
UBeam CEO Meredith Perry steps aside amidst B2B pivot - Ice_cream_suit
https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/20/ubeam/
======
Afrotechmods
1) This is the blog by the former VP of Engineering that the article
references:
[https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/search/label/ubeam](https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/search/label/ubeam)

2) Does anyone know if she ever apologized for this awful speech?
[https://youtu.be/ukgnU2aXM2c?t=240](https://youtu.be/ukgnU2aXM2c?t=240)

3) This uBeam shit is literally one of the reasons why I created a beginner's
course in wireless power. It drives me nuts that investors have gotten ripped
off so many times in this industry and the degree to which the media has been
complicit in the hype train. If Mark Cuban or any other VCs happen to be
reading this, please watch this course before putting any more money into
wireless power. I created a coupon so you can watch it for free.

[https://www.udemy.com/wireless-power-to-the-people-
wireless-...](https://www.udemy.com/wireless-power-to-the-people-wireless-
charging-101/?couponCode=YCOMBINATOR)

~~~
mintplant
> I was not an engineer, and I did not have Asperger's.

Yuck. Seems like she thought that was going to be a laugh line.

~~~
village-idiot
Some people just don’t have comedic sensibilities or timing, and that’s fine.
But sometimes on stage jokes let you see what the speaker considers to be
funny, which can occasionally be horrifying.

------
minimaxir
Throwback to the original 2014 post _Putting $10M into UBeam illustrates what
is wrong with tech investing_ which pointed out the _basic_ physics
impossibilities:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091)

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Aren’t there theoretical methods for columnarly focusing sound waves? I’m not
saying uBeam has that. Just that there’s a middle ground between “it’s
impossible” and “uBeam pitched crap.”

~~~
nradov
Sure you can focus sound waves. But they're still subject to the inverse
square law. And the tightness of the beam is proportional to the size of the
emitter: you need a huge array to maintain focus over any reasonable distance.
Plus there's no theoretical way to entirely get around the efficiency or
safety concerns.

So not literally _impossible_ , but totally impractical as a commercial
product.

~~~
Balgair
This is a broader case of all wave phenomena. As a VERY coarse guide, the
equation is :

R = Lambda/D

Where R is the angular 'resolution' of the device, Lambda is the wavelength of
the wave used, and D is the diameter of the device.

This means that as the 'resolution' gets smaller (ie. better), the diameter
becomes bigger. For example, if you have a 20kHz sound source (~1.7 cm
wavelength) and want an angular resolution of ~ 1 arc-second, then you'd need
a ~3.5km diameter array. Actual equations will vary GREATLY from this, but
it's a good 'sniff test' starting guide.

------
dbcooper
[https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2018/09/end-of-era-
tho...](https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2018/09/end-of-era-thoughts-on-
ubeam-founder.html)

> One meeting in particular pushed me over the edge, and I told the CEO that I
> was extremely unhappy, and we should discuss a way to amicably separate. I
> knew the transducer and acoustics side better than anyone, and would give
> the company as much time as needed to transition and pass over my knowledge.
> It was a tense meeting, and I went home after, and there were then a series
> of ... interesting ... emails and phone calls with Perry, that ended with no
> conclusion. Ironically, among the demands from the company was a statement
> for the press about how I still believed in uBeam's goals and the
> technology, but I declined. I got a text the next morning to come to the
> downstairs company conference room, and to bring my laptop, lab-book, and
> any company property - it was clear what was about to happen.

>I arrived and the room had CFO Hushen and CEO Perry. It was tense, and Perry
sat at the head of the table in her position that she used when about to be
CEO-like and give a prepared speech - straight back, leaning slighty forward,
hands together. She looked at me and said:

>"Today will be your last day with the company. But before we go on to that,
it is important that you understand that you are a quitter. You have quit on
me, you have quit on yourself, you have quit on the company, you have quit on
your team, you have quit on.... wait what are you doing?"

>At this point the speech was so ridiculous I had picked up my phone to start
taking notes because this was too good not to write down. I looked up and she
seemed shocked and demanded "Are you texting someone? I'm talking." and I
looked at her and said "Just taking some notes." Sadly, this seemed to throw
her off, and I never did hear the rest of that prepared speech. She simply
mumbled then moved to telling me that I would now give an exit interview, and
was again perturbed when I declined. She insisted and the CFO, acting as HR,
had to step in and say that wasn't necessary. I handed over my laptop and the
few items I had, and made a clear instruction that the company was not to make
any statements or quotes that were to be attributed to me - I heard from the
team that about ten minutes later they were all told in a company meeting by
the CEO that "I wanted them to know that I wished them all the best and
success for the company, and still believed in the company mission" or
something similar.

~~~
copperx
This is a disgusting look at Perry, the ex-CEO. She is as self-assured and
voluntarily ignorant of the impossibility of the technology as the perpetual
machine inventors of yore. But they've got millions of dollars this time
around.

