Soylent’s Next Chapter | Hacker News Reader

Soylent’s Next Chapter

blog.soylent.com

184 pointsdankohn1143 comments

This reminds me of a comment (here on HN I believe) after David Sacks took over Zenefits after its compliance debacle:

"When the old CEO writes the announcement letter, it was her choice. When the new CEO write the letter, it was the board's choice."

What if, as in this case, they both wrote it?

Per the spirit of the "rule" (whether it reflects reality is a different question), I'd say that what matters is whether or not the first CEO took part in the announcement at all. The fact that the new CEO also wrote something seems less significant.

Apart from a few special cases, it is always the board's choice.

If you have experience/more info around this area I'd love to hear. Never having attended a board meeting, I'm reliant upon others' pithy quotes.

It is the board's job to appoint the CEO. There are subcommittees formed to do this, which the existing CEO usually stays away from, because in almost all cases there is a reason the CEO is stepping away/being made to step away in the first place.

Heck even in Steve Jobs' retirement letter (https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2011/08/24Letter-from-Steve-J...) he didn't appoint Tim Cook CEO but rather "strongly recommended" him to the board.

Ah I see what you mean. I think the quote is referencing the choice to step down, not the choice of successor.

absolutely false.

founding CEOs have different powers than appointed ones.

Only if they have control of the company and the board seats to go with it.

Nope. It is true. The board has the power to hire and fire the CEO. Sometimes a founding CEO has sympathetic friends on the board and can arrange the company to be able to nominate board members.

BUT, board members are not answerable to the CEO. The CEO answers to the board. That is one of the reasons for a board of directors...

Probably in the majority of the cases it makes sense for the founder to step aside for a new CEO, but I can only imagine how brave and difficult decision must be.

Edit: Maybe some HN folks who have done the same can share their stories?

It all depends on how you want to delegate the work. As companies grow, the founders will hit the limits of their own experience. They then need to hire help, and place that help within in the organization. Eventually, with success, they either step up and build the skills needed to succeed as CEO, or they realize they delegated everything to others. In that latter case, it makes sense to just step aside and let the team you built do the job they were hired to do, and give the CEO title to someone else. When the founder is still the largest shareholder, the true decision making authority does not change... but they can reserve it for special occasions, and the rest of the time get out of the way and let their team carry on.

If the new CEO can uphold the vision that gives the founder time to do other things. Things he loves, work and think out of the box.

Never easy to do this. But most founders' mindset is to do whatever is best for the survivability and growth of the company. That's the path I took.

I don't know if that's the mindset of most founders, but it is probably the mindset of most founders who have a company that is still alive.

> do whatever is best for the survivability and growth of the company

I don’t think there is any doubt about that. But I think it’s very difficult to have such a clear mind to know/understand/accept that another CEO will drive your company better than you.

There are also obvious upsides to stepping aside - you can get some more free time at minimum. If the business is doing well, you might also have the opportunity to take some cash out.

It's neat to look at the two pictures:

Rob is holding up a bag of Soylent, presenting it to the reader, bag in focus Rob considerably out of focus. Background is hard to make out, maybe a lag, kitchen, or kitchen-lab?

Bryan is sitting at a table, clearly in a situation where he's "on display" (jacket, microphone, earpiece), face well-lit. The product is in front of him, almost as out of focus as Rob is in the first photo. In fact, although the bottles are branded, you can more easily make out the Soylent logo on Bryan's shirt even though it's folded than you can on the bottles.

I'm just saying, if this were a movie I know what the message the director/DP would be trying to convey is: Rob was all about being the CEO who invented Soylent and brought it to the world. He makes a bag of powder the star of the photo of himself. Now it's Bryan's time, where the focus of the CEO's office is the CEO: Bryan.

Of course, this is not a movie. They're probably saying a lot less than that with their photo choices in real life.

these are self-selected pics to show off the new CEO and de-highlighting the founder. There's nothing subtle about it.

This add-copy would be a great example piece in a business-psych class. The poor photoshopping aside, the messages that the pictures convey are clear once pointed out.

Honestly, good work on the designer of the blog-posting, they should be looking for a better job with this level of expertise.

