playground global
glassdoor gives you an inside look at what it' s like to work at playground global, including salaries, reviews, office photos, and more. this is the playground global company profile. all content is posted anonymously by employees working at playground global .
© 2016 global playground. all rights reserved. legal statement | website design by colour outside
global playground is now accepting applications for teaching fellow positions at our project sites in thailand and vietnam. global playground’s fellows have done amazing things in the past; read their blogs to see what it’s like .
playground global is a vc firm backing entrepreneurs working at the intersection of bits, atoms, and ai .
want to stay posted about everything global playground is doing around the world? get updates delivered straight to your inbox .
global playground’s mission is to raise awareness and share resources with people of the developing world to create educational opportunities where they do not exist .
we partner with global contract manufacturers as well as odm service providers, to help you get things made .
earlier this week it came out that he' d raised $ 48 million for another fund called playground global, which will focus on providing support to young companies creating hardware devices .
playground global is a venture firm and product studio created to support the entrepreneurs navigating the next frontier of technology and building the companies and industries of tomorrow. robotics is a core part of the firm’s portfolio .
one of those companies, an after - market car tech startup called nauto, announced today that it had closed a $ 12 million series a round led by playground global with participation from draper nexus and index ventures .
and what would a company called playground be without a, well, playground? a big silver slide and wooden swingset structure are located right near the entrance .
construction on the library and media center at siana girls’ high school is complete and global playground’s community partners are working on connecting the school to the electric grid and furnishing the center. the building will open in january 2018 .
data collective led the new round in nervana. allen & co. , ame cloud ventures, andy rubin’s playground global, the cme group, draper fisher jurvetson, fuel capital, lux capital, and omidyar network also participated .
the four co - founded playground global, a startup
accelerator ,
in 2015. that' s techspeak for a company that helps nurture young startups by providing support like mentorship, office space, and - - in the case of playground, which works mostly with hardware startups - - machinery for prototyping .
global playground currently has two ongoing projects: a library and media center at a girls’ secondary school in narok county, kenya and six classrooms, a library, and two offices at bandajuma primary school in bo district, sierra leone .
specifically, this latest funding is for “playground ventures affiliates ii”. two previous playground ventures filings at the sec include playground ventures, which is from 2015 and covers the $ 242 million raise; and playground ventures ii, which dates from november 2016 and is the filing to raise $ 500 million. we’ll update this as we learn more .
up to now, playground has served as a vehicle for backing some big ideas .
in some cases, the companies have been incubated and have playground’s support and network access in exchange for equity, but no investment. in other cases, playground has invested .
“they’re the only company i found to be simplifying the utility and application of augmented and virtual reality technology into a fun, accessible, and portable system that will wow kids and adults alike. ” - andy rubin, managing director at playground global
mark says that playground is uniquely positioned to help overcome the challenges that today’s entrepreneurs face .
rubin created playground global, a new venture - capital fund and hardware incubator that closed a $ 300 million round on monday. part of its mission is betting on the next big thing ,
the thing beyond the mobile or the tablet ,
rubin said .
at the same time, rubin will be returning to redpoint ventures, where he incubated android, as a venture partner and will spend at least one day at the firm to research potential investments in tech companies. redpoint was one of the first investors in playground global .
during mark’s time at playground, he has noticed that hardware entrepreneurs have a different mettle about them .
the following roles are open on the playground team and some of the startups we host at our facility .
relatively speaking, $ 15 million a modest figure: since 2015, it looks like the playground group, which includes the playground global incubator and playground ventures, has disclosed about $ 242 million in funding as part of a projected $ 300 million fundraise, and what appears to be a bigger plan to raise $ 500 million. we have contacted the company to ask if it can elaborate more on whether this $ 15 million is one more segment in that wider effort, or if it is for another, different purpose .
subpac is based in los angeles, with pilot offices in toronto and london, in addition to offices in palo alto on the playground global campus. in the coming years, subpac seeks to establish offices in other key cultural centers around the globe .
this is a cultural revolution, ” claims alexiou .
the team’s robot, a 5 - foot - tall biped named schaft, now stands sentry in playground’s lobby .
a few months later, rubin launched playground global—not just a new company but, he says, a new kind of company. part of what makes playground unusual is the way it’s structured. it has some qualities of an incubator and some qualities of a consulting firm, but it’s neither, really. playground invests in hardware startups, yes. but instead of just providing funding and advice, rubin offers them a centralized, all - star engineering department, staffed by seasoned technologists he’s worked with at google, general magic, apple, and elsewhere. this team works side by side with playground’s startups, building the hardware and software that will power their intelligent machines .
