uBeam's insider story by ex employee?
liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com
liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com
The bosses of Energous are especially slick. They went for IPO early and started paying themselves huge salaries. At the point when the market might have started asking questions like, "Why is there still no product?" they headed off trouble by adding a bunch of reassuringly big names to the board.
Also another fun point- every techcrunch article on ubeam is by Josh Constine
Turns out the VP joined because of Merc Berte - the MIT/Raytheon engineer, who also left right after series A fund raising. Both Merc and this VP guys seems amazingly sharp. But what's surprising is nowhere in the media you see any credit given to these guys.Perry is branded as a sole genius.
The VP writes-
"And the point of this story? In my opinion, don't take the presence of smart engineers as confirmation of a technology's viability (either way), and don't think the engineers at a company you find questionable aren't smart and are fully aware of the technical issues of what they're working on. They just want to play with fun toys."
Techcrunch is just a PR channel for startups.
They're not. VC's (especially in SV) are notoriously bad at actually understanding any tech and very easy to trick into delivering large checks. This has been seen countless times.
But then Mark Suster said "hey, our engineers said it's legit, quit your whining!"
https://bothsidesofthetable.com/the-audacious-plan-to-make-e...
Sound waves can definitely damage flesh.
Conspicuously absent from the list of things that an iPad Pro can do is writing code in any sane kind of development workflow. The idea that an iPad Pro could satisfy my everyday work needs is so foreign to me that I was shocked by how cursory and superficial their technology immersion really is. They need 'desktop publishing' tools, at best.
I'm not claiming that a person who spends all day using Excel and Powerpoint and WhatsApp (and not Vim/Emacs/Sublime/IDE) is incapable of having a nuanced understanding of bleeding edge tech. But I am going to claim that they most likely have a "dentist's office waiting room magazine" understanding of hard tech, and I'll proudly declare that to be my not-so-expert opinion.
It's not about seeing where the market is going (which frankly is impossible and is really just trying to catch and ride trends) - but rather about knowing which companies and projects will definitely fail.
Creating a portfolio is getting rid of the NOs and investing in the MAYBEs. And if you can't properly vet the engineering and technology that a company has, you can't tell that it's going to fail. The massive amount of companies that still get checks for an impossible or just bad product clearly shows that these VC firms dont have the right process, talent or method to accurately judge companies.
2. Nobody knows what company will succeed, including the VCs and you and me.
3. It is arrogant to think anyone has any idea what company will be a NO or MAYBE or YES. If you think that's bullshit and it's easy to spot a "NO", it probably means you haven't experienced this before, because I used to think that way too in the past. Then I went to SF and met companies that I thought would surely fail, they were disorganized, founders looked stupid, working on stupid problems, etc., then the next day they become wildly successful. After encountering several of those you become humble.
4. Conclusion: There is no such thing as "process" you're looking for, and that's how it should be because if you're a VC that follows a strict "process", you won't be around in a while. You can't predict anything. VCs are doing whatever they can and I am pretty sure they are statistically better than you and me at it because that's their job. We can say whatever about them but if somebody gave you $100million dollars today and asked you to invest in startups you and me will probably fail much more miserably than any VCs out there. It's not like I'm a VC fanboy, I just don't agree when people criticize others for something that they are not familiar with.
In an enterprise, that means that you typically use about 8 applications in the course of a year. (Office apps + IE + Adobe + 1 other)
If your goal was to run a startup (not necessarily build a product, but just be a CEO of a startup), you just had to find someone with money more stupid than you.
I saw it happen before. Someone came with a silly idea for the company, managed to convince a few non-very technical people to trust them, and off they went playing SV CEO for a while.
If startups weren't hot a few years ago, they'd probably be buying and selling subprime mortgages or other such thing.
Gotta wonder what is next in the pipeline. VC money is drying up I hear but money doesn't like to stay put, wonder what's the next bubble (genetics, robots, self driving cars, medical devices...)?
> The 45-year-old Seattle-area woman, who has no scientific or medical training, underwent the experimental treatment last September in an undisclosed clinic in Colombia. The unorthodox, overseas trial, which was designed to skirt US federal regulations, prompted the resignation of one of the company’s scientific advisors. George Martin, of the University of Washington, quit after telling MIT Technology Review, "This is a big problem. I am very upset by what is happening. I would urge lots of preclinical studies.”[0]
She'll be raising a series A in no time.
0: http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/ceo-tests-crazy-genet...
Previously if uberfordogs.ly failed dogs didn't make it to the park in time to play with their friends. I am afraid to find out what happens when growanextrabrain.io fails.
https://www.producthunt.com/tech/ubeam
I've always felt bold scientific claims required extremely bold evidence.
In other posts by the OP (the linked post is the first of the blog), they make the same comparisons too. I was suspicious of the OP's credibility, but one of the posts has detailed physics on airborne waves which fits their experience and skills at uBeam: http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/05/acoustic-nonlin...
uBeam's patent: https://www.google.com/patents/US20120299540
"Because decibels are a logarithmic scale, a decrease of
3dB is half the power. With the uBeam system, being just
one meter away from the transmitter will bring the power
down by half... It’s also absolutely insane. For something
that claims to be as easy as WiFi to install, look at the
differences: WiFi merely requires a single router to be
installed anywhere in the store. uBeam would require a
dozen transmitters, each of with include mechanical
steering for their transducers. uBeam would require
everyone to buy an ultrasonic power receiver for each
device."[0]
He linked to this story on Energous. http://seekingalpha.com/article/3811296-energous-buy-company...