As a video editor, I'd say you are close. imho, to me it doesn't say that Rob was making his leadership of the company all about the product (you'd really have to go back and look at past photos to see if this is true) but more that he is now fading into the background of the company, while Bryan is "focused" on future of the company (looking towards the viewers right which is typically the future). Although many decisions like that in films often tend to be happy accidents (or subconscious choices), it is pretty clear that they are deemphasizing Rob.

I don't know why, and I am sure I am wrong and he is a wonderful human being, but I had a visceral dislike to the picture of the new CEO.

Is there a template out there for these types of "farewell letters", it feels like every leaving CEO, every startup that pulls the plug and every company that is bought by one of the big ones, these letters all have the same buildup and delivery.

Could be a new business idea. Farewell Letters As A Service

You know, a similar service never really panned out. Poor execution, I hear.

Bummer the site isn't up, but here's the YC thread: Shutdownify is Shutting Down - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10088229

I used to think the same about some things (like design docs). Then when I became slightly senior and started writing those, I realized that for such common things, following best practices can lead to template-like things (which is not bad, IMO. The goal of this letter or a design doc is to deliver information to you, constrained by company needs. Not to tickle your creativity or something).

I understand the need to have departure announcements like this but still resent that this kind of boring corporate blather is the go-to thing to do in this situation. It’s a very robotic kind of action that dehumanizes everyone involved.

The art of design is creativity, can’t we be a little more creative than shallow platitudes when we depart from something we built from the ground up?

Andrews letter is original and funny: https://www.jottit.com/v5wux/

Yes, it was. I happened to be interviewing at Groupon as a fresh faced new college grad that day and it was super weird.

What a refreshing letter that serves as the perfect counter example to the above. Thanks for sharing.

Just reading this kind of letter makes me have so much respect for this guy. This is the kind of human being and leader we should strive to be. Not because he failed, but because he showed humility and humanity and a touch of humor in his departure. If that isn’t the ultimate human response, I don’t know what is.

https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com

Thanks for the laughs.

Reminds me of a nifty little tool I made as a teen: the breakup-text generator.

As I read this, it's the standard shorthand for "after a product setback, the board got worried that I'm too eccentric and not managerial enough, so they brought in an MBA". I mean, that's a bit harsh, but I don't think I'm wrong - the dot com bubble produced so many of these letters that they really are down to a standard template.

If this isn't a respectability move after Soylent's recently quality struggles, I'll... drink a bunch of Soylent, I guess.

Are you referring to the fake problems with the delicious snack bars? Or something else? I don't keep close track of Soylent as I only consume their products now and then (its shelf life is one of the things I love about it... and now I fear they'll cut that because it stunts repeat sales and encourages the kind of consumer they don't want) but that's the last I know of. Was bummed when they discontinued them, I ate loads of them and never had an issue. When they accepted returns and proceeded to eat them to prove they were fine, I appreciated that response and felt it the appropriate one but I know they backed off of that and apologized.

I can personally testify that the issues were not fake. It was awful. Maybe it was 1:1000 I don’t know but it totally happened.

Not particularly - I never kept up with the snack bar controversy enough to even know what the complaint was.

I was thinking foremost of the mold issues with liquid Soylent. That's fairly old (12+ months?) and seems to be solved, but it's a long-term reputation problem in the same sense as Chipotle. Less crucially, I'm also thinking about the digestive issues people have reported - that some people talk about nausea and terrible gas when consuming lots of Soylent.

Neither of those things seems to be a "our product is nonviable today" issue, but both have raised a specter among the people I talk to of "Soylent is weird and maybe not healthy". Swapping the CEO to someone more mainstream seems like one step towards fighting that perception.

Soylent hasn't had any quality struggles in the past 6 months that I'm aware of.

12-18 months ago they had multiple issues: sporadic mold under the caps, some people severely allergic to the algae-based ingredient they used, and occasional long shipping delays. But all of those issues have been ironed out while Rhinehart was still CEO.

I honestly think this situation is closer to young Larry Page stepping aside for 10 years while Eric Schmidt ran Google than it is to anything particularly bad that Rhinehart has done. By all measures I've seen, Rosa Labs is highly successful and growing fast.

While I agree with you, I want to point that last October Health Canada decided that soylent could not be sold in Canada anymore, because it doesn't meet the minimum requirement of a meal replacement.

