Chief Operating Officer, Triumph
Search every verified Mike Boland interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Mike Boland, Chief Operating Officer at Triumph, has been active in discussions on emerging technology and local economic trends. In a 2017 interview, Boland compared the state of virtual reality to the early iPhone era, noting that the industry faces a "chicken-and-egg dilemma" where limited hardware adoption constrains content development and vice versa. He predicted that price competition, such as Oculus Rift's bundle price cut, would help address this, and argued that augmented reality would ultimately be a larger opportunity than VR due to its potential for all-day use across commercial sectors like retail and manufacturing. Boland advised VR companies to focus on accessible platforms like Google Daydream and Gear VR rather than high-end hardware. Boland has also spoken about the "uberification" of local services, describing the on-demand economy as a transformation not seen since the commercial internet emerged. In a 2015 webcast, he discussed the rise of mobile-driven demand aggregation and its impact on how people work and buy. Separately, in a 2015 presentation on sustainable park management at the Presidio of San Francisco, Boland detailed the Presidio Trust's efforts to achieve financial self-sufficiency, reforest with disease-resistant trees, and create programs like a fish amnesty station to balance ecological stewardship with public use.
“I like to say that we're in an iPhone one moment right now with VR — you probably remember the iPhone one in 2007, there were only 17 apps on it for the first year until 2008 when the App Store came out, and from that point forward a third‑party developer ecosystem started to do creative things built on that hardware f...”
“There's a classic chicken‑and‑egg dilemma: there aren't enough apps yet to sway the masses to buy the hardware, and conversely there's not enough hardware out there for app developers and content creators to justify the business case of investing in all that content.”
“We just saw Oculus Rift at GDC lower its pricing for the Touch controllers bundled with the headset, so I think we're going to start to see that price competition and then more content that kind of chips away at that chicken‑and‑egg dilemma.”
“AR I think it's going to be bigger but it's going to come later — it's going to be more applicable to a wider range of commercial areas such as commerce and retail and manufacturing and design.”
“If you look at VR, it's really only tenable to be consumed for a certain amount of minutes or hours per day and that limits its market growth, whereas AR, because of its lesser degree of immersion, can eventually be worn throughout all waking hours — that makes it a much larger opportunity.”
“Everyone is thinking of the more sexy tier‑1 hardware like the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, PSVR — I think the nearer‑term opportunity is actually to develop for more accessible formats and platforms.”
“The nearer‑term opportunity is to develop for accessible platforms such as Google Daydream, Gear VR or even Cardboard — they hit a sweet spot of wide accessibility, lower cost but still a good enough experience for the mainstream to get behind.”
“The rise of the local on-demand economy and the 'uberification' of services is transforming how people work, buy, and think about marketing, which has not happened since the advent of the internet 25 years ago.”
“This transformation will lead to a massive change in the local economy, affecting how people work, how they buy, and how they allocate their attention in an on-demand culture conditioned by mobile devices.”
“The demand aggregation structure enabled by mobile devices allows service providers to deploy offerings precisely when demand arises, which is a significant shift in how services are delivered.”
“This change in the economy and marketplace is unprecedented since the rise of the internet, and it will fundamentally alter how people work, buy, and think about marketing.”
“The upcoming conference will bring together investors, technology leaders, and business leaders to discuss how enterprise capabilities developed over the past 20 years are now fueling local economic transformation.”
“The transformation driven by on-demand services is creating a new economic landscape that has not been seen since the internet's rise, impacting how people work and how businesses operate.”
“The conference aims to explore how enterprise innovations over the past two decades are now directly influencing local economies and consumer behaviors in the on-demand era.”
“In 2012, we achieved financial self-sufficiency making the Presidio the first national park site in America that is financially self-sufficient.”
Setting the Context - Sustainable Park Management at the Presidio of San Francisco; Michael Boland, Chief Planning, Projects, ...
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