Chi Xu is the founder and CEO of Nreal, a company devoted to making consumer-facing mixed reality wearables available to all.

After earning a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Chi spent time at both Nvidia and Magic Leap before leaving to join another startup. From there, he conceived and founded Nreal.

Since its founding in 2017, Nreal has been aggressively iterating on their hardware and software, and received a lot of press and awards, including “Best Start-up” at CES and “Best in Show” at the Augmented World Expo (AWE).

In this conversation, Chi talks about the origins of the company and how his team is outpacing the competition. We talk about Nreal’s approach to making the glasses a complement to the smartphone and the path from wearable displays to fully featured AR smartglasses.

He shares his perspectives on alternative approaches to the market and the high barrier for any product to achieve.

We go on to talk about the copycat products we saw at this year’s CES as well as the lawsuit that Magic Leap has thrown his way.

You can find all of the show notes at thearshow.com.