~~~
SilasX
I wonder where she got such ideas as "fake it 'til you make it" and "if you
have self doubt, it must be Impostor Syndrome, because That's A Thing", "no
one knows what they're doing lol".

What crankish sites were promoting that garbage?

------
bkraz
Whenever a CEO starts to behave as if the success of their company/idea is a
personal battle as opposed to an actual business, time to get out.

Back in 2015, the uBeam CEO ended a combative twitter rant with "peace out,
bitches." Yeah, it was very personal.

[https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Ameredithperry%20since%3A...](https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Ameredithperry%20since%3A2015-10-20%20until%3A2015-10-22&src=typd)

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Whenever a CEO starts to behave as if the success of their company /idea is
> a personal battle as opposed to an actual business, time to get out_

Casting strategic battles as personal fights is fine. What is also necessary
is someone who can wage a personally-meaningful battle without losing touch of
reality. That duality produces a motivating and insightful personality.

Moving people with the charismatic power of a personal mission is
simultaneously empowering and intoxicating. Like storybook mythical objects,
it must be carefully wielded.

------
jacquesm
The most dangerous founders are those that believe their own bs and that
peddle an idea that would be so nice if it were true. Investors tend to push
each other out of the way for opportunities to invest in such companies and
lose all capability for rational thought.

~~~
sambull
Her TEDx video [0] makes it clear, she just believes she knows better and
within an hour of any subject matter that has experts she could revolutionize
their field by just thinking outside the box. The experts too limited in their
thinking to see how awesome it could work lol

[0] [https://youtu.be/ukgnU2aXM2c](https://youtu.be/ukgnU2aXM2c)

~~~
copperx
Her condescending attitude towards engineers and scientists, especially the
bit at the end saying she can't wait to "give them the middle finger" is
appalling. If she has zero charisma and zero smarts, how did she convince so
many people? That's what's worrying about VC culture.

------
neotek
Clever move, get out before the indictments land when investors figure out
they've been had. uBeam's been completely full of shit from day one, and Perry
is every bit as deceptive and deluded as Theranos' Elizabeth Holmes.

Dave from EEVBlog has a couple of great videos about the uBeam scam, they're
well worth watching:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8dqzVlhFkA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8dqzVlhFkA)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLly4WdRAjY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLly4WdRAjY)

~~~
legohead
> Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, CrunchFund, Marissa Mayer and Mark Cuban

how were these people so easily bamboozled? this is some pretty dubious tech
straight from the get go.

~~~
manigandham
VCs are usually not as smart as they and others think, they're very
susceptible to emotional presentations and hype, and portfolio theory means
that serious due diligence isn't worth the effort.

~~~
jbapple
> portfolio theory means that serious due diligence isn't worth the effort.

Could you expand on this?

~~~
manigandham
VCs have an investment fund that is divided amongst X startups. A small
percentage will break even, and a very tiny percentage will return more than
the entire fund (this is where profits come from). The vast majority of
companies will lose money, and in this scenario it's better to move quickly to
get into the startups that will succeed rather than do the proper due
diligence for every investment.

Basically, speed and quantity is better than deep investigation. It's just how
the numbers work out, but it's also why you'll see some crazy startups get
funded even if others have more solid financials.

In addition, people are much better at disqualifying then qualifying. It's
easier to say "no" then to say "yes" to something, so it could be argued that
you should say no very quickly to these kind of startups. But history shows
that wilder ideas are more likely to lead to the outsized returns so VCs will
say yes to the things that other investment classes would always say no to.
Then again, it's called "venture capital" for a reason.

~~~
dnautics
so due diligence for infotech startups maybe doesn't make sense but wouldn't
at least a "first pass no phebotonium" filter mean better likelihood of
returns for hard sciences?

I have been closely watching indie bio do their accelerator and I'd say a full
60% of their startups are phlebotonium, or at least "this is not a crazy idea,
but the choices you have made are totally crazy".

~~~
manigandham
Let's say fund of size X divided by N companies = Z amount invested per
startup. 0.1% of them will return 5X.

