
Wireless charging startup uBeam accused of being the next Theranos - jacquesm
http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/11/charged/
======
dang
The story reported here (blog by ex-exec) had two major discussions at the
time:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11672270](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11672270)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11693184](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11693184)

~~~
illumen
Please delete my account.

------
wiredfool
There's a big difference between a venture backed tech product that doesn't
work at the desired scale because of the laws of physics and a medical product
that doesn't work because of phlebotomic reasons (also, procedural and
calibration).

And that difference is who gets hurt.

uBeam is going to hurt the VCs, Theranos hurt everyone who relied on the
results of their tests.

~~~
easytiger
To be fair uBeam might also cause cancer, we just don't know.

See another power related investment scam: Steorn:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steorn)

~~~
scandox
I had a hilarious experience being brought into a meeting at Steorn, designed
to explain to potential investors and commentators the technology and the
origins behind it.

I'm not going to make any comment on the intentions of the founders or even on
the technology itself. The presentation itself however was comically childlike
and questions were answered with a circularity that was amazing to witness.
What I noticed, though, was that if you ask penetrating questions and if
someone calmly and persistently fails to address the core of your question
then other people eventually accept that your question has been answered!

~~~
easytiger
They are still going strong

orbo.com

You can buy a phone that has a battery that will never run out, apparently.

However it seems a lot of faults are found:

[http://dispatchesfromthefuture.com/](http://dispatchesfromthefuture.com/)

------
davidgerard
There was a Tumblr blogger su3su2u1, a physicist, who was all over these guys:

> I reached out to an investor in impossible startup I had talked about
> previously. Had a long phone call today, in which he explained to me he
> didn’t invest because he thought they’d ever be a viable business. He
> invested because he thought between their pitch/charisma and the names of
> the investors backing them they’d be able to get several rounds of funding,
> and he’d be able to cash out.

That is: for VCs in the present climate, "find a greater fool" counts as a
business plan.

It's about now that front-end web devs who are good with JavaScript should be
stocking up on tinned food.

(He's since deleted his Tumblr, but the text is still in my reply to him:
[http://reddragdiva.tumblr.com/post/129387704618/conversation...](http://reddragdiva.tumblr.com/post/129387704618/conversation-
with-an-investor) )

~~~
geomark
I think this right here is why some VC's are so rabid about criticism of
startups they've invested in. For a while now it's looked like a lot of pump-
and-dump behavior.

------
raverbashing
Funny thing is that Marc Andressen had some mean comments on @pmarca about how
HN reacted after first news appeared here and commentators showed it was
technically impossible (or at least not what most people expect)

~~~
swang
did the same thing when initial theranos reports came out.

~~~
geomark
You mean those "Hater News" comments? Yeah, if you don't support the VC's
narrative you're a hater. Doesn't matter if you've got legit concerns related
to physical laws.

------
jwr
"uBeam could be vaporware"

You don't say?

Seriously — uBeam's claims were always ridiculous. Anybody with any kind of
engineering background should be able to feel it instinctively, and be
convinced after spending a couple of minutes with pen and paper.

~~~
petra
I'm not deeply into the details, but doesn't it depend on how focused the
ultrasonic beam is if you can fully protect the beam from hitting people by
some smart and rapid sensing ?

~~~
daxorid
If you have to develop 100% accurate human detection and avoidance systems in
order to avoid catastrophic tissue damage for users of a mild convenience,
maybe you should pack it in.

Some things are worth the risk. Spaceflight, experimental cancer research,
assassination of despots, hazardous waste storage technologies. Sometimes you
really do need to crack a few eggs to advance humanity.

But the 'advance' we're talking about here is the trivial convenience of not
plugging in your phone.

~~~
benologist
This technology _starts_ with phone charging, where it ends may be quite a
distance from there. We've also quite literally _had_ to develop as close as
we can get to 100% safe ways of pretty much everything complicated we do, from
surgery to driving to toasting bread.

------
gizmo
Are they being called the next Theranos simply because they're also a tech
startup without a working product that has a woman founder/CEO? Sure looks
that way. uBeam is just a dumb idea that can't work. Squandering a few million
of VC money in pursuit of a dumb idea happens all the time. This article seems
really meanspirited.

~~~
pyrale
Maybe it's time to roll out a pitchfork-as-a-service startup ?

~~~
ojii
Already exists, it's called reddit.

