GoPro CEO wrote a letter, promising to still make cameras
Founder and CEO Nick Woodman wrote a letter to the community of GoPro users and lovers right after news of the 285 million USD merger deal with Starman Optical. Read the letter here. The voice of the letter is intended to reassure users who are worried that the company will abandon consumer cameras to switch to optics, national defense, and AI infrastructure. Woodman wrote: Many people worry that after the merger GoPro will no longer make cameras for users. He responded: making action cams is the company's roots, and that won't change. According to him, Starman also loves the GoPro brand and he believes that the company will continue to make cameras and keep the GoPro-loving community alive.
Merging to have money to make new machines, not a complete change of direction
In the letter, Woodman emphasized that the finances of the merged company will be better, they will have enough financial resources to further develop the camera segment for their users. GoPro has more than 2,500 patents in 24 years and this deal will continue to do more.
Place it next to the business number
The letter did not mention the rate of 1.14 USD per share, did not mention that old shareholders had about 10% left, and did not mention that about 92 million USD in debt was forgiven. It also does not say that Starman Optical was just established at the end of August, or that the parent company is making optical components for data centers. Woodman just said the company will be more diverse and stronger as a camera company. For users who once loved GoPro, this letter is nothing more than empty words with no informational or legal value, just a promise from a CEO that no one trusts them to not stop providing cameras to users. Even the clear, strong statement "will not stop the Hero line" is absent, replaced by the sentence "will continue to make cameras". For those of you who are holding Hero, MAX or MISSION 1 Pro, this letter means: the direction to make devices for users has not been declared discontinued. But there is no new camera schedule, no commitment to a specific research budget, no statement "will not cut the Hero line", just the general idea that we will continue to make cameras (We're going to keep doing what we do best - making the world's highest-performance cameras and building the products, services and innovations that help you capture life's most exciting moments). Basically I'm sorry, reading this letter I can only laugh, reading this letter only makes me feel disappointed.