he started playground to help other entrepreneurs build the next hit products so that they can have that experience, too .
describing his management style as “super casual, ” andy says playground is designed to empower everyone to contribute new ideas .
justin miller, connectedyard' s ceo, says one of the biggest benefits to joining playground is recruiting and attracting talent .
playground global is the third firm mark has had a hand in launching. in 2009, mark started in venture capital at andreessen horowitz, joining as the first employee. after a hiatus at stanford’s business school, he rejoined andreessen horowitz as marc andreessen’s chief of staff. later, mark co - founded early - stage vc firm a capital .
cables hang from the ceiling at regular intervals all across the office, so anyone can jack into playground’s network from any location .
connectedyard, one of playground' s portfolio companies, used the lab to build prototypes for phin, its smart pool care product .
you guys remember andy rubin, right? he was one of our favorites personalities, and he happened to also play a major role in the making of android. it’s sad to no longer see him at google, but you can be sure he is very active in the industry. rubin launched an investing hardware incubator named playground global, and he is overlooking new companies from there .
playground, whose backers include google and redpoint ventures, wants to be part of the next wave of hardware companies. right now, playground has more than two dozen investments, including castar, working on augmented reality glasses, and connectedyard, which has a smart pool care product .
eager to move beyond smartphones, rubin starts playground, a company that aims to create a manufacturing and development platform for ai - equipped devices .
in august, meanwhile, intel snapped up nervana systems, a playground - funded deep - learning startup in a deal valued at around $ 408 million .
with titanium 3d printers, electrostatic charge tables, and a giant slide, playground global lives up to it’s a name. here we take you on a tour of android operating system inventor andy rubin’s hardware startup incubator that’s backed by a $ 300 million fund. check out how the whimsical space lets scrappy hackers compete with facebook and google to recruit top talent. if techies are all peter pans, this is the lost boys’ clubhouse .
at playground, andy is also reunited with bruce leak and peter barrett, who he worked with at webtv, the world’s first television - based internet service .
since leaving google in 2014, android co - founder andy rubin has been working on a mysterious new company named playground global. at code mobile in august last year, rubin described the firm as a way to
amplify ideas
— which sounds cool but is frustratingly vague. information about the company has been leaking out drip by drip, but now, with the help of a blog post from rubin, we' re finally getting a clearer picture of just how ambitious its goals are .
with this in mind, playground wants to help create the gadgets of the future by offering companies a library of ready - made hardware and software allowing anyone to build the next big thing .
cloud services are a great way to reduce initial capital costs and get to market faster. our partners in this category will offer their cloud services at a reduced cost to playground portfolio companies .
“that’s exactly the sweet spot, ” playground global partner bruce leak told re / code. “we all realize autonomous driving is the future, but how do we get there? working with oems is a good strategy; it’s just a long, hard path to revenue. but it’s a nice insight nauto has — the automotive industry wants to work with proven leaders in the field. [ so ] the company just said we have to get millions of miles of experience. the only way to do that is to have people behind the wheel. ”
prior to co - founding playground, andy led google’s robotics and automation division, where, among other things, he oversaw the team that earned the highest score in the first darpa robotics challenge trial .
venture partner mark valdez is responsible for driving playground’s investment activities. he seeks out startups that will change what we think is possible and that will create new experiences and capabilities in a converged physical and digital world .
notably, en route to raising $ 300 million to date, playground has picked up a number of strategic backers like google, hp and foxconn, which together with others put in $ 48 million towards the running total .
on thursday, playground opened its doors to press for one of the first public tours of its headquarters. the location is fitting: fry' s has long been an iconic destination for silicon valley' s tinkerers and engineers .
playground ventures — the vc fund co - founded by android inventor and former google exec andy rubin that sits alongside an eponymous incubator / startup studio and is making some big bets in areas like artificial intelligence and new generations of hardware– is raising more money. a form d filed with the sec notes that playground ventures is in the process of adding another $ 15 million into its coffers. the filing notes that none of the sum has yet to be raised .
playground’s ambitions extend far beyond building individual gadgets or even individual companies. rubin wants playground to become the factory that creates the standard building blocks—the basic quartermaster’s inventory of components—for the ai - infused future. and he wants to open up this platform of hardware and software tools so that anyone, not just the companies he works with directly, can create an intelligent device. if he’s successful, playground stands to have the same kind of impact on smart machines that android had on smartphones, providing the technological infrastructure for thousands of products and giving a generation of entrepreneurs the ability to build a smart drone. or a house’s worth of intelligent appliances. or, hell, a full - fledged robot .