I'd be interested to hear what requirements it failed. Because on the surface (which is as deep as I've looked into Soylent) it seems pretty comprehensive, no?

It didn't have enough carbs (seriously). Canada has very specific nutritional requirements for a "meal replacement".

The KetoChow guy gets around this by recommending to their Canadian customers, instead of mixing with cream, to mix KetoChow with maple syrup.

I kid not.

This is a good point, thanks. I don't think Soylent has ongoing problems, and while I had the mold in mind Rhinehart seems to have done well with that.

My thought was less that Soylent had a consumer confidence problem, and more that Rosa Labs may have a board confidence problem. Meaning the 12 month old issues still floating around, but also meaning that Rhinehart has magnets in his fingertips and is generally a "weird futuristic tech dude" stereotype. That was great for getting Soylent going, and I expect Rhinehart will keep coming up with fascinating new stuff. But if the board is looking for mainstream appeal and enormous returns, they'd do better with a "nutrition on the go" image than a "posthuman meal replacement" image. And part of that would be moving Rhinehart to product, where he'll shine regardless, and out of the spotlight, where he might be image-incompatible.

It's the same move as something like Good Day Chocolate; they're basically a bog-standard nootropics company, but they put the stuff in chocolate instead of pills and packaged it for the Whole Foods checkout line. I'm not sure that's the goal with Soylent, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was an attempt.

What's going on with Soylent these days? They've been out for a while, so I'd be interested to learn about any (relatively) long term studies that came out about the health effects of a soylent-only diet.

Not sure if it's a meme, but reddit/hackernews seem to harp on soylent and prefer Ensure which seems to have more nutrients per meal.

Ensure is made with milk, though, which a lot of people are allergic to

So is Soylent occasionally - https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls/ucm554489.htm

Milk is a common allergen, especially among young children, but Soylent is also made with common food allergens (notably, soy protein and gluten), so on balance that issue is kind of a wash (or, maybe, advantage to Ensure), though specific users may avoid one or the other based on their specific allergies and conditions.

And the disclaimer to the meme: it’s worth pointing out that Soylent Drink gets about 2.5% of its calories from added sugar while Ensure Original gets 27% of its calories from added sugars.

Correction: neglected to multiply by 4 kcal/g for the sugar in Soylent. Correct number is 9% calories from sugar in bottled Soylent.

From what I can tell the main ingredients are:

Filtered Water, Maltodextrin, Soy Protein Isolate, High Oleic Algal Oil, Isomaltulose, Canola Oil, Rice Starch, Oat Fiber, Isomaltooligosaccharide.

So water, misc carb powders, protein powder, and misc high mono unsaturated fat oils. Yes they also add some vitamins/minerals etc. But essentially its just water, powder, and oil.

I'm not sure if your question was fuelled by your interest in making this a main part of your diet, or if it already is, or if you were asking in jest?

Oh no, it was definitely a serious question. When the product came out, I was excited about replacing atleast one of my meals (probably dinner) with Soylent. I held off because I was uncomfortable switching to something that can potentially have negative long term health consequences. I was just wondering if there were any studies done on people that were purely on a soylent diet to feel more comfortable about drinking it.

They've been silent on health benefits. The blog seems to be all about new variations and marketing.

It's kind of annoying since being interested in and relatively transparent about health stuff is how they got started.

Well that CEO transitions makes it clear that this isn't about developing a product anymore, but selling a brand. That new CEO is not going to develop and long lasting company, he is going for the sale. And the timing is good.

Soylent has been unavailable in Canada since October: https://faq.soylent.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005267426

Yeah. And I'm running out of my stash. It's what I have at lunch when I'm not interested in walking away from my code.

I'm not even romantically interested in Soylent. I will use any brand. It just has to have a low glycemic index. =(

I would suggest KETOCHOW if you are looking for a lower glycemic index.

Also I laughed out loud at your typo. Please don't edit it.

Yep, another for ketochow. Love it. I need to get back into my keto lifestyle. It definitely simplified things.

I explicitly put "romantically" :)

I meant that I don't have a, "I'm a Soylent fanboy" attitude.

Maybe we can start an illegal barter economy: Soylent for low-cost prescription drugs.

