To be fair, none of these things are trivial: - Creating an AR operating system - Developing and manufacturing AR hardware - Creating an SDK and a developer ecosystem for the hardware and software - Creating a platform for selling AR apps, and selling B2B - Doing R&D and filing patents for new AR tech

I don't think they are one of those companies where I wonder why they need people. They are doing something really hard. Maybe too hard.

prolly don’t need an os. or a platform.

I'd imagine it's some kind of RTOS to handle the time sensitive parts of the graphics / AR stuff. Probably not custom kernel but they'd have to develop a lot of stuff around it.

As for the sales platform, why wouldn't they develop it? To attract developers they need to make it easy for users to buy the products those developers would be create. It's not like the early 2000's where you could launch a console without an online store, it's pretty much mandatory these days because both developers/publishers and consumers expect it to be there.

Iirc it was close to 40-50% of their staff.

They have sales and customer support. They also don't have a (sizable) network of 3rd party developers yet, and had a lot of staff internally working on content for the platform.

In addition to the fact they design their own hardware, they manufacture and test it themselves too so they have supply chain/logistics to worry about, QA and test development, factory workers/technicians, etc.

Of all the "how does X have so many people?!" ML makes the most sense. It's hardware, not easyware.

They were reportedly doing crazy complicated things to develop the product. Including running their own silicon fab at their office in Florida.