So while you might disqualify some poor companies in the 99%, what are the
odds you don't just get another poor company? The odds that the money you
didn't spend will now go to a successful company doesn't really change since
the hyped companies would already have the money and the rest are a complete
crapshoot.

Meanwhile, how much does that diligence cost? If it's more than Z across your
portfolio then you're actually down a shot and have lowered odds for the whole
fund. If 99% are going to fail anyway, why spend more money just investing in
a different 99%? Remember the entire fund has to be invested, you can't return
or rollover the money so this is actually the optimal strategy. It's strange
math but it works.

------
rdlecler1
Unlike Theranos which had a lot of non-VC investors uBeam had some of the
best. Sound travels in a wave and energy would dissipates exponentially with
distance. It made no sense to me how this would work or why these investors
got behind this. Insight would be appreciated.

~~~
2_listerine_pls
> Sound travels in a wave and energy would dissipates exponentially with
> distance

It's actually possible to transmit sound waves without the exponential decay
with "directional sound" [1]. It is produced using a "phased array" [2] of
speakers, where each speaker has a different a phase. The point is to create
constructive interference in the direction you want the sound beam.
Directional speakers have existed for a while and that's probably how uBeam
emitters work.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directional_sound](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directional_sound)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phased_array](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phased_array)

~~~
URSpider94
1\. The size of the phased array is directly related to the distance over
which you want to maintain focus. In order to focus a beam across a room, you
need a hilariously large array.

2\. Ultrasound transducers are very inefficient, so you’ll lose a lot of
power.

3\. Ultrasound transmission will be blocked by a person, or even by a sheet of
paper in the way.

4\. Even if you do achieve a tight beam, then you either have to actively
steer it around, or it’s only good for transmitting power to something sitting
still in a specific spot.

5\. We don’t really know much about the effects of having watts of ultrasound
present in a space with humans 24/7/365.

(And these are just the easy ones)

~~~
tzs
Decent efficiency seems possible. These people report 53% efficiency at 1
meter:

Roes, M.G.L.; Hendrix, M.A.M.; Duarte, J.L., "Contactless energy transfer
through air by means of ultrasound," IECON 2011 - 37th Annual Conference on
IEEE Industrial Electronics Society , vol., no., pp.1238,1243, 7-10 Nov. 2011

Abstract: An alternative approach to the wireless transfer of energy is
proposed, employing acoustic waves in air. Unlike conventional methods,
acoustic energy transfer is able to achieve energy transfer at high
efficiencies over distances that are large in comparison to the dimensions of
the transmitter and the receiver. This paper gives an overview of the
principle and explains the different loss mechanisms that come into play. A
theoretically limit on the achievable efficiency is calculated. It exceeds
that of a comparable inductively coupled system by an order of magnitude.
First preliminary measurements indicate that AET is feasible, although the
measured efficiency is lower than the predicted theoretical limit.

They were using small low-power transceivers as their focus (no pun intended)
was on large distances compared to transceiver size, and so were only dealing
with a few dozen uW power.

Looking at a few of the things that cite them, it seems that low power is
where most of the work in ultrasonic power transmission is, aiming for
environments where you need to power something small in a location that makes
the usual methods problematic, such as implanted biomedical devices. Example:
"MEMS Based Broadband Piezoelectric Ultrasonic Energy Harvester (PUEH) for
Enabling Self-Powered Implantable Biomedical Devices",
[https://www.nature.com/articles/srep24946](https://www.nature.com/articles/srep24946)

------
nradov
How long will it be until Energous is also revealed as a fraud?

[https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2018/08/mailbag-
questi...](https://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2018/08/mailbag-questions-on-
energous.html)

------
deepnotderp
Honestly ubeam makes me kind of mad, it makes it much harder for other non-
PhD/"outsiders" who are working in hard tech fields but who are legit to
convince others.

~~~
EpicEng
Does it? It should be hard to convince anyone of something that goes against
accepted and proven constraints. They don't and never have had the
data/science to back up their claims. That should be the bar.

------
deepnotderp
Whenever the concept of wireless charging pops up, people always helpfully
suggest the use of phased arrays or other beamforming methods.

Directional waves are still subject to inverse square law, just like lasers.

~~~
chime
How are lasers subject to inverse square law?

> Laser light travels as a parallel beam spreading very little, so the inverse
> square law does not apply.

[https://www.reed.edu/ehs/laser-
safety/1laser_basics.html](https://www.reed.edu/ehs/laser-
safety/1laser_basics.html)

Is the above wrong?

