Five weeks ago, Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson joined me on stage at Disrupt. Much of the conversation focused on the company’s complete pivot from augmented reality hardware toward enterprise applications with Magic Leap 2. Johnson, a former Microsoft and Qualcomm executive, spearheaded the shift in business strategy when she joined the company. in August 2020.
However, just over three years after joining, Johnson is out. Instead, Magic Leap has named Ross Rosenberg to CEO position. Rosenberg most recently served as an executive in Bain Capital’s software portfolio. He also served as an executive at Belden, Inc. and First Solar.
Magic Leap is positioning the transition as a mark of the completion of its business line. Johnson effectively says that the move was his key focus at the company and, as such, it is time to step aside.
“Having accomplished much of what I set out to do at Magic Leap, I felt the time had come to transition leadership to a new CEO who can guide the company through its next period of growth,” Johnson explained. . “I am incredibly proud of the leadership team we have built at Magic Leap and want to sincerely thank all employees for their work in helping to successfully reorient the company toward the enterprise market.”
At the very least, Magic Leap has a clearer focus than in the run-up to 2020. However, both Johnson and Rosenberg have had to take on a seemingly impossible role: making the extremely well-funded startup profitable.
technology has never been Magic Leap’s biggest problem, by any means. When testing the Magic Leap 2, it’s hard to argue with the results. Adaptation to the market, on the other hand, continues to be a big question for the company.
“As businesses begin to see a true return on investment from implementing AR technologies, there is now a clear need that Magic Leap is able to solve,” Ross Rosenberg said in a statement. “I am incredibly excited to begin working with Magic Leap’s world-class team and want to thank Peggy for her leadership in guiding the company through a critical phase of its development.”
When it was announced over the summer, Apple’s upcoming Vision Pro seemed to have taken the remaining wind out of Magic Leap. Johnson, however, told me that the company saw it as validation of the team’s work. Like the Vision Pro, Magic Leap’s products are priced well out of reach of the average consumer; that’s a space that Meta feels much more comfortable playing in.
Certainly, Vision Pro has increased the visibility of spatial computing as a concept, along with AR applications for enterprises. Precisely how big those markets are remains an open question.