------
hathym
"uBeam has refused to publicly show a demo because the technology doesn’t
work."

in this case it's the VCs to blame for blindly throwing their money.

~~~
janekm
Well... I gather uBeam's stick was to give a demo of an impractical ultrasonic
power transfer system (off-the-shelf transducers transmitting a small amount
of power over an insignificant distance) and claim that they just needed to
scale it up by improving on the existing technology. Which presumably sounded
reasonable to VCs who didn't bother doing some back-of-the-envelope maths on
the physics...

~~~
teekert
Or asking someone who does know his physics to do it for them.

~~~
tmptmp
The VCs might have wanted to "save" money on this, but of course they
would/will spend millions (if not billions) on shitty consultancy firms.

------
ucaetano
Not exactly like Theranos. uBeam isn't selling the product, it's still in
development phase. In other words, it's vaporware.

It won't be the first nor the last vaporware.

Theranos was outright fraud in a regulated market.

------
fennecfoxen
Better the next Theranos than the next Therac.

~~~
glup
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25)

(I didn't know about this... interesting case study, thanks!)

~~~
jacquesm
Interesting is too mild a word. Devastating is probably more accurate.

~~~
brians
We could have learned that lesson in many other ways. I am glad we have the
opportunity when it was pointed at one person at a time—that could have been a
subway or aircraft controller.

Now, the hard part is ensuring we really do learn the lessons Therac can teach
us.

~~~
stickfigure
I was about to post "...or could have been a Toyota ECU?" But doing a little
obligatory pre-mouth-opening-due-diligence, I discovered that the Toyota ECU I
remember so much bad press about apparently wasn't at fault.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009–11_Toyota_vehicle_recalls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009–11_Toyota_vehicle_recalls)

------
PhasmaFelis
The blog that the article was sourced from
([http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/](http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/))
currently has a biting post about how Theranos' failures are endemic in the
tech industry:

"Companies in the new tech area tend to be a little lax when it comes to doing
things carefully - Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, tells us all
to "Move fast and break things", which I have to agree is a great way to
innovate and learn _when your product does nothing of actual importance at
all._ It doesn't matter if you don't get your silly cat videos, or can't post
pictures of your holidays, because your business payroll doesn't run on it,
your medication isn't delivered by it, nor is your aircraft navigation based
on it. Real consequences of a Facebook blackout are near zero."

"[...] In both these industries [generator manufacturing and medical
ultrasound] the mentality was "we must make sure this is safe" and the idea of
reducing or skipping safety is never considered, but I do not see the same
thinking in many of these tech companies. I have literally heard "what's the
minimum we have to do?", "we don't have proof it's a risk", "that sounds time-
consuming and expensive. We should do <pointless but fast/cheap thing>
instead", and "well if it goes to court our lawyers say they have good
arguments"."

------
gakada
uBeam isn't like Theranos because uBeam isn't defrauding anybody. They have
honestly described how the product works. The product just happens to be a
horrifying deafness ray. Some VCs will fund that.

~~~
raverbashing
So they'll be looking at selling it to the military? Just like Theranos
wanted?

------
zxcvvcxz
uBeam is most likely vaporware that violates the laws of physics - at least in
what they propose on a product level - but that doesn't mean that they
shouldn't be funded to try working on a really hard problem. Maybe in their
R&D they fall short by a large margin on the product side, but still make some
meaningful contribution.

I think where everyone loses their cool is when the company purposely gets
massive amounts of PR to glamorize themselves (and their founder) as if it's
already a success [1]. IMO these guys should be keeping a low profile, like
the people working on Jetpacks and similar things. Make some noise when you
have a demo.

[1] - e.g. "Top 30 under 30". Seriously? Prove yourself first.
[http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mef45eldh/meredith-perry-
foun...](http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mef45eldh/meredith-perry-founder-
ubeam-22/)

------
secstate
Pretty sure Forbes was on this same blog post more than two weeks ago.
[https://is.gd/5xJ4QY](https://is.gd/5xJ4QY)

[EDIT] Additionally, they accurately point out that, apart from the VP's rant,
uBeam is actually persuing something more akin to cordless charging, within a
few meters of a charging station.

That's still something of a pipe dream given the inverse law of power
distribution. But rather than hitting the target perfectly to wirelessly
charge my S7 it'd be nice to just set it anywhere on the counter. Not sure
that's disruptive, but it's more possible than ubiquitous, in-home charging.

