How A 21-Year-Old Stanford Kid Got $30 Million, Then Everything Blew Up

I just watched the video on their site and I have no idea what's going on: https://www.clinkle.com/

I've been out of the SF "scene" for a little bit so this is the first time I've ever heard of Clinkle.

I'm still not quite sure they do. Have they made any waves before the layoffs started?

Well that happens when the valley only values young age and throws money behind people with no life experience. I wouldn't have given my 21-yr old self 30 Thousand Dollars, let alone 30 Million!

Nobody could've seen this coming? Really?

The name alone is so inscrutably opaque and simultaneously unabashedly awkward.

> ... Like his idol Steve Jobs .... , Lucas Duplan is an expert salesman. You need to be, to persuade Silicon Valley investors and engineers to take a chance on a startup.

Not surprising. He probably was consciously trying to emulate worst aspects of Jobs. Sad thing is that such people often end up being successful.

well bad news for any film-maker who wanted to make a spinal-tap-style parody of Silicon Valley...because there's no way you can do better than this story.

like the HN Post (about six or so months ago) linking to a story about a company that built tools for automated securities trading and whose IPO was interrupted because of a glitch the software running on the exchange they listed on--my first thought on reading HN posts like this one Clinkle, is that someone read an article on TheOnion and thought it was reporting actual events. As much as i love TheOnion, even they could not do it better than this.

Looks like every key metric that HN stands for (traction, market fit, experienced founders etc...) falls away if you have a patent. This was also true with Snapchat

I've met countless of founders before and after they get funded. Some of that money goes to their heads and they become total assholes. The way I see it...you become a entrepreneur to solve a problem, which in turn makes the world a better place. So for all you founders out there, don't be a dooche!!

I didn't dig too deep on their website, but it appears that the only place they actually allude to what it is they're making is at the very bottom of the Team page.

Why is there not even a brief description on the landing page or an About page!?

if the product is half as good as this gushing article says it is, then none of this is going to matter once they hit market... this is nothing compared to the stories you hear about the beginnings of Facebook, Snapchat, etc.