"Using the 1 watt as our transmitter power translates to 0.000507 watt (0.507 milliwatts or 507 microwatts) at the receiving end. "
But it's even worse than this! The FCC does not allow you to transmit at the full 1 watt (30 dBm) if you focus the energy with more than 6 dB gain. If you want to use a phase array to get 21 dB antenna gain, you must drop your transmit power to 25 dBm or 0.316 watts. Every 3 dBi of antenna gain must be accompanied by 1 dBm decline in transmit power.
There are many other ways of getting your story in the news – there are tons of tech reporters, for example, who would want to write up his story. And then we'd have the benefit of a condensed story, presumably somewhat fact-checked etc.
The VC says something to the effect of, "Yeah, I know the physics don't make sense. But the CEO is so charismatic that more investors will want in down the line."
The market doesn't get a look in until the last greater fool buys it and is holding it when the music stops. Everyone else has been handsomely rewarded for their tomfoolery so when the music starts playing again they'll dance.
As soon as I saw this, I could sense that this business is driven by "Confirmation Bias" and "Representativeness Bias", the Halo Effect.
These guys are hiring people who look like themselves, who do the same (extreme) sports like themselves, etc. It's a case of Steve Jobs looking for someone who looks like Steve Jobs, instead of the plump, dowdy, disheveled, and genius Steve Wozniak.
http://thathopeyetlives.tumblr.com/post/128372419510/is-ther...
http://reddragdiva.tumblr.com/post/129387704618/conversation...
I should note that they deleted their account over a controversy over false claims they made about their credentials (massive oversimplification), so take the posts with a grain of salt.
Also, IIRC the startup in question wasn't uBeam.
What, are investors going to sue them for not being acoustic enough? "these sales are great but this isn't the tech we were promised."?
Who cares. It's called uBeam not uScream. I've never heard anyone complain about someone shipping different tech from what they raised money with. Have you?
Between the Theranos case and now the uBeam case, I think the drive for "equality" has gone so far that it is affecting investing decisions. There are people in the Valley so desperate for female CEOs that they are willing to overlook science and commonsense if they can get a marketable female CEO.
What do you think?
If you boldly state you can cut the cord for most mobile devices, you're going to get a lot of VC attention, this is no surprise.
What is (to me at least) is the shocking realization, that due diligence apparently is not always what it is cracked up to be.
Because their stated goal of wireless phone charging is likely too hard to get to work right? If they "only" figure out short distance beam-formed wireless power at 25% efficiency, is the company a failure?
Look around any apartment in an 'old' city and you'll see dozens of things that would benefit from being able to throw power like WiFi. 60-watt equivalent LEDs are something like 9W -- there are about 100 places in my apartment I'd like to have better light but my landlord has no interest in running new power lines. Smoke detectors trickle charging at even 1W would never run out of power. Modern 40" TVs can use as little as 25W of power -- with a powerful uBeam and a Chromecast, you could attach it to any wall and never see a cable. Those "smart mirrors" that everyone builds then never shows full frame due to the ugly cord running out of it could easily be charged via wireless tech.
There are obviously many obstacles and who knows if they'll make it, but it seems extremely short sighted and against the spirit of HN to actively cheer for a company's failure.
Edit: Apparently, yes, I'm the only one.
You may want to read the writeup which forced that disclosure: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam-faq/
I'll run some better numbers tomorrow for a fixed distance / size, but intuitively, eliminating the "tracking a phone from 5M away" requirement dramatically expands the use cases.
Actually, I take it back. That's not fair -- according to their investors they don't have any intention of only making phone chargers;
> And the truth is that Team uBeam doesn’t want to stop at phones. With the explosion of “wearables’ wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to charge your watch, fitness tracker or noise-canceling headphones? What about if elderly people never had to ask a relative or healthcare worker to change the batteries on their hearing aids? The practical uses for uBeam technology is limitless.
Or the company themselves;
> With wires virtually eliminated, TVs can sit in the middle of a room cord-free and light fixtures will become “stick-on” without the need for routed power.
<--Original post-->
That's fair, but it sure seems like the obvious path to getting cell phone charging to work is to get a fixed object charging to work -- at which point, if they'd hired any bizdev people, they'll sell the hell out of the fixed object systems to anyone and everyone.
It's just striking to recollect the many complaints about only easy, derivative ideas being funded when a hard idea with tons of applications is being derided in such an intense fashion.
I'd rather they fund 10 uBeams that could yield useful insights or pivots than 0.
When uBeam say they're going to make wires a thing of the past, I will remain skeptical until they have a product on a shelf that I can buy. Until then I am as excited about their wireless power transmission as I am by any other startup in the same space - it's a great idea, but it needs to be seen.
