Replay: Maryam Sabour (Niantic) on Active, Outdoor AR Gaming

Replay of an interview originally published in April 2023:

The Guest

Maryam Sabour is the General Manager and Head of Business for the AR Headsets group at Niantic, where the goal is to enable everyday adventures and real-life social interaction through location-based augmented reality.

Maryam studied law and business at university, going on to earn a Juris Doctorate at McGill University. Early in her career, she was drawn to entrepreneurship, having founded an e-commerce company and a legal clinic for startups.

Maryam was drawn into the world of VR, where she spent several years working as a founder or consultant across several projects, before taking on the role of the business development lead for Niantic’s then nascent Lightship AR platform about 5 years ago.

Maryam Sabour

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Niantic

The Conversation

In this conversation, Maryam shares her path from law to entrepreneurship to Niantic, and explains why Niantic became a hardware innovator.

Maryam goes on to discuss:

  • the tradeoffs and challenges in making a device suitable for outdoor gaming,

  • some lessons learned from early explorations,

  • how the hardware fits into the broader Niantic strategy,

  • and how the company thinks about privacy.

Jason McDowallhardware, AR smartglasses, games