Cory Hymel

VP of Product & Research @ Gigster | Innovating on the Future of Work

//--In my own words
Washed software engineer that was better at telling stories and painting visions that writing code. I usually find myself working in research or innovation teams due to attention deficient and boredom with solvable problems. I very much enjoy speaking, teaching, and sharing things I've learned with others. 


//--In my PR teams words
The root of Cory’s passion for the connected nature of tech enhancing the future of work began in the early 2000s in robotics research initiatives for the FedEx Institute of Technology. He went on to pioneer mobile helping enterprises develop strategies to mobilize staff workflows and collaboration in the pre-enterprise project management app era of “BYOD to work” in the mid-2010s. Seeing the promise of physical and digital integration, Cory brought physical products to life leading the Connected Technologies division at a hardware development firm. Beginning in 2018 Cory began researching and leading the Future of Work at Gigster as VP of Product and Research advocating for leveling outdated hierarchical structures within organizations. Cory is a futurist with the goal to continuously question the status quo. His research answers the questions that will define how the innovations of today will impact the work of tomorrow.

Head of Academic Partnerships

Helping lead research with Stanford and Berkeley into how distributed teams work at scale.

Adam Kyle Wilson

I build and scale product organizations that turn frontier technologies into consumer-ready platforms.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve led design and product orgs from 15 → 75+ people, navigated multiple acquisitions, and shipped dozens of products at the intersection of consumer tech, retail innovation, and R&D.

Enterprise & Scale → Head of Product at Jungle Scout, where I scaled the company from a single tool into the #1 SaaS suite for Amazon sellers, helping secure a $100M Series A.

Innovation & R&D → Early product leadership at FNX (3D garment pipeline, acq. by Li & Fung) and innovation roles with Lululemon, Uniqlo, Nike, Disney, and Amazon Devices.

Entrepreneurship → Founded Polyform, a 40-person design & product studio serving Nike, Fortnite, Red Bull, UN, and Olympics, acquired in 2025. Built SKINNER, a counter-surveillance outerwear brand generating $2M+ in sales.

Global Impact → Directed teams delivering large-scale consumer products, from wearables and hardware to SaaS platforms and immersive experiences, across industries from fashion and retail to AI, AR, and Web3.

What drives me:

Turning complex technologies into intuitive, scalable products.

Leading cross-functional teams to deliver measurable impact.

Building strong product and design cultures inside organizations, where strategy and craft meet.

Co-Founder & CEO

We design award winning consumer products for startups and big brands. 
Apps, Augmented Reality, Experiential Retail, and more. 

Select Clients: 
Coca-Cola, Uniqlo, The Olympics, Nooks, Interactio, RTFKT, Red Bull, Wisdo, ToolBX, CVS, Nordstrom, and more

How it feels to start a new year and a new job at the same time... 

Excited to announce I've joined Lazer Technologies as Head of Design.

li_at

JSESSIONID

Head of Design at Lazer

Excited to be joining the Lazer Technologies team as their Head of Design!
More big news coming soon...

Adam Kyle Wilson 

View Jade Trott and Lee Trott’s profile

'Email Rally' by Hamahouse. Love the way the client throws a smash just before the weekend, and the producer has to pick up the designer and the illustrator before Monday. Source: https://lnkd.in/e7aMDfFi

I don’t often speak about why I started SKINNER, a counter surveillance brand, but with the state of things, I feel compelled to. 

In 2019 I was visiting Hong Kong for work. At the same time, the city was in a state of constant protest and civil unrest. 

I witnessed civilians taking to the streets to protest a state oppressing their freedom. (A simplification I know, but bear with me). 

I saw defensive but passive innovation.
Using umbrellas to block cameras. 
Pylons & water bottles to diffuse tear gas.

But I also saw offensive technology beyond their defence: sting rays, gait tracking, social profiling, and 3D facial recognition. 

At home I saw these same surveillance tools in our streets, being used against law abiding citizens without them being aware at all. 

The same tools the Chinese were using to profile Hong Kong protestors were being used to track me at bus stops and traffic lights.

Inspired by the innovation I saw in Hong Kong, I started learning about this tech, and it’s counter measures.

Then, in 2020, George Floyd was killed. 

People protested and I saw the same thing I saw in Hong Kong, when a foreign state was stripping freedom away from law abiding citizens, here on home soil. 

And like the citizens in Hong Kong, I wanted to contribute my own form of innovation in passive defence of the cause.

This is where SKINNER was born. 
The front lines. 
Protesting the abuse of power through passive but effectve defence of our freedoms. 

It is a love letter to, and a series of tools for, anyone who has the courage to go against a system stepping between them and their rights. 

And with everything going on in the world right now, we need love, and tools to protect our rights, our freedoms, and our loved ones. 

——————————————

The SKINNER V1.1 jacket features: 
- 3D facial recognition blocking balaclava
- signal blocking faraday cage front pocket 
- gait tracking deterring shape & motion
- thermal imaging blocking fabric 
- and is built for a lifetime of use

No alternative text description for this image

Love it. But so sad. 
There's something so dystopian about humans trading accessible freshwater, the one non-renewable thing we NEED to survive, in order to use AI.

Every time you use AI for dumb stuff like making images of muscular grandmas, it’s likely that the water levels in Quilicura, Chile drop a bit. This town outside Santiago is home to tens of AI data centers, and is facing their worst water crisis in years. So this Saturday Jan 31st, the townspeople have decided to become AI for the day in a bid to save their water. Good people of Linkedin, for one day, don’t use AI to create stuff. Use the people of Quilicura on Quili.AI and help them save their water. Benji, the local artist, can hand draw a mean muscular grandma for you. 

