Sources Magic Coo Cmolangleyinsider: in a Major Leadership Shakeup at Magic Leap, Its Cto, Coo, and Chief Patent Officer Are All Set to Leave, While Its Former Cmo is Being Hired Back

Sources Magic Coo Cmolangleyinsider – Magic Leap’s current leadership turmoil comes just weeks after the company announced the sale of a sizable chunk of stock to Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.

Magic Leap is set for major changes at the top, with some of its most high-profile executives and employees about to leave. The first in line is Magic Leap’s Chief Technology Officer and co-founder, Dr. Michael Abrash, who has announced that he will be leaving Magic Leap as soon as “a suitable replacement is found”.

Abrash will be replaced by former Microsoft executive, Scott Hubbard, who was most recently the President of Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise division. Hubbard will report to Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz, who is currently acting as the interim CTO in Abrash’s stead.

More changes are in store at Magic Leap as its Chief Operating Officer, Johanna Wrightson, has been let go. Wrightson will be replaced by Brian Wallace, who was previously the CMO for Magic Leap before leaving the company in 2015 for Google.

The news of the shakeup at Magic Leap is said to have shocked many of the company’s top executives, especially considering that Wrightson occupied a position considered extremely important in the tech industry. She had been with Magic Leap since it launched and was also quoted in MIT Technology Review as saying: “We are building this company around creating joy and magic.”

It’s unclear if the reason behind Wrightson’s sudden departure is related to the recent dispute between Magic Leap and rival augmented reality (AR) company ODG over patent rights, which ended with Magic Leap announcing that it had been granted several new patents with regard to its proprietary technology.

There may be more changes in store for the company, as insiders told MIT Technology Review that Magic Leap’s top lawyer, Gary Bradski, is also planning on leaving in the near future. Bradski joined Magic Leap in 2015, but has been with the company for much longer than that. Before becoming Magic Leap’s lawyer, he was in charge of Google’s business operations.

While it is still unclear who or what is behind the changes at Magic Leap, it does seem all these moves are related to the company’s recent sale of a $500 million stake to another secretive firm under the codename “Jaguar”.

This new investor, which received 7.5 million shares in the company’s Series D round, is described only as a “private equity firm” with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on technology investments in emerging markets.

Magic Leap has stated that it will be using the investment to boost its efforts in developing countries such as China and Southeast Asia, but hasn’t revealed any specifics about when it will start selling its highly anticipated “magicverse” headset.

This is because the company still has not been able to meet its product release deadline for “the next generation of portable, lightweight, hands-free AR headsets,” as revealed in its recently released updated timeline.

The company had previously said that it would be shipping its first product, the Magic Leap One Creator Edition, by the end of 2017. Now, that release has been pushed to “2018” and will only be publicly available to designers, developers and other creators.

Magic Leap also says that it will begin fulfilling its pre-sale orders for the device in 2018, with a massive rollout of the headset projected for 2019.