
Diamonds Born in Santa Clara - gk1
http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/11/diamonds-born-in-santa-clara/
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cs702
If this technology produces real diamonds of high quality, but at cheaper
cost, I wonder what its impact will be on diamond prices over time. Most
likely they will decline, no?

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ryandvm
Quality has nothing to do with it. If they were of even _higher_ physical
quality than mined gems but still reliably discernible, they would not have a
significant impact on the market.

Look at it this way, the kind of person that places a high emotional value on
a diamond is not going to feel the same way about a $50 diamond as they would
a $3000 diamond. It's all about signalling and an inexpensive, albeit high
quality, diamond does not send the same signals.

Now... if they could produce large stones that were indistinguishable from
mined ones then you'd have a crack at eroding the gem market. But then the
diamond cartel would just enact some sort of global "Certified Blood Diamond"
program to prop up the traditional prices.

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SixSigma
> .But then the diamond cartel would just enact some sort of global "Certified
> Blood Diamond" program to prop up the traditional prices.

de Beer's call this "The Forevermark"

like this : [https://www.debeersgroup.com/en/building-forever/our-
stories...](https://www.debeersgroup.com/en/building-forever/our-
stories/Forevermark_opens_10m_diamond_grading_and_inscription_centre.html)

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riffraff
> But investors may also like that Roscheisen is a seasoned CEO, having led
> the solar power tech company Nanosolar for roughly eight years previously.
> (It was wound down in 2013, after raising roughly $450 million in capital
> over its 11-year life.)

Why would an investor like this? "This guy must be good, he burned through 450
millions in 11 years!"

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hdevarajan
Look up egroups or the Wikipedia entry on him (disclosure: am an old friend of
Martin's)

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riffraff
sorry if I was unclear, I meant that the sentence seemed a non-sequitur, I
wasn't trying to argue the competence of the person.

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DrScump
How do they claim, "zero carbon footprint"? They don't say how they are
powering their power-hungry process.

For that matter, what are they using in lieu of carbon in the diamonds in the
first place? _Imitation_ carbon?