------
esbspd
Is this a issue specific to uBeam or wireless charging in general? There is
also a YC company working on the same thing :
[http://www.madebysupply.com](http://www.madebysupply.com)

Are there similarities/differences between the two?

~~~
dagw
uBeam claims to be using ultrasound to transmit power, while the other
companies (inluding the one you mentioned) in this field are using radio
waves. Electricity over radio waves is well understood and basically works.
The problems there are ones of engineering a system that is sufficiently
energy efficient and reliable in a reasonably compact package rather than any
fundamental scientific problems.

------
pkaye
I'm kind of surprised at their list of investors. I mean Mark Cuban is
generally a skeptical guy at investing from what I see on Shark Tank. Then
there is some major investors (Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Shawn
Fanning...) Can't these people afford a technologist/scientific consultant to
bounce thughts on the feasibility of ideas before investing in them? I guess
for them spending a $1M here or there is pocket change.

~~~
CyberDildonics
Mark Cuban is a lottery winner and reality TV star. He made his own money by
selling a company to yahoo for billions that they shut down shortly after
taking a giant loss.

Who knows about all of these guys though. It makes you wonder if they are
taking unresearched scattershot approaches to winning carnival games in the
hopes of walking home with a few big prizes.

------
kriro
"""uBeam CEO Meredith Perry tricked co-founder Nora Dweck into an 80/20 split
of the company instead of a 50/50 split, according to court documents. Dweck
sued Perry, who “settled out of court with Dweck rumored to get 20% of the
company"""

I'm assuming this means an additional 20%? If not that's a pretty great
settlement for the sued party :P

------
return0
I think it's becoming a meme. Failed startups is nothing new. Failed
healthcare startups is different, because healthcare has created a vast
regulatory and auditing network to specifically prevent the creation of
startups that will fail.

~~~
petra
Not really - the regulatory framework prevents giving bad medical services to
people. But many healthcare startups have failed. Just in the area of non-
invasive glucose testing there we're probably tens of them. No shame in
failing, assuming you gave an honest effort.

------
williamscales
This reminds me of the idea of having a Tesla coil in every room for power
delivery.

------
20andup
Seems like in SF you just need a ridiculous idea to get funding. No working
product, nothing. Funny but also quite sad.

~~~
nikanj
They invest in the story and the founders, so you need a great story (Zenefits
etc), a Zuckerberg lookalike (Clinkle etc) or something similar.

~~~
Snowdax
The three usual metrics that are used are "Team", "Market" and "Product" with
investors focusing more on one or the other.

I'm fairly certain that investors who focus on team and market over the
product metric are the ones who will continue to get burned by this sort of
scenario. This isn't the last company that will try to peddle vaporware and
get away with it for an extended period of time.

------
beachstartup
i think the naivete of my thinking there was any kind of rhyme or reason to
which companies get funded and press coverage is completely gone.

it's clear to me that this entire system is just one giant crazystorm.

~~~
CyberDildonics
There is certainly a method to the madness, but if you are hoping for an
answer that includes technical progress or sound long term business plans you
may be very disappointed.

------
transfire
TIL Americans just can't pass up a good which hunt.

------
vonklaus
theranos is almost a decade and a half old. i'll just come right out and say
that the FDA is a sham and I honestly wouldn't care if they Theranos didn't
pay extra to have some peer reviewed paper published or adhere to the laws
proposed, written, ammended and passed by people without degrees in the field.

It is a shame Theranos did some questionanable, unethical & likely illegal
things. I wont hold them up as the Unicorn's gift of Zeus here, but I really
could care less about red tape. 23andme had an injuction against them by these
clowns(fda) so unless soneone here can say in 2008ish 5 years after Theranos
was founded, you knew it was going to implode, then I would say would you
still not want another company in the space to get funded? Nobody gets points
for standing infront of Yahoo right now and sayibg they are in bad shape,
shits obvious. However there are many companies succeeding where Theranos
failed.

As for uBeam, I assumed this would fail. I just looked at it like a privately
funded research project. Regardless, it seems like this space is actually
succeeding (just not uBeam wireless inplementation) so I am excited about
that.

tl;dr it's really easy to be negative with a decade or more of hindsight. sure
these were collosol failures & that money could have been spent elsewhere, if
nothing else these high profile companies likely inspired some competitors and
interest in the space and many of them aren't doing something physically
inpossible