if that happens, rubin’s company stands to benefit in two ways: first, when those entrepreneurs are ready to launch their companies, they’re likely to want to work with playground, giving the incubator an early opportunity to invest. but even more crucially, it will implant playground’s technology at the heart of a new generation of products. this is the grandest ambition of playground: to create a common infrastructure for thousands of devices, much as windows did for pcs and android did for smartphones. “some kind of standardized framework could unlock the next generation of interesting things, ” says jeff brody of redpoint ventures, who has known rubin for more than a decade. “that’s the big, big idea behind all this. ”
andy rubin is looking for another big round of funding for his hardware incubator, playground ventures. according to an sec filing that popped up yesterday (via dan primack), the android founder is looking to raise up to $ 500 million — rubin’s name is listed alongside fellow playground founders peter barrett, matt hershenson and bruce leak. this follows a $ 300 million funding round that closed just about this time last year, with rubin stating that the money would go toward investments in startups .
playground' s office has the typical tech startup vibe: a row of old motorcycles are on display inside the building
to inspire great design ,
says leak. there are several old arcade and pinball games, including pac man and star wars .
founded by alexiou and longtime partner todd chernecki, the privately held company has announced the close of $ 6 million in series a financing. receiving the bulk of its funding from rubin’s playground global and azure capital, subpac has also attracted a slate of industry leaders who have united to engineer this innovative sound movement. additional investors in the tech startup include nba superstar carmelo anthony ’s m7 tech partners, renowned dj richie hawtin, and dada life. the $ 6 million series is earmarked for further development as the brand aims to significantly disrupt the music and tech landscape. “subpac opened my eyes to the power of physical sound and it will absolutely change the way people experience music, vr and cinema, ” stated rubin .
at the same time, the company is announcing it has nabbed new funding from three prominent investors: shasta ventures, redpoint ventures and andy rubin’s playground. with the new cash, eero has now raised more than $ 40 million despite having yet to ship its first product .
rubin has been focused on playground since exiting google in 2014. the firm, in rubin’s words, is focused on the tech “after smartphones and tablets, ” which is in keeping with the largely mysterious tone he’s thus far taken with the project built to “amplify ideas. ”
with playground, rubin is clearly more interested in everything all at once, and looking to play an integral role in the next step in consumer technologies. and now, with the filing from yesterday, the company is looking to take the next major step toward funding it .
“they knowingly take on product development and distribution challenges that you never encounter when building software - only companies. we built playground not just to be a capital provider but also to provide entrepreneurs the resources, team, and community that can help them tackle these challenges head on. ”
playground' s headquarters is large enough to hold 30 startups and is fully equipped with all the tools and equipment a company might need to create .
we have thermoplastic and multimaterial printers, laser cutters, cnc machines, metal sintering 3d printers, spectrum analyzers, network test equipment, rf test chambers, [ and ] optic labs ,
writes rubin. in addition to the dozen startups it' s already working with, playground will also build its own products — rubin mentions a dashboard camera that will be given away for free in exchange for users' data .
playground, though, will go one step further, also offering its own hardware: sensors and components that companies can simply click into their product, created by a division in the company named the studio. a report from wired on playground gives the example of a drone startup that needs a new microphone array: instead of having to do the research themselves and find the best mics, they just ask the studio .
it’s modular hardware ,
rubin tells wired .
a couple of years from now, you could roll in here with an idea, and we could just rearrange these modules .
rubin' s description sound a little fantastical, bringing to mind the ai computers that control homes or even whole planets in sci - fi books and movies. however, as the verge' s own dan seifert pointed out recently, our smartphones have already powered a quiet revolution, enabling a network of products and devices that are woven into our lives — everything from spotify to apple pay. and as one of the pioneers of android, an os with roughly 85 percent of the global smartphone market, rubin perhaps has better reason than most to be confident in his ability to create the future .
the co - founders have impressive resumes. in 2005, rubin, who is now playground' s ceo, sold a small startup called android to google for around $ 50 million. now, that operating system powers almost nine out of every 10 smartphones on the planet. rubin also ran google' s robotics division, until leaving in 2014 .
for the near future, that platform will be available only to the companies that playground invests in—after all, rubin says, the whole point is to help his in - house startups build products more quickly and successfully than their competitors. but eventually, he plans to start opening up the platform to anyone, much as he gave away android to any manufacturer who wanted to use it. “i’m a strong believer in incubating an idea, developing it to a certain point, and then freeing it, ” he says. “after it’s freed, anybody can do whatever they want with it. ” he foresees a time when any kid with a kickstarter can use playground’s tools, creating a new generation of smart - hardware entrepreneurs .