~~~
foldr
It seems to be a perennial point of confusion, but as far as I can make out
from googling, it's not strictly true that lasers follow the inverse square
law. Why is the parent being downvoted?

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sci.optics/P-8VmDlY4...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sci.optics/P-8VmDlY45g)

~~~
deepnotderp
The point being made there is also incorrect. This is only true for divergence
= 0 which doesn't exist.

Also, the point made that "if I go 10x further away then my received power
won't be 100x less" is misleading since inverse square law is talking about
_intensity_.

------
grizzles
Hah. It's incredible it took this long tbh. So much for the market allocating
capital efficiently.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yup. uBeam is probably the longest joke in SV, and given this article, we're
still not getting near the punchline. Apparently they want to _license_ this
nonsense now...

------
crankylinuxuser
It makes sense. Continuing in Tesla's footsteps was doomed to failure. You end
up wasting 90% or more energy being transmitted. And it significantly raises
noise floor for 'power'. This just seems like a bad ideal all around, so no
surprise they're "pivoting".

A way this _could_ have worked, is if it could tell where the charging devices
were, and then beam-form in that direction. Then you'd be limited to by how
many beams you could initiate.

~~~
taneq
Also you'd get energy beams being fired around your living space. Seems a bit
iffy to me that you could do this without frying random things, biological and
otherwise.

~~~
village-idiot
“Please remove all iron from your house before activating the device”.

------
samfisher83
This idea didn't make sense from a physics point of view. Tesla tried to do
wireless power a hundred years ago. It left him broke. Sound would seem to be
less efficient than EM waves. I mean how did she get this much money?

~~~
2_listerine_pls
It's actually possible to have long range wireless power transmission using
beams of EM waves with the thanks to phased arrays of antennas:

[https://newatlas.com/cota-ossia-wireless-charging-
microwave-...](https://newatlas.com/cota-ossia-wireless-charging-microwave-
phased-array/29217/)

[https://www.geekwire.com/2017/intellectual-ventures-
microwav...](https://www.geekwire.com/2017/intellectual-ventures-microwaves-
metamaterials-beam-power/)

~~~
nradov
Sure it's _possible_. It's just not efficient, practical, reliable, or safe
(at high power levels).

~~~
2_listerine_pls
Might not be very efficient but it's practical if you need a 24/7 flying
drone.

~~~
nradov
Tethered aerostats or solar power are better solutions than beamed power if
you need something flying for a long time.

------
foobaw
I used to have friends that worked here and told me horror stories about the
CEO. I hope this technology works in the future in a reasonable amount of time
without such a horrendous leader because it is quite an awesome concept if
done properly.

~~~
copperx
I wouldn't doubt that this post was written by her:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8543220](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8543220)

~~~
raverbashing
Might not be, actually that commenter has stopped commenting and the last
comments are a bit worrying (though not in a personal level)

------
Illniyar
Mmm... when you step down to get someone more suited for the new path a
company is going to take, you have someone lined up to replace you - to ease
transition and alleviate concerns.

You don't put an interim CEO from HR and finance while your are searching for
a "seasoned executive in the electronics field", that's what you do if the
current CEO is hurting the business and needs to be pushed out quickly.

------
maxxxxx
Reading the article sounds a little like what I read in the book about
Theranos. Seems they "invented" something that in theory would be very useful
but had really no technology to make this happen but went out anyway to get
investment money. Then for years they desperately tried to make it work while
lying left and right .

~~~
minimaxir
The difference between Theranos and uBeam was that uBeam's technology
_worked_...

...in a highly controlled environment with specs making it unsuitable for
practical consumer use.

------
neya
Another Elizabeth Holmes in the making. Isn't there some legal proceeding to
sue her for lying/cheating/deceiving? It has been proved uBeam isn't possible
by the scientific community well before. We should not let people get away
with fraud and deceiving the public so easily.

~~~
harryh
In what way did uBeam deceive the public? They never raised money or sold the
public any products.

~~~
Trevor908
It's still deception, there's just no injury.

------
dawhizkid
It’s pretty depressing that two of the higher profile SV scams in recent years
involved woman founder/CEOs

~~~
legostormtroopr
No, its pretty predictable and preventable. People clamor over themselves to
prove how "woke" they are when a woman CEO comes along and prove how totally
not sexist they are.

When Theranos was first starting there was lots of solid critiques of why it
was all a scam, and so much of that was deflected as "sexism" [1,2,3,4,5,6].
Theranos was bound to fail, and was bound to implode