Driver-Facing Camera Maker, Lytx, Cashes Out For $500 Million

http://www.livetrucking.com/driver-facing-camera-maker-lytx-cashes-out-for-500-million/

 

That is very, very interesting.

Sold for $500 million when they screwed $200 million worth of drivers in 2015 alone.

Of course some of that profit went to pad the pocketbooks of some insurance companies and FMCSA desk jockeys.

But you can bet that GTCR will be pushing even harder than Lytx was to get these things in every truck.

 

Good for the owners. Applaud their business acumen. Why they sold the company is nobody's business but theirs

 

They were going bankrupt, if i remember right.

And they sold to everybody that wanted them. I don't think anyone else was interested besides swift. Which bought 6,000 cameras.

 

I think the companies that have purchased their products, the investors, and the trucking industry in general has a legitimate reason to inquire of why the quick flip.

I think there are plenty of potential problems with the business model going forward, security not being the least of these. Many of their camera products are interfaced with the cellular network the company's Quallcomm is operating off of. I just think network security could be a huge cost going forward.

 

You act as though they went belly up, out of the blue, and just left everyone out to dry.

 

Thats what many businesses use as their business model. If they can't sell enough units of their product on its own merits, they lobby someone in govt to force more customers to buy it. It's happened a lot with some of this tech stuff. Like abs brakes, insurance products, etc. Even RFID tag mfgs where trying to mandate use of their products through a USDA program called the national animal identification program. That raised an uproar in the ag community, and in particular hobby, subsistance, and small farms. Now that program is pretty much DOA. our industry needs to to quit being so passive, and start creating an uproar, and maybe we could stop some of thsee forthcoming mandates.

 

"You'd have more of a chance to find a three-legged ballerina."

These companies have such a grip on everyone anymore that there's no chance of anything changing for the better for the drivers. The OOIDA and the ATA (the later of which seems to be more corrupt and would break it off in a driver faster than the politicians they deal with) aren't getting anything done really. It's all dog-and-pony show.

Oh well. At least some people made a good run out of it.

 

The OOIDA is a slush fund . Never be a member no way . Why so they can collect a million dollar check in a class action against England , take the payoff in the win and CR does business as usual ? F them