The writeup I linked has a good argument against the feasibility of wireless power for a TV:
> A typical large, flat-screen TV (eg. [42]) will draw about 60 watts. Since a TV is usually mounted in one place, some of the limitations get easier, but not all - if the TV is two feet (60 cm) from the wall, and the receiver is 40% efficient, that's still about 80% losses. To transmit 300 watts at 0.3 W/cm^2, one has to have a 1,000 cm^2 transmitter, a bit over a foot on each side (31.6 cm). One could make the transmitter smaller (100 cm^2, or 4 inches/10 cm across) by increasing the intensity to 165 dB, a level that causes burns "almost instantly" (from Question #7), but that seems unwise. Since most power outlets are near the floor, and the TV probably isn't, one would still have to run a cord to the transmitter. And uBeam takes 240 watts of electricity, about a dozen light bulbs' worth, and dumps it into the air for no real reason. That's not good for the environment. Or the power bill. Or the air conditioning - all that heat makes the room hotter.
Anyway, there's nothing about thermodynamic limitations in the section about the TV. The author is making several exaggerated statements that are easily refuted to make the TV suddenly possible... Let's focus on the wasted energy (240W or a dozen light bulbs!) to make the point:
* Assume a 48" LED[1] that uses 31W and suddenly you're only wasting 120W.
* His 80% loss figure is a holdover from his calculations about the phone -- cut this in half and you're at 60W of waste heat. (You should be able to achieve a nearly perfect perpendicular 'connection' between transmitter/receiver for a fixed TV).
So far, we're delivering 30W of power and wasting 60W as heat -- not ideal
* If you plan for a worst-case of 8-hrs straight of watching TV and plan on a battery backup, you could get away with delivering 10W to the TV and only wasting 20W as heat which is eminently reasonable.
The "physically impossible" claims are greatly overstated (for non-phone charging use cases).
[1] - https://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=most_efficient.me_tvs...
Until our houses are powered by 100% renewable energy, any technology that sacrifices more than half the input energy just so someone doesn't have to see an extension cord should be banned by law.
There's a big difference between 30% efficient now and 90% efficient in the future, and "it's never going to get any better than this"
So, a startup in a closed system with no product or source of revenue will dissolve into entropy. But a startup with continual funding from VCs can remain as long as the influx of cash continues.
I dont get that linked blog. This engineer, who apparently is too ashamed to use his real name on the blog, is part of the problem. He was either in on the scam, or is as clueless as the founder.
Want similar magic 'under appreciated' startups? look up solar road scam, or batteriser.
This is one of the better posts that explains it. http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/04/tilting-at-wind...
While it's nice to think that we could let uBeam toil along in the minute hopes that they might succeed, the problem is that they don't exist in a vacuum. The impossible specs that they are putting out there are almost certainly preventing legitimate technologies from getting funded, since you'd have to address the elephant in the room in your pitch deck. Additionally, companies like uBeam and Theranos create massive undertows when they go under -- no VC is going to go within a mile of a blood testing or wireless power delivery company for years after.
Finally, there's a simple way that uBeam could silence all the critics -- they could show some data in a public forum that proves that they can overcome even a few of the basic physics challenges that have been posed. Despite the withering criticism, they've refused to take that step. That's very telling.
What I think is the problem- and there are many parties to blame is---
(1) Press and some new tech founders are so obsessed with selling a good story rather than a good "real" impactful product- that they overhype WAY too much, claim way too many UNREAL things, stomp their feet with arrogance, talk about how the world is against young naive people (not true)- rather than just projecting some realistic expectations and just be enthusiastic about what they want to do(Sure, some level of optimism is needed, but don't go so much overboard!). But I guess, non tech or VC people get demoralized if you don't claim you can be a >$1B company overnight. The unicorn fallacy. May be that's what encourages this.
(2) Problem with overhype is-- when it doesn't work out, it creates skepticism for genuine companies. When a founder of a tech startup says "It can charge faster than wire"- that worries me.
(3)The world/press is obsessed about finding the next Steve Jobs/Tesla/Musk. You listen to Perry's TED talk- she keeps criticizing the PhDs and the engineers, how they cannot think "out of the box". Perry is very good sales person, she can bring in money and you certainly need that in a company. But, you don't need to bring someone down to rise up the ladder. http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxNashville-Meredith-Perry-...
(4)The media wants to find the good story of how a "dropout" or a "non technical" person turns out to be the next Tesla- and solving the hardest physics/bio problem. Worries me, cause I feel this might not be the best picture you want to portray to the young ambitious kids. Inventions and real disruptions involves lots and lots of hard work,and in-depth understanding of how things work, and I think the engineers and scientists who ACTUALLY make it work should be appreciated. Instead it is projected as if all these engineers are dumb ones who Perry has to keep telling what to do.
(5)People want the world to change overnight, and some people want to believe that. People who "actually" work to create that change, know its not true.
And I think at HN many of us are tech people. We don't like to be told - "oh you guys are way too stupid and cannot think out of the box" or "you wasted your time learning engineering, and I can just solve the big problems by just reading up wikipedia"- when obviously she had no clue. Good luck building it with no engineers?