taken together, the assembled companies resemble something like an ocean’s eleven –style team of specialists, each contributing their unique talents to a grand caper. along with startups specializing in ai and drones, playground has optics covered (thanks to an investment in castar, which makes an augmented reality headset similar to microsoft’s hololens) as well as the internet of things (with an investment in connectedyard, which makes a wi - fi - and bluetooth - equipped pool monitor). and these are just the startups that rubin will discuss publicly—there are a dozen total. while all these companies hustle to bring their own products to market, they’re enabling playground to begin developing its library of hardware components, software, and shared knowledge along the way .
and that’s just the kind of platform rubin hopes to build with playground—providing all the basic hardware and software components so entrepreneurs can concentrate on generating interesting devices. those components come courtesy of the studio, which plays a role for playground’s startups similar to the one the q department plays for james bond. if you’re building a drone and need the best available microphone array, the seasoned technologists in the studio will simply give it to you. (and they’ll know what next year’s microphone arrays will look like, so you can be sure your design is future - proof .) “it’s modular hardware, ” rubin says. “a couple of years from now, you could roll in here with an idea, and we could just rearrange these modules. ”
another co - founder is bruce leak, who came from apple, where he created the quicktime software for movies and music. he also co - founded webtv. there' s also matt hershenson, who helped rubin co - found his old company danger, and peter barrett, who serves as playground' s cto and pioneered video compression software and cd - rom games .
then there' s the thing rubin is working on. he' s not only the ceo of playground, he' s also a client. one of the portfolio companies is a still - secretive consumer electronics startup called essential. rubin is the ceo, and in march, he teased that the company is working on a smartphone that runs on, what else, android .
a vision of the future, he says, waiting for it to arrive is like being stuck in traffic. “when i have an intuition about how something should be, i try to figure out why it can’t be that way today, ” he says. that’s why he designed playground to remove any barrier to the creative impulses of his portfolio startups. several of the firms are housed in playground’s headquarters. bruce leak, a cofounder who worked with rubin at apple, general magic, and webtv, says the underlying theme is: you never have to ask permission. each company is given desks and a conference room, but if they ever want to relocate, they’re free to do so. cables hang from the ceiling at regular intervals, so anyone can jack into playground’s network from any location. if they need a new lens or a 3 - d - printed part, they can head to one of two fabrication labs run by a former apple laptop designer and a former spacex engineer. for more complex needs, the startups can file a request with the studio, which inhabits a patchwork of desks near the front of the open floor .
rubin is typically tight - lipped about his plans—he refused to comment, for instance, on a recent report in the informa­tion that he’s building a new android phone. when pressed, he says he is in fact working on a dashcam, which he plans to give away in exchange for its data—potentially allowing playground to build a real - time visual map of the world. and he has other ideas, he says, “that i’m not willing to talk about. ” those who’ve spoken with him about his plans walk away enraptured. “when you see the ideas they’re working on—they’re all high - quality, and many of them can be revolutionary, ” says david wallerstein, tencent’s chief exploration officer. “within three to five years, it’s impossible that playground won’t release something that’ll just blow our minds. ”
however, the end goal of playground is more ambitious than just a supercharged startup incubator. ultimately, the company wants to create a whole new infrastructure connecting the world' s gadgets. from its description, this sounds like an operating system for the internet of things (something that companies including google and huawei are already working on), but connected to a cloud computer that has
mature deep - learning capabilities
and adjusts to users' needs on the fly .
why? everyone likes to back a winning team, and by virtue of rubin’s experience with android and google, and the impressive backgrounds of others on the team (including the creator of quicktime, the co - creator of danger, the creator of the first big video codec and many others), playground has one of the best track records around. and getting involved at the lp level gives these companies a chance to work early on with startups that have the potential to become big .
triumphantly as he walks into playground’s conference room. he has a reputation for coming off as remote, but now—lanky and balding, dressed in an aggressively unassuming sweatshirt and jeans—he radiates gee - whiz enthusiasm. “i made you pancakes! with the push of a button! ” he announces, brandishing a plate of three doughy disks. rubin collects gadgets of all kinds, and today he has brought in his latest acquisition—a shiny metal rectangle, about the size of a subwoofer, that cranks out flapjacks. rubin rolls two of them into cylinders and gobbles them down. not bad .
