

The inventor of everything - nkurz
http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/14/5561250/cool-planet?

======
nkurz
This was submitted earlier today, but didn't get much traction:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7586285](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7586285)

The full title (which doesn't fit in 80 characters) explains the story better:

    
    
      The inventor of everything:
      How an egotistical genius convinced Silicon Valley to
      invest hundreds of millions in his shoddy science
    

It's an account of how Mike Cheiky, the founder of Cool Planet, has an almost
uncanny ability to repeatedly raise large amounts of investment based on
pseudoscience that doesn't ever pan out. It's one of the most negative pieces
on a company that I've ever seen in print.

~~~
funkyy
Very interesting read indeed. They guy seems to be trying to sell perpetuum
mobile. I am amazed that large, well known companies invested in him. Did they
failed to do proper research?

~~~
jasonlaramburu
Good investors recognize that markets>technology. With enough time and money,
virtually anything is possible. If Cool Planet does succeed, they will change
the way the world uses energy. Chieky is definitely eccentric but he's no more
of an a$$hole than Jobs was.

~~~
wlievens
Markets are still susceptible to the laws of physics. "Virtually anything is
possible" is a pretty meaningless statement.

------
mbesto
_" Cheiky’s next plan to help mankind is a startup called V-Grid. As he
explained in a YouTube clip, the company’s goal is to revolutionize the
electric grid, bringing cheap, renewable energy to millions around the world.
The clip was pulled a few days before this story was published and edited to
remove several seconds. In the original video, he claims to an audience of
small investors that a team of backers, including Google, BP, and GE, and
NorthBridge are already funding V-grid.

Cheiky says the because he secured a loan from Cool Planet to start V-grid,
all the investors in one company are essentially backers in another. Yet when
I asked those same investors if they had ever heard of or funded V-Grid, all
adamantly and repeatedly denied it. But with the ink barely dry on Cool
Planet’s recent fundraising, Cheiky’s already got another dream to sell,
another round of investors to pitch. Seeing big-name backers already committed
gives small investors confidence that someone has done due diligence on his
claims."_

I'd be shocked to find that any clever lawyer can't find fraud in this...

~~~
midas007
The tone of the article comes off as character assassination, so there's
likely to be suits regardless of merit either way.

Beyond that, I can't see how this is anything different than most any company:
the boss has some grand vision and hands-on people make the hand-waiving into
enough of an economic reality to keep said the company afloat. Moller has been
promising flying cars since I could read Popular Mechanics. We need more
crazy, enthusiastic fools to keep trying.

------
anigbrowl
_" So, my approach in early-stage development is to cover a lot of ground with
very little money by flying through the test process and only cherry-picking
for the most interesting and promising candidates for further later-stage
work," he wrote. "I contend that this is not bad science, it is simply a super
lean management style to move the company forward very fast with limited
resources."_

No wonder he's so successful - this is the sort of thing that will resonate
perfectly with his target audience.

------
jacquesm
I don't like the tone of the article much, there is an element of spite in it
that would be better removed and replaced with on the record quotes. That
said, there is clearly a lot of smoke here and possibly a fire.

There is a reason some people refer to certain suppliers of money as 'dumb
capital'. Playing the game well and moving on before the inevitable collision
with reality happens is a strategy that can work for a long time. This guy
seems to be so good at it that it likely will never catch up with him.

I've met people like this, I've even worked for one or two.

It's scary how they can use a combination of charisma, drive and self delusion
to relieve others (including their co-workers) of their contributions, line
their pockets with cash and move on before the crash.

Which of course is never their fault because they've already moved on. And if
the company is successful in spite of them then they get to claim the credit.

I'd like to see the substantiation of the claim that Wozniak used 'some of
Ohio Scientifics technology'. That sounds like patent nonsense to me. They
both used a 6502 but that was an inmos general purpose cpu, nothing
specifically made for Ohio Scientific.

The Apple I was launched in '76 (also using the 6502), the II followed in
'77\. The early ('75-'76) Ohio Scientific products were more along the lines
of the KIM-I than the Apple I.

~~~
joshu
Inmos != MOS

~~~
jacquesm
You're absolutely right, have an upvote. I had transputers on the brain. That
raspberry pi compute module has me re-visiting all kinds of old and
interesting alleys. (See: [http://jacquesmattheij.com/raspberry-pi-as-a-poor-
mans-trans...](http://jacquesmattheij.com/raspberry-pi-as-a-poor-mans-
transputer) ).

~~~
dkersten
Funny you should say that - I was just re-reading this:
[http://www.cpushack.com/CPU/cpu7.html#Sec7Part5](http://www.cpushack.com/CPU/cpu7.html#Sec7Part5)

~~~
jacquesm
Cool :) I think the transputer was built before we were really ready for it,
now that we've plucked all the low hanging fruit there may be a revival of
ideas like these.

I wonder what the cost would be for implementing a transputer like
architecture using the Rasberry Pi module.