Strange - seeing as the problem was that it doesn't meet the legal requirements for a meal replacement, could they not just slap a different label on it that says "tasty shake (not a meal replacement)"?

Regulatory body probably takes one look at the marketing and says "hmm..."

Aw, not soylent again! I was wondering why this is being linked on HN, but then I reminded myself that Soylent is supposed to be food hacking. Great... Scott...

That's cool and all, but maybe just focus on fixing the overly-tight bottle caps now? I can't drink it and buy more if I can't open it...

This is not how we do things these days - you will have an option to buy an accessory on every delivery for $9.99 extra.

You can actually use Amazon Opener instead of purchasing the Soylent holder and turner. Plus Amazon Opener can open Soylent using your phone app. Very convenient in my book to get Amazon Opener on Prime, since they give 24 months to pay @ $17/month, and you still get free app updates.

Combined with the square bottles. Oh my god. The label just spins and the cap stays in place. Ugh.

3 shipments ago we got those crap new bottles. 2 shipments ago we got roundies again and my household rejoiced, hoping it was a sign that they had seen the light. Then a few days ago the most recent shipment arrived.. back to the square :(

Holy shit! for real. What's up with that?? It's so hard to open now.

Soylent Food Bars were the only vegan food bars on the market. Now they're gone. Please bring them back.

What market? There are dozens of vegan food bars available in the US

???

What?

There's tons of vegan food bars on the market: Luna Bars, Larabars, Clif Bars, ProBars, and probably a lot more.

There’s a lot of valueless appeals to taste/opinion in this discussion... possibly the least informative commentary I’ve ever seen on HN

That's just every Soylent thread, or more broadly every nutrition related thread. It's one of those things everyone thinks they know a lot about, whether from investing a lot of time and money into a fad diet or just from watching a youtube video with more emotional than scientific content.

Since small changes in diet don't really affect the health of most people when compared to the sum of everything else, I imagine we tend to get a lot of meaningless confirmation, too. One time I gave up on eating vegetarian because I was feeling worse. So I wrote off the idea of vegetarian meals for years. Looking back on it, the problem was probably more about my extremely high stress levels at the time than the food.

Also, being vegetarian doesn't mean eating healthy. I was vegetarian in college and ate tons of fries and quesadillas. I eat meat now but try to eat mostly vegetables.

I'm sure misattribution happens all the time in exactly the ways you mention. Did you get well because you popped Vitamin C's, or because you would have gotten well in the same timeframe anyway?

You're not wrong. I come in here knowing barely anything about Soylent and it's just full of people shitting on it without any further explanation :/

Not overly useful.

Ctrl+F Canada

And crap. Looks like I'm not going to get more Coffiest any time soon.

Good time to start a Soylent competitor if you’ve been thinking of it.

(1 Buy generic baby formula in bulk

(2 Rebrand it

(3 ???

(4 Profit!

Huel just came to the US. I haven't tried Soylent, but I have to say I really love Huel. Keeps me full, no stomach issues, the vanilla just tastes like lightly sweetened oatmeal.

Plus it's vegan, gluten-free, non-gmo, low fodmap, etc etc. You'd have to try REALLY hard to find a stomach condition that wouldn't allow Huel.

I have a bag of Huel in my kitchen gathering dust because I just couldn't get past the consistency of it(the little chunks of oats or whatever). Also the name reminds me of "Human Gruel" meanwhile everyone I say it to immediately thinks "Human Fuel", which I think is amusing. I guess my brain burned the connection to those two words after trying the stuff for a couple weeks!

I actually don't mind the chunks, but I am probably the least picky eater I know. That said, I have gotten to the point where I can mix it to a fairly uniform consistency (just shaking a lot and doing the right ratios of liquid to powder) so maybe it just takes practice.

I think the chunks definitely help with being able to feel very full after drinking it. Maybe I'm just not letting it mix/soften well enough before going for it. I'll do more experimenting!

This is only semi-related, but is it possible to order a sample of Soylent?

They ship in bulk on Amazon and I just want to try it (maybe 1 bottle per flavor) before buying an entire set.

They make a variety pack, but it's only available with the caffeinated flavors.

Do you have a link to the variety pack? There used to be one on Amazon but I can't find it anymore.

