James Jannard was up at 4 a.m. last week, venting on Red Digital Cinema Camera Co.’s online users forum.
“I am frustrated,” wrote the self-made billionaire, who founded the Irvine-based company in 2005, a second entrepreneurial act that followed Foothill Ranch-based Oakley Inc.
He was referring to a secret, “the most mind-numbing project” he’s ever worked on.
“Everyone forgets that changing the world is not easy,” Jannard wrote. “Not me … I am more excited than ever. But delays in development have me up at 3 a.m. … just like old times. I want nothing more than to share what the future will be. But sharing too early gives a roadmap to the competition. Trust me when I tell you that this is big. The biggest. It should not be surprising that it has also proven to be the most difficult project I have ever worked on.”
90 Patents
The unknown at this point is what’s “big” for Jannard, an inventor with some 90 patents to his name, the executive who sold Oakley in 2007 to Luxottica Group SPA in Italy for $2.1 billion, and the person tied for the No. 6 spot on the Business Journal’s annual OC’s Wealthiest list with an estimated net worth of $3.2 billion (see separate section with profiles, related stories this page).
Colin Baden—a longtime associate of Jannard’s who exited the chief executive’s post at Oakely last year and now consults for its innovation division—said he has no doubt that his former boss can top his prior successes at Red Digital and Oakley.
“Of course, the guy is a master—he’s the quintessential inventor,” Baden said. “He’s capable of doing anything, and he has the resources to do quite a few things now … expect the unexpected. But knowing Jim, any moment along that journey, it can take a 180-degree shift … it can immediately get thrown in a trash can … it can be replaced with something else. It’s chaos.”
Jannard turned over the reins of Red Digital to President Jarred Land in 2013. In April he explained his departure on the online forum, saying that he’s “been off the grid for the past couple of years,” working on the next invention.
He posted a few hints about it in May, including, “It has to do with space. And travel. And time. And electronics. Get ready to place your deposit. It will be guaranteed by me.”
Need more?
“What we are working on is truly significant,” Jannard wrote. “It will change the way we all do things for sure.”
June brought another teaser—a list of what the new effort is not about. He said he decided to tell that much to a core group of professionals and aficionados who have been “trying so hard” to guess what his next brainchild might be:
“1. It is not world peace. I wish we could deliver.
-
It is not energy related. We will leave that up to Elon Musk.
-
It is not time travel. That is just not going to happen.
-
It is not saving wildlife. Although I am fully engaged in that cause.
-
It is not VR … which I think is as obsolete as 3D. No one has just acknowledged this yet.
-
It is not AR … which I think is doomed because no one wants to wear a headset.”
He has since doubled down on his note of doom for AR—or augmented reality—despite the Pokemon craze that has touched off a new view and much excitement over the potential of the technology.
Meanwhile, perhaps the most interesting clues come from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office database.
Jannard filed a patent for a “Multi-Layer Handheld Electronic Device” last fall, with Red Digital’s Land among the four inventors. Jannard’s HoudiniX LLC in Eastsound, Wash., is listed as the applicant.
The portable device has a sandwich-like structure, comprised of “detachable plates”—a smartphone panel, tablet, a 6K still and video camera—that could be combined based on buyers’ preferences. The options also include a rear plate with extended memory or battery life, and a configuration for a camera lens attachment.
Waiting Game
The waiting game and frustration Jannard expressed about the new project is “part of the hunt,” Baden said.
“Jim as an inventor—it’s hard to package that,” he said. “He would describe himself as person with many meters all over his body when trying to solve a problem in an unexpected way. He’s very fastidious about when to push the go button on something. He would say that all those meters have to be at 10 for him to be in that place, and if any of those meters isn’t at a 10, then he knows that he needs to keep exploring and trying to solve the problem that he’s set before himself—he’s a perfectionist.
“And for those of us who worked around him, it’s both inspirational and exhausting. You have to be prepared to do some pretty incredible heavy lifting when you’re involved in one of his hunts. It’s awesome, I thoroughly enjoy it. He’s a wonderful person to work with, and if you can take the pressure and stress, for all of us who have done it—we all had an amazingly good time.”