Made with Avinash Baliga Gonzalo Vecino Josefina Degrossi Chad Hopenwasser Dooley Tombras Jeff Benjamin Justo Dell'Acqua Martin Bernasconi Efraín Albrieu Santiago Saponi Sebastián Machao Mariano Fernández Bussy and all the other wonderful people at Tombras USA and TombrasNiña

The Offspring last night in Vancouver. 
AI could never.
IRL is making a big comeback.

"Grab, look, wave, cross."
Love this campaign. 
From personal experience I know this is a sketchy crosswalk.

Every year in Vancouver, car crashes kill 100 people. 

Campaign group Vision Zero Vancouver are running a pilot program to enhance pedestrian safety: bricks!

I hope everything “Metaverse” Zuck sold us comes true, but everybody calls it somethin totally different, like the “DigiWorld”.

In 2040 everyone is wearing VR goggles, collaborating in virtual work spaces, using avatars for everything, but the kids are like “What the Hell is a Metaverse?”

Streamer Perri Karyal explains her EEG tech to the haters after beating Elden Ring using only her mind.

Friendly reminder for designers 

Rest is part of doing good design 

Coming back from the break. 

The difference is obvious. 

The team is energised, calmer, focused. 

Not because we pushed less. 

Because we rested. 

Most designers are taught to keep pushing. Stretch into multiple roles and work faster. 

On paper this looks like growth. 

In reality it’s heavy invisible burnout 

Rest isn’t a reward, it’s a skill. 

__

Hope this perspective helps you today ❤️ 

#ux #ui #design #productdesign #webdesign #designer #career #founder

The delta between the efficiency of a startup and the inefficiency of enterprise is staggering. Imagine losing $73B.

Chartered Accountant (CA) | Senior Finance Leader & Risk Manager | Expertise in Governance, M&A, Investor Relations | Thought Leader in Ethical Finance & Due Diligence | Open to Opportunities in Global Markets

Meta Just Laid Off 1500 Reality Labs Employees And Shut Down Key Metaverse Products. After Losing $73 Billion, Zuckerberg Is Pivoting Hard To AI.

The metaverse vision just hit a brutal reality check.

Meta laid off roughly 1500 employees—about 10% of its Reality Labs division—as part of a strategic retreat from heavy metaverse investment.

And they're not just cutting jobs. They're shutting down products.

Meta officially discontinued Horizon Workrooms (VR workplace collaboration) effective February 16, 2026. They also stopped offering Horizon managed services & commercial Quest hardware to businesses.

After losing over $73 billion since 2020, Zuckerberg is making a dramatic pivot.

The brutal financial reality:
Total losses since 2020: Over $73 billion in Reality Labs

Q3 2025 alone: $4.4 billion loss on just $470 million revenue

Layoffs: ~1,500 jobs (≈10% of division)

In one quarter, they lost nearly 10× what they made in revenue. That's not sustainable—even for Meta.

What's getting cut:
→ Horizon Workrooms—discontinued
→ Horizon managed services—shut down
→ Commercial Quest hardware—no longer offered to businesses
→ VR headset and Horizon Worlds teams—significantly reduced

These are core metaverse products being killed.

Where Meta is pivoting: Meta is redirecting investment toward:
→ AI development
→ AI-enhanced wearables (Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses)
→ Augmented reality hardware with AI integration

AI systems and wearable technology are now the priority—areas with faster growth & immediate commercial potential.

Why this shift happened:
Consumer adoption failed: Horizon Worlds and metaverse platforms never gained significant traction despite billions invested

Revenue couldn't justify costs: Unsustainable loss ratios

AI opportunity is massive: Generative AI showed immediate commercial viability that metaverse never achieved

Wearables work better: Ray-Ban Meta glasses have stronger product-market fit than VR headsets

What this means:
The metaverse isn't completely dead—Reality Labs still exists, though scaled back.

This is a reprioritization from high-cost, low-adoption VR worlds toward AI & wearables with clearer product-market fit.

The uncomfortable truth:
Zuckerberg spent $70+ billion building a future nobody wanted.

While he focused on virtual reality, OpenAI launched ChatGPT & captured the world's attention.

Now Meta is playing catch-up in AI while retreating from the metaverse bet that defined their rebrand.

The bigger lesson:
Just because you have unlimited resources doesn't mean you can force a market to exist.

Meta had money, talent, and technology to build the metaverse. What they didn't have was consumer demand at scale.

AI won because it solved immediate problems people actually had. The metaverse tried to create problems it could solve.

After $73 billion in losses & 1500 layoffs, Zuckerberg finally admitted what the market already knew:

The future isn't virtual reality. It's artificial intelligence.

(Collected)

Love this project. 
Keeping the old MTV alive. 
Reinforces the need for a publicly available archive of the digital past. 

https://lnkd.in/g_zKA2Ji

Lots of talk about devs using AI to be “10X Developers”. What about designers? Is it possible to be a “10X Designer” with AI?

Get busy living. 
You’re livin your best days. 
Make sure you make them count.

Incredible opportunity. Speaking from experience; working with Scott Michaels & team can improve your entire career path.

Chief Technology Officer (CTO) @ Apply Digital | AI & Digital Product Innovator | 175+ Launches Driving Fortune 1000 ROI

This is a role that will work with Evan Situ and myself, and an amazing team. It will be an opportunity that will have impact and career growth.

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Cory Hymel

Adam Kyle Wilson

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