Here's a link to the 12-bottle variety pack of the caffeinated flavors: https://www.amazon.com/Soylent-Replacement-Drink-Variety-Bot...

There are ASIN's for smaller packages (e.g. https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B01MTBJCR6/) but the pricing isn't rational.

You can get one from a local 7-11 or store in your area. Currently just in California and Texas but should be in most locations shortly. https://www.soylent.com/stores/

Distribution is really key for their business, and refrigerated shelf space is pricey and hard. If an industry insider is needed to make it happen faster, go for it

Maybe it will help that Soylent doesn't need to be refrigerated before opening? Though that might be the preferred way to drink it, like soda.

I've been waiting a long time for them to ship to New Zealand. Still no option :(.

I've been getting Aussielent after the local brand Sipreme uh... imploded.

Worth checking out and is actually slightly cheaper.

Thank you madam prime minister

First thing for new CEO, add more countries. Last time I checked they still missed a number of countries including Sweden. Strange that they couldn't fix this in their first two years.

I was hoping this would be some new product rather than just a change of leadership.

I hate Soylent so much. If you like the idea of eating efficiently, just get some whey protein and possibly a veggie shake mix. Oh wait, that's not good enough. I need to seem hip, cool, and into the latest fad diet plan.

Soylent is an extremely convenient meal that doesn't leave me feeling groggy or worrying about being nutritionally deficient in any area. That's real value.

By contrast, replacing a full meal with whey protein takes a stance on what you should and shouldn't be eating vs general dieticians' recommendations (and the FDA's). I wouldn't recommend replacing most meals with either one, but if I had to pick the fad diet, it'd be whey.

* Soylent is an extremely convenient meal that doesn't leave me feeling groggy or worrying about being nutritionally deficient in any area. That's real value.*

Marketing 101: make people believe there's something wrong with what they are doing, then sell them the solution.

"What I am doing" generally costs me either half an hour or 8 bucks. There's nothing wrong with it other than one of those two things.

Right now what kind of whey protein, and which veggie shake mix? Do I need to buy a blender?

It's more complicated. Hate is a strong word already. I don't think anyone (okay maybe a very tiny minority in sv or something where cool is defined differently from everywhere else) drinking soylent is trying to be hip or cool.

Do you hate people trying paleo diets? How about gluten free? I doubt it.

> Right now what kind of whey protein, and which veggie shake mix?

Pretty much any of either that is on the market. Soylent isn't that remarkable, nor is there a well-understood narrow optimum (despite Soylent both pretending that there is and that it is always right at that point even with the major formula changes.)

> Do I need to buy a blender?

No, just a closed container for shaking will work tolerably well, or a blender bottle/cup (the ones with either an agitator ball or internal fixed plastic blades to help with shaking a powder) is even better.

there isn't a well understood optimum but it's easy to screw up and get a vitamin b12 deficiency for instance, or to put too much fiber or sulfur and constantly pass gas, etc.

Why do you doubt that? I've come across people with limited appreciation of what going gluten free can do for others, who rail against it all the time. If someone uses the word "hate" to describe this unglamorous product, I'm sure they're capable of the same for other increasingly popular diets.

Using a premade product lifts the burden of trial-and-error experimentation and research. That's the point. I don't like soylent either, but the reason is there's too much soy in it for me, not because I've stereotyped everyone who likes it.

Isn't whey protein a currently-fashionable fad diet plan?

It is in no way an equivalent to Soylent or other nutritionally-complete products, because it's not nutritionally complete.

Their purposes are different. Whey protein is great if you need to bump up your protein intake in a really convenient fashion. Soylent and friends are great if you need to get a balanced meal in a really convenient fashion.

Chapter 7?

"Soylent's CEO is replaced." Saved you a click, and reading some PR mumbo jumbo.

You can imagine the company selling bags of nutrient paste being led by one of these stock photos: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Bryan+Crowley

I don't really care which.

Probably a good thing for Soylent and the former CEO.

The guy always seemed like the kind of eccentric dynamo who excels at starting companies, rather than running them.

Excels?

https://www.google.com/search?q=excels

Picture of new CEO Bryan Crowley looks like a parody. And this line!

> First of all, I want to take a moment to say hello and thank you to all of our Soylent friends out there who have helped turn Rob’s vision into one of the most talked about and fastest growing brands in the food and beverage industry!

