Through the Camera Eye

It's amazing what an up day can do for a guy's psyche. I feel...grrreat!

At my rehearsal dinner before my wedding in 2002, I asked my uncle Harvey (by far the most famous and influential member of my family) what he thought about how to succeed in the stock market. He said only two words: "Stay diversified."

Naturally, I brushed off this advice. So much of my conception of the world is tied up in one thought, one belief: Microvision will be a successful company and will change the world.

I have been guided by that belief over the last several years to the point where I know own a significant stake in the company, and not much else. So watching this thing just sink like a stone over the last several weeks has been really tough. It does give me an opportunity though to reflect on things -- I wasn't planning to sell any MVIS shares this week anyway...so why should the price bother me that much? It's only numbers. Numbers are not real. What's real are family, friends and faith...

And all this is true. There is every possibility that my world view will be vindicated and my belief that this company will be a success will be born out. It is hard to reconcile though -- the extremely rapid pace of technological progress, best represented by this image of successive iterations of the scan engine, has not yet been paired with extremely rapid gains in shareholder value.


We have a technology that is mind-blowing. And yet, the market is valuing this company as if there isn't much to it. As of this writing, MVIS market cap of $90M does not in any way relate to the scope and scale of the company's future opportunities -- someday soon, MVIS will design a pair of lightweight wireless eyeglasses that will give you a way to interact with digital information while still viewing the real world.

Never mind the laser printer engine, the incredible surgical microcamera, the LED widescreen gaming/immersive multimedia platform, the 'Point Source' EELED architecture for digital cameras, et al. Never mind the MicroHUD for cars and airplanes.

I just want the eyeglasses. Just the window into augmented reality. This is the biggest opportunity for the company. This is what my money's on. That there will be so much pull for see-through augmented vision displays from cellular carriers and content providers that every single cell phone will come with a pair of glasses and they will be sold by the hundreds of millions.

This is my understanding of how the world works. Everything goes electronic. Electronics shrink and become fashion. They become totally indispensable tools that people feel uncomfortable leaving home without. This is where I want to see Microvision go. This the logical progression from Nomad I with its bulky headgear, to Nomad II with its lightweight visor, to a pair of eyeglasses that are just as hip and stylish as any pair of Oakleys.

There are markets out there for this company's technology that are truly, endlessly vast. The stock market doesn't think about that right now. It is myopically obsessed with the company's current cash position (seemingly oblivious to the $20M LMRA hoard in the company coffers) and its difficulty marketing Nomad. Hey look, I want them to sell Nomads, too. I think that we can and we must do much, much better. But $90M for the whole company with the world of opportunity just waiting there, for a little more technical development, a little more pull from the carriers, a little more pull on the content side? It doesn't make any sense.

Consumer augmented reality is coming and if Microvision doesn't own it, it will be because somebody else owns Microvision.