Rony Abovitz

Rony Abovitz (born 1971)[1] is an American entrepreneur. Abovitz founded MAKO Surgical Corp., a company manufacturing surgical robotic arm assistance platforms, in 2004. MAKO was acquired by Stryker Corporation in 2013 for $1.65B.[2]

Rony Abovitz
Born1971 (age 49–50)
EducationB.S. University of Miami
OccupationEngineer, Businessman
Parent(s)Isaac and Itta Abovitz

Abovitz is the founder of the Mixed reality/Augmented Reality (MR/AR) company Magic Leap and served as its CEO from its founding in 2010.[3][4][5] In May of 2020, amid financial strife for the company, Abovitz stepped down from his position.[6]

Early life

Abovitz was born to an Orthodox Jewish family,[7] the eldest of five children of Isaac and Itta Abovitz.[8] His parents immigrated from Israel to Cleveland, Ohio in 1962.[8] Abovitz's father worked in the real estate industry and his mother was an artist.[3] He grew up playing Atari video games, and at the age of 8 he received his first computer which he says was an Apple Macintosh [Introduced in 1984, when he was 13].[9] In 1983, his family moved to Hollywood, Florida where he attended Nova High School in Davie, Florida.[8] After high school, Abovitz aimed to have a career as a scientist.[3] He attended the University of Miami, where he eventually obtained a master's degree in biomedical engineering.[10] While attending university, he was also a cartoonist.[9]

Career

In 2011, Abovitz founded a virtual reality company called Magic Leap, based in Florida. The company maintains offices in New Zealand, in Los Angeles, Seattle, and Mountain View, California.[9]

In 2017, Abovitz spoke at the Black Tech Week annual conference, where he shared some of his goals for the Magic Leap company.[3]

In February 2018, Abovitz spoke at Recode’s Code Media conference about the augmented reality technology his company was developing.[11]

References
  1. Ewalt, David M. "Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever". Forbes. Retrieved 2016-11-03.
  2. "Stryker Corp. completes acquisition of MAKO Surgical Corp". MLive.com. Retrieved 2018-06-07.
  3. Berman, Nat (2017). "BusinessRony Abovitz: 10 Things You Didn't Know about Magic Leap's CEO". Moneyinc. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
  4. Roose, Kevin (21 October 2014). "Google Just Invested Millions of Dollars in a Very Eccentric Man". New York Magazine. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  5. Lapowsky, Issie (24 February 2015). "Magic Leap CEO Teases 'Golden Tickets' for Its Augmented-Reality Device". Wired. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  6. Robertson, Adi (16 June 2020). "What's Left of Magic Leap?". The Verge. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
  7. Ewalt, David M. (November 2, 2016). "Inside Magic Leap, The Secretive $4.5 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever". Forbes. Abovitz comes from an Orthodox Jewish background and was planning to leave work early to observe the Sabbath
  8. Rivero, Nicolas (September 27, 2016). "Rony Abovitz's Magic Leap May Reshape Your Reality". Broward Palm Beach New Times.
  9. Hempel, Jessi (21 April 2015). "The Man Behind the Hidden World of Magic Leap". Wired. Retrieved 21 February 2018.
  10. D'Onfro, Jillian (1 January 2015). "Google's $500 Million Man: Meet The 'Weird' Guy Trying To Invent A New Computing Platform". Business Insider. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  11. Kafka, Peter (25 January 2018). "Magic Leap CEO Rony Abovitz is coming to Code Media". Recode. Retrieved 21 February 2018.


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