playground itself is a combination of a venture fund, startup incubator, and a hardware and software company, with $ 300 million to invest, and a dozen companies already on its books. in a blog post, rubin describes how his first company, danger, spent $ 240 million in 2001 to create a smartphone, and how that same project today would cost just $ 3 million. this, he says, is why
the pendulum of innovation is shifting from software back to hardware, or, more specifically, hardware that uses software to do interesting things .
take artificial intelligence, for example. neural networks are everywhere in the tech world at the moment, and the industry' s biggest companies — including facebook, google, and microsoft — have beefed up their ai teams to create new products and improve existing services. so how does a startup compete with that sort of deep knowledge? the answer is to have a catalog of pre - made ai tools that companies can pick and choose from. playground wants to offer these tools, using them to take the pressure off startups in the same way that android enabled smartphone manufacturers to build new phones without worrying about software .
for rubin and co. , with their formidable pedigrees, playground is a test to see if lightning can strike again. silicon valley used to be a hardware town, but as the internet began to take over our lives, the focus moved over to bits. social networks and apps became the rage. but in the last few years, there' s been a shift back to atoms. google and amazon have hits with the google home and echo, smart home hubs that serve as digital assistants for your house. and now there' s internet - connected everything - - refrigerators, cars, coffee makers, and, um, condom rings .
the result, i imagine, is what rubin’s brain would look like if it were somehow transformed into real estate—a hive of ideas, all scrambling to get out into the world and make the largest possible impact. during my two - day visit in december, the entire office, a hangarlike space next to a fry’s electronics superstore, was suffused with giddy impatience. nervana, which builds semiconductors for neural networks, was on the cusp of launching a new cloud service that would let anyone access on - demand ai—for instance, to comb through reams of financial data to discover fraud, or millions of anonymized health records to track the spread of a disease. paul beard, founder of another playground startup called µavionix, was meeting with leak to discuss how to turn a lightweight transponder he’d developed into a system that could track every drone in the world in real time. (“the faa would never approve that, ” leak says, “but we think that’s where this is going to go, so we should add that capability but leave it turned off. ” )
html public
- / / w3c / / dtd xhtml 1. 0 transitional / / en
urltoken
the wall street journal. (newspaper, 1889) [ worldcat. org ]
your web browser is not enabled for javascript. some features of worldcat will not be available .
your list has reached the maximum number of items. please create a new list with a new name; move some items to a new or existing list; or delete some items .
note: citations are based on reference standards. however, formatting rules can vary widely between applications and fields of interest or study. the specific requirements or preferences of your reviewing publisher, classroom teacher, institution or organization should be applied .
the e - mail address (es) field is required. please enter recipient e - mail address (es) .
the e - mail address (es) you entered is (are) not in a valid format. please re - enter recipient e - mail address (es) .
i thought you might be interested in this item at urltoken title: the wall street journal. publisher: new york, n. y. : dow, jones & co. , 1889 - 1959. oclc: 42317750
new york, n. y. : dow, jones & co. , 1889 - 1959 .
journalism, commercial - - new york (state) - - new york - - newspapers .
please choose whether or not you want other users to be able to see on your profile that this library is a favorite of yours .
microfilm. ann arbor, mich. : university microfilms international, microfilm reels; 35 mn .
you may have already requested this item. please select ok if you would like to proceed with this request anyway .
# wall street journal (new york, n. y. : 1889 )
worldcat is the world' s largest library catalog, helping you find library materials online. learn more ››
don' t have an account? you can easily create a free account .
most people don’t understand that sound is a physical medium — knowing the physicality already exists within music, subpac just allows you to feel it. ”
from unforgettable classics to contemporary hits, there is a perfect record for every feeling, occasion or moment in our lives. playlists present a collection of songs that reflect a diversity of emotions, naturally drawing reference to memorable experiences that shaped the way we see and understand the world around us. what defines timeless music is that special feeling it ignites each time you hear it. as an expressive artistry tied so deeply to the spirit, its impact is often indescribable .
now, there is a new technology that allows both fans and creators to enjoy the physical components of music that add even greater depth to its meaning. grammy award - winning producer timbaland and google android co - creator andy rubin have teamed up with a decorated roster of investors to reimagine the way musicians and fans feel music. subpac is immersive physical - sound technology that expands the audio concept of music into a fully - immersive experience .
unveiling two unique product offerings, the subpac m2, a wearable vest, and the subpac s2, a mobile seat - back device, subpac is set to pioneer a new physical - sound category that transcends the listening experience of headphones and second - screen devices .
the wearable technology interprets the way your body perceives sound, adjusting audio frequencies to optimize the feeling .
