Kluster itself was, well, a cluster* at TED. They didn't really have a good idea or execution, and his team was... well, more interested in taking in the sights than slamming to get the project done (with one exception, but that guy was going to be leaving the company). It felt like an extended college party rather than a company.
Sure, Kaufman started and sold Mophie. Not sure that puts him in 'visionary founder' territory, and raising $180m doesn't prove anything beyond your ability to raise money. That's a useful skill but clearly not enough.
Now, I don't know Kaufman personally, and only interacted with him at TED, so it's possible he's actually a visionary. And all startups come with uncertainty and risk; maybe this wasn't an execution problem, maybe the entire idea was never going to work, and it took someone trying it to find out. Because let's be honest, nothing guarantees a startup is going to work. That's sort of the essence of startups.
We see those ingredients adding up to a win all the time because of survivorship bias. So maybe it's good we see Quirky fail and talk about it, to remind ourselves that there are no guarantees when you're doing something brand new.