Really? I thought he looks like an ad model. I guess you have to have good looks to become CEO these days.

rules 1 and 2

Picture of new CEO looks like somebody who a casting agent and makeup artist/wardrobe would cast as one of Russ Hanneman's friends on Silicon Valley.

tres commas, baby

Both pics look really heavily edited. I kinda expect some editing, but they went too far.

That said, glad to see they have gone into caffeinated foods. Caffeine addiction should help them keep customers better. However, a 7-11 partnership is not as good, as 7-11 is pretty 'down market' for a 'high-tech' seeming brand.

If you look around the edges of his fingers on the left, it appears the bag of soylent was edited into a photo of him holding something else.

In the narrow gaps between the fingers on the right, you would also expect his fingers to cast shadows.

Indeed, it seems to be a Photoshopped, color corrected version of the picture from this 2016 article:

http://www.businessinsider.com/soylent-ceo-rob-rhinehart-has...

(pic only: http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/53986ac46bb3f7d3114...)

Looks like it was just an older bag of soylent. http://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.2729676.1469108251!/...

Great catch!

And that welcome message about how its a fantastic "brand" makes me want to simultaneously slap him in the mouth and vomit.

Like all mainstream consumer products, Soylent is a marketing company that also makes food. Now they're admitting it.

It is a fantastic brand - and that's all it ever was. It was never revolutionary.

Soylent was always just a lifestyle brand that put an already existing product - liquid meal replacements - into the hands of people who weren't elderly or bodybuilders, namely: nerds.

How can this be the top comment? Making fun of someone's look? Is this what we've become?

I'm not sure the comment was about the CEO's looks as much as the photo itself. It has a stock/cliche feel to it with the product in the foreground, slight smile, pose, clothing, etc.

yep , and super biased pro anything SV. Almost in a way biased liberal but I would say anything pro SV / $$$ is good here. The authentic high quality content has become mainstream. Its turned into poptech.

The comment is more about what happens when a corporate board hires a PR agency and does a photo session, and how it results in something that looks fake in a very certain way.

This photo is one of those in the moment shots you sometimes get. I guarantee you the one taken 0.1 seconds before and the one taken 0.1 seconds after this one look like they could be found on one of those yellow page tabloids that purport to show the celebrity's alleged substance abuse problem.

The fact that this is the photo that he and the marketing people chose is possibly telling. But probably not. Some people have poor taste and yet do great work. Did anyone really think Jobs' turtle necks were stylish? (ducks and takes cover)

I have to agree. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but whoever approved this photo had to have realized he looks like he's selling Vitamix mixers in Costco, right...?`

TLDR: Transitioning from lovable nerd as CEO to oddly-similar-to-Tony-Robbins CEO.

On the surface, about as appealing as the thought of drinking Soylent.

function bullshit_translator(post) {

  if (/(next chapter|incredible journey)/.test(post.title)) {

    if (/new ceo/.test(post.content)) {

      return "I'm stepping down as CEO";
  
    } else if (/joining/.test(post.content)) {

      return "We ran out of money and our VCs saved us and themselves by acq-hiring us to the company."
        
           + "Even though we made 0 money from this and will be stuck with this company for next 2 years for vesting,"

           + "this is the part where you say 'Congrats!"

           + "so that I can call my self a 'serial entrepreneur' and put 'my company got acquired by XXX corp' on my resume"

    }

  }

}

Soylent is definiteeellllly not out of money

that's not how this code works

The plant estrogens in this soy filled pseudo-nutrition are harmful for men's health. No idea why dudes drink this stuff.

The soy boy memes must have really got to him.

Oh, come on. Don't downvote this. Had a big chuckle xD

I wonder if this was submitted as a grand announcement or as a case study. The idea of a drink having a "next chapter" is pretty comical.

What radical twist is in beer's next chapter? More hops?

The title refers to Soylent, the company.

That was beer's last chapter.

Yeah and beer's next chapter seem to be sours... Which I can get on board with.

Sours are already sour enough and I do like some of them. If they follow the same trajectory as IPAs it will be a race to be the most sour and I don't look forward to that.

Exactly.

However, there's going to be some standouts.

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