space. merging the mechanics of crafting dynamic productions with the physical element of subpac technology, the multiplatinum hit - maker believes this venture simply marks the beginning of a necessary shift within the industry .
i' m always looking for deeper ways to connect with my fans and artists; subpac gives that deeper connection, ” timbaland told forbes .
subpac allows my music to touch people in a whole new way, and people need to feel music .
spent years inside countless studios, studying and researching some of the best sound engineers in the world. today, subpac is currently used by thousands of studios in the u. s. with plans to expand into studios worldwide. “we understand that the impact of music and sound is massive, and the way people are experiencing it is just a fraction of what’s possible, ” stated alexiou .
we see this as a new way for artists and musicians to express themselves and translate their creativity. ”
we hope that when you see the subpac logo, you understand you’re going to experience music a lot deeper than you would ever imagine. ”
subpac is currently available online with the subpac m2 retailing for $ 349 and subpac s2 for $ 299. “timbaland and andy rubin have both moved culture in significant ways, ” stated alexiou. “they, along with our other partners, will play leading roles in subpac' s mission to bring the feeling of music and sound to the world. ”
andy rubin unleashed android on the world. now watch him do the same with ai | wired
andy rubin unleashed android on the world. now watch him do the same with ai
subscribe now to get 6 months for $ 5 - plus a free portable phone charger .
a couple of years ago, andy rubin—the celebrated creator of android and until recently the head of google’s mobile internet efforts—helped his wife, rie, build a bakery in a decommissioned train station in los altos, california. they called it voyageur du temps, french for time traveler. as the name suggests, the bakery conveys visitors to an earlier era—by painstakingly re - creating the flavors and textures of classic european pastry. to pull this off, the rubins went so far as to hire chefs from japan, where traditional baking techniques are rigorously studied, and to purchase a rare bongard cervap oven, one of only two on the west coast .
the project was typical rubin, in that it involved throwing an almost comical amount of money, energy, and engineering talent at a hobby, just for the fun of it. but it was also atypical rubin, in that he usually marshals such resources to build artifacts from the future—like the robotic arm and the retinal scanner he’s installed in his house. even at his backward - ­looking bakery, rubin couldn’t resist adding some forward - leaning touches. he hand - coded the point - of - sale system. he began writing software for a “closed cash” device that could receive payment, dole out change, and log transactions without a cashier’s intervention. and he built a private meeting room in the back, complete with a homemade magnetized lock system .
now that rubin had shepherded smartphones from concept to phenomenon, they no longer held much interest. as an engineering problem, they had been solved. sure, entrepreneurs kept launching new apps, but for someone who considered engineering an art, that was like adding a few brushstrokes atop layers of dried paint. rubin wanted to touch canvas again—and he could see a fresh one unfurling in front of him .
rubin has a theory that humanity is on the cusp of a new computing age. just as ms - dos gave way to macintosh and windows, which gave way to the web, which gave way to smartphones, he thinks the forces are in place to begin a decades - long transition to the next great platform: artificial intelligence .
google, facebook, and microsoft have collectively spent billions to fund the development of neural networks that can understand human speech or recognize faces in photos. and over the next decade ai is bound to grow more powerful, capable of tasks we can’t imagine today. soon, rubin figures, it will be available as a cloud service, powering thousands of gadgets and machines. just as practically every device today contains software of some kind, it could soon be nearly impossible to buy a device without some kind of ai inside. it’s hard to imagine precisely what that future will look like, but for a rough idea, think about the difference between your car and a self - driving car; now apply that difference to every object you own. a tv set that translates shows into any language in real time. a security system that can distinguish between your spouse and a burglar. ovens that know when your food is perfectly cooked .
in 2013, rubin discussed his restlessness with larry page, and—as rubin recounts it—the two men agreed it was time for a change. that march, rubin stepped down from android. (not every account paints that decision as quite so mutual; bloomberg businessweek described page as “forcing rubin’s hand. ”) for a year, rubin spun up google’s new robotics division, but he quickly realized that google’s goals, which reportedly involve creating humanoid assistants, would take a decade of basic research .
rubin couldn’t wait that long. “he’s intolerant of the current state of the world, ” says marc andreessen, a close friend and adviser to rubin. “andy sees what the world can be like in five, 10, 15 years, and then he sees the world today and thinks, ‘holy lord, we aren’t there yet? ’”
antsy futurists in silicon valley have several options for bringing their visions to life, but none of them appealed to rubin. he could have stayed at google—or joined any of the other large companies investing in ai—but he felt that even the most adventurous conglomerate was fundamentally too bureaucratic and risk - averse. he could have joined a vc firm or a hardware incubator like highway1, but he didn’t want to merely fund and advise companies that were building the future—he wanted to build it himself. at the same time, he wasn’t eager to create just another startup; after the phenomenal success of android, doing so would have felt anticlimactic .
