed. Too little space here in a single ST post to list all the reasons why, but Austin lacked the creative genius and vision for this 60-year old technology that was maturing and diversifying in many Use Cases everywhere else but Luminar, who remained Stuck on Stupid (cars), and the debt load to expand their own manufacturing to foreign countries, and then relationships in China, at a time when Onshoring and anti-China trade sentiment was growing - you'd think Austin lived in a different country. Well, he did live in a different state (California) than his corporate HQs, although it offered better access to the Party Scene with Russian Oligarchs, to include Magomed Musaev who helped plant seed capital into Luminar, but that only led to Musaev co-opting "poster child" Austin Russell as the US face for a Forbes acquisition scheme (Musaev owned Russia's Forbes). Austin was distracted, aloof.
