Hacker News Reader

Comment by gizmo | Hacker News Reader

Every once in a while a highly funded startup launches a hilariously bad product. Five or so years ago everybody (rightfully) made fun of the juicero. Before that we had Google Glass (glasshole). Today the Humane Pin has to suffer slings and arrows.

Humane AI would never have been able to raise 230+ million had they been truthful about what could be built with the current state of technology. Did the investors understand that you have to recharge the Humane Pin every 2 hours? Did the investors know their laser projection press photos are photoshopped? Did the investors know the laser projector doesn't meet the advertised resolution? The Humane Pin is science fiction.

In many ways the Humane Pin is like Theranos. Holmes probably didn't mean to defraud people. She just raised money for a product that couldn't be built with the current state of technology.

View on HN

I don't know if Google Glass really fits in with the rest of that list. That wasn't some overfunded VC startup that ended up releasing a bad, overhyped product. It was essentially a side-project from Google. I don't think was ever publicly available - it was only sold to a small number of select applicants, and as far as I remember it did what they claimed (which wasn't much).

Elizabeth Holmes was repeatedly told by domain experts that many of the types of blood assays she wanted to perform are physically impossible with a single drop of blood extracted from a finger-prick. She didn't simply raise money for a product beyond the current state of technology, she persisted in a narratively convenient fantasy until it caught up with her.

Exactly. Some tests just need a decent sample size to even contain the things you're looking for. Its like thinking you can have a good sample of the entire US population by asking three people a question. It's not just a matter of "the technology just wasn't quite there", it's a matter of just not being a statistically relevant sample size or issues with where you're actually collecting the sample.

I think if I were investing a few million into something, I might ask "what's the battery life?" or "Can I try it on my hand?" before coughing up the cash.

But then, I'm not a VC. I guess they go off vibes?

You'd think if you were contemplating a $10m investment in a promise-the-world startup, you'd spend the $20k to get an expert analysis of the project.

You'd think, but VCs are lemmings and the moment you convince one to invest a clock starts ticking that makes thorough diligence difficult for everyone else.

Get one person to fall for 'just trust me bro' and the hype train follows.

Those questions probably get asked, but long before any real product exists, so the answer is optimistic or just plain imaginary. By the time the real product exists, a lot of money has been spent and there is a lot of pressure to drum up hype for a product that probably doesn’t deliver.

"It's an MVP! We're just establishing product-market fit; then we'll sort out the engineering details using the money we raised."

> Holmes probably didn't mean to defraud people

Then she should've stopped at some point. But she didn't. She kept on making claims that she must have known were not truthful. At that point, at the latest, "didn't mean to" becomes a bit of a hollow word.

The part where the investors invest this much money without going through the technical detail of the product always confuses me. How can yo spend that much money responsibly without having enough expertise onboard to evaluate the technical feasibility. Maybe I am just too naive.

It's truly amazing how much money gets doled out in Silicon Valley over "Trust me, bro" said by people wearing black turtlenecks.

I think Magic Leap is probably a better comparison. Unlike with Theranos the tech does work, there just isn't really a market for it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com