rubin left google in 2014—a departure that friends say gave his always overclocked ambition an extra kick. “i think he would love for larry page to look back in five years and say, ‘oh my god, i made a mistake in letting that guy go, ’” andreessen says .
the fundamental idea, rubin says, is to create what he calls an idea amplifier—a system that quickly turns concepts into products with maximum impact. it’s a fitting goal for some­one as impatient as rubin, a way of pressing fast - forward to deliver the future a little bit ahead of schedule. there’s another term for a contraption like that: you might just call it a time machine .
rubin has a long history of building, and littering his workplaces with, robots .
a sculpture of iron man made by the thai artist mai sudjai, who fashions sci - fi characters out of scrap metal, next to an electric motorcycle .
the machine shop, where hardware startups have access to the latest fabrication equipment .
rubin has cultivated this sense of childlike wonder ever since 1978, when, as a high school student in chappaqua, new york, he hooked a remote control for a kenner r2 - d2 up to his computer and wrote a routine that sent the droid wheeling down the hall and into his brother’s room. “when you’re a kid programming computers, you’re in your own world, ” he says. “but when you start interfacing it with r2 - d2 toys, it brings it out of that world and into the real world. ”
rubin’s fascination with robots is storied—he named his first two companies after them. (before android, he named danger in reference to the robot from lost in space .) so it’s a little ironic that his first company that isn’t named for robots is the one that might actually bring them into widespread existence .
here’s how he sees it happening. much of the energy in ai today is focused on building out massive neural networks, a task that involves gathering copious amounts of data. right now, most of that data comes from the internet. facebook culls through uploaded pictures to identify faces in photographs; google’s rankbrain pores over search activity to parse unfamiliar queries; microsoft’s skype translator ingests hundreds of translated web pages and captioned videos to convert conversations from spanish to english. but, easy as it may be to forget this, there is an entire universe outside of the internet. for ai to reach its true potential, rubin argues, we need to bring it into the physical world. and the way to do that is to create thousands of devices that pull information from their environment: text and images, sure, but also sound, location, weather, and other sensory data. rubin wants to fill the world with these data - gathering machines, the better to feed and train those massive neural networks. this will create a virtuous feedback loop—new machines will make the underlying ai smarter, which will allow for even better machines .
“i don’t believe in skynet. in general, that technology is used for good, ” rubin says .
it’s easier than ever to build these kinds of smart—or at least smartish—devices. sensors and cpus are cheap, and chinese manufacturers are eager to work with small - batch startups. but “easier than ever” still translates to “incredibly difficult. ” that’s because there’s a huge difference between building a prototype and mass - producing a commercial product .
that’s true for even the simplest piece of hardware. let’s say you want to build a basic dashcam—a video camera that sits on a car’s dashboard and starts recording as soon as the car is in motion. (these are already popular in russia, where limited auto insurance means that drivers are vigorous about proving their innocence in any accident .) let’s also say you’d like it to track the car’s location and automatically upload its footage. the first thing you’ll need is a system - on - a - chip, or soc—a semiconductor that contains the cpu and peripherals like an interface for an sd card. you’ll probably want an lcd. you’ll need a camera module, of course, with an image processor. you’ll have to have a power - management circuit, which connects to the battery. you’ll need a gps chip, which is attached to an antenna. and you’ll also need a wireless interface, probably a usb attachment to a qualcomm chip or something similar; that will require another antenna. and that’s just the electrical system! you’ll have to make similar decisions about the design as well as the software. you’ll want the whole thing to be as small as possible, and you’ll want it to run efficiently so it doesn’t drain the battery. of course, you’ll want to make sure you’re getting the most reliable components at the best possible price. but because your dashcam won’t hit the market for another year or so, today’s components will already be obsolete. so you need to predict what those components will look like a year from now and design your dashcam accordingly. if you guess wrong, your dashcam will die before it ever ships to stores .
right now, every hardware entrepreneur must answer these questions on their own—a burden that distracts them from actually building products. fortunately, rubin has been here before. before the release of android, smartphone makers faced a similarly byzantine set of challenges. (how do you manage memory? download content from the web? host third - party apps ?) by giving away its operating system, android freed manufacturers from worrying about any of that stuff, resulting in an explosion of smartphone models .