It might be a very interesting alternative to the parallela.

[http://www.parallella.org/](http://www.parallella.org/)

------
austinz
His story resembles Ray Kurzweil's quite closely: an eccentric inventor with
an extensive and impressive portfolio, parlaying his accomplishments into
advocating shoddy pseudoscience. In Cheiky's case, Google is involved through
their VC arm; in Kurzweil's case, he may or may not be doing research at
Google.

~~~
lingben
except that Kurzweil actually makes stuff that actually works, again and again
and again

~~~
normloman
That doesn't mean he's not prone to pseudoscientific thinking. The guy takes
like 100 different vitamins a day in hopes of extending his life a few years.
He promotes the idea that taking tons of vitamins can extend your life long
enough to see the singularity, and sells vitamins through one of his
companies. [https://www.rayandterry.com/](https://www.rayandterry.com/)

Maybe someone with medical training can tell me if I'm wrong. But as far as I
know, otherwise healthy people won't get any benefits from taking massive
amounts of vitamins daily.

~~~
mattmanser
I'm only 35 and I can remember when vitamins were unquestionably a great thing
and everyone should take them.

Kellogg's still sells tons of cereals with those pointless vitamins mixed in.

------
markbao
Fascinating. This reminded me greatly of yesterday's article on Shai Agassi
and the failure of Better Place [0].

Both accomplished people, both were able to have brilliant ideas and ambitious
plans, but when the rubber meets the road, they're delusional about the
challenges they have and reject the reality that there are problems afoot.

I'm reminded of a quote: "Great entrepreneurs are stubborn contrarians and
eternal optimists." [1] Maybe this stubbornness and optimism is exactly what
leads them to build something great in the beginning, but also what leads them
to ignore reality later on.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7584093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7584093)

[1]
[http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131015141133-15...](http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20131015141133-15551421-great-
entrepreneurs-are-stubborn-contrarians-and-eternal-optimists)

------
swatkat
Reminds me of Steorn Orbo[1] overunity generator. They created a lot of hype,
managed to raise huge funding, and announced they'll be demoing Orbo at
Kinetica Museum London (which didn't happen). Now they're selling their
technology[2].

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn)

[2][http://www.steorn.com/orbo/](http://www.steorn.com/orbo/)

~~~
arjn
Yeah, I remember that fiasco. What a joke. Apparently they had a lot of
scientists and engineers look at their stuff and it never passed muster.

------
throwaway5752
The embedded Scribd presentation by Banholzer was very worthwhile.

------
rwallace
The claim being made is that Cheiky's ideas are nothing but pseudoscience, but
the article seems to be saying that the companies he left behind are all still
in business making real products. That's actually a pretty impressive track
record. I would have thought it has to mean _some_ of his ideas worked out
after all, even if most didn't (or his ideas had a solid core even if the more
exaggerated claims had to be cut back, or some such). Is that not the case?

~~~
coldcode
Company raises enormous funds based on someone's apparent brilliance who then
leaves and the people find something our of the ideas to make a real company
because they had a lot of money. If it works it's a reasonable plan. Given
enough money, people can usually find a way to make something.

------
danso
> _“People always say it sounds too good to be true,” says Wesley Chan, who
> led Google Ventures’ initial investment in Cool Planet. “That is exactly the
> kind of company I get excited about as a venture capitalist. We’re in the
> business of making big bets.”_

The bizarre logic in that quote made me think of this laugh from the Scorpio
episode on The Simpsons:
[http://www.snpp.com/episodes/3F23.html](http://www.snpp.com/episodes/3F23.html)

\------ > Hank: Good afternoon, gentlemen. This is Scorpio. I have the
Doomsday Device. You have 72 hours to deliver the gold or you'll face the
consequences. And to prove I'm not bluffing, watch this.

> [activates a remote]

> [an explosion occurs near the UN building]

> Man 1: Oh, my God, the 59th Street bridge!

> Man 2: Maybe it just collapsed on its own.

> Man 1: We can't take that chance.

> Man 2: You always say that. I want to take a chance.

\----------

Also, anyway to validate Chelky's claim that Woz used his technology in
building the Apple ][?

------
antinitro
Anyone got any more information on "Basically an iPad in 1981" \- the Ohio
Computers Centerpoint?

------
kirk21
Sadly, (Cold) fusion seems to be in the same boat (see ecat etc.). People want
to believe...

~~~
mschuster91
Oh, the e-cat. Should be known by now that Rossi cheated by using the ground
wire to transfer the "heating" current...

Clever trick, I have to admit. Unless you knew the guy was cheating by abusing
a safety feature in a way that no sane person ever should do, there was no way
of proving the cheat.

------
paul_f
This is the money quote;

"They have a lot of investment guys, who are like bankers, and they don’t use
their engineering talent to do due diligence."

------
DonGateley
This guy should be Kickstarter's patron saint.