andy rubin has a track record of being early and setting the template for major technology trends. —victoria tang
twenty - three years before facebook, rubin hones his coding skills in college by running an early social network called spies in the wire .
as an engineer at the apple spinoff general magic, rubin helps create magic cap, an operating system for early handhelds that is years ahead of its time. it includes a prototype of the virtual keyboards used on phones today .
as a cofounder of danger, rubin unveils the hiptop—aka the t - mobile sidekick—which introduces now - familiar features like always - on connectivity, cloud storage, and a rudimentary app store .
rubin launches android, a comprehensive, open source mobile operating system. android goes on to be acquired by ­google—and to become the biggest smartphone platform on the planet .
rubin puts $ 100, 000 into sebastian thrun’s efforts to build a self - driving car—resulting in a victory at the 2005 darpa grand challenge. thrun goes on to head google’s autonomous car program .
at this point, that big, big idea may sound familiar. for the past several years, technol­ogists have heralded the dawn of the internet of things—networked thermostats, lightbulbs, refrigerators, and other gizmos that talk to one another. companies like google, apple, and samsung have all built proprietary ecosystems to enable that communication and are racing to convince manufacturers to build products for them. but rubin says they have it backward; ecosystems arise to support popular products, not the other way around. play­ground’s first step is to provide startups with the tech­nology to build new devices; the network will emerge later. “all these investments i’m doing, all these modules, all this tech—it’s all planting the seeds for the next ecosystem, ” he says .
to extend the oceans metaphor, rubin and his three cofounders are the grizzled veterans, coming together to engineer one last big score. in addition to leak, rubin has enlisted peter barrett, a collaborator since his general magic days, and matt hershenson, one of his danger cofounders. rubin has also pulled together a group of high - rolling financiers; the endeavor is supported by a $ 300 million venture capital fund, whose investors include google, hp, foxconn, redpoint ventures, and tencent, the chinese internet - services company .
but rubin has never been satisfied to play the distant mastermind. so it’s not surprising to learn that, in addition to his platform, rubin is building actual products himself. he is, after all, creating the software and hardware to power each of his startup companies’ tech; why shouldn’t he use that ip to make something of his own ?
the future—thousands of robots whizzing around, all connected to a networked intelligence that humans can’t fully understand—may not sound like everyone’s idea of progress. philosopher nick bostrom has argued that the coming era of what he calls “superintel­ligence” represents a potential existential threat, a concern that’s been repeated and endorsed by such technologists as elon musk, stephen hawking, and bill gates. rubin dismisses those fears with a certainty that borders on faith. “i don’t believe in skynet or any of that stuff, ” he says. “i believe, in general, that technology is used for good. ”
the more immediate danger for rubin is that his current path puts him directly in competition with some of the biggest tech companies in the world. microsoft has already built a cloud platform to collect and make sense out of sensor data; it reportedly receives a trillion pieces of data every week. google has open - sourced a version of its ai software engine, called tensorflow. facebook took a similar step in december, releasing the designs for the server that runs its own ai operations. and elon musk recently started a nonprofit called openai, pulling together top researchers to create open - sourced artificial intelligence “in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole. ”
playground global is a venture fund and design studio that provides resources , mentorship and funding for startups making hardware devices . the company was founded in 2015 by andy rubin , peter barrett , matt hershenson and bruce leak . playground offers startups support with engineering , distribution , manufacturing and financing in exchange for equity . in 2015 , the company ’s first investment fund raised $ 300 million from its limited partners including google , hp , foxconn , redpoint ventures , seagate technology and tencent , among others . in 2016 , a regulatory filing revealed that the company was raising a second $ 500 million fund . 
playground global is a venture fund and design studio that provides resources, mentorship and funding for startups making hardware devices. the company was founded in 2015 by andy rubin, peter barrett, matt hershenson and bruce leak. playground offers startups support with engineering, distribution, manufacturing and financing in exchange for equity. in 2015, the company ’s first investment fund raised $ 300 million from its limited partners including google, hp, foxconn, redpoint ventures, seagate technology and tencent, among others. in 2016, a regulatory filing revealed that the company was raising a second $ 500 million fund.
playground global is a venture fund and design studio that provides resources, mentorship and funding for startups making hardware devices. the company was founded in 2015 by andy rubin, peter barrett, matt hershenson and bruce leak. playground offers startups support with engineering, distribution, manufacturing and financing in exchange for equity. in 2015, the company ’s first investment fund raised $ 300 million from its limited partners including google, hp, foxconn, redpoint ventures, seagate technology and tencent, among others. in 2016, a regulatory filing revealed that the company was raising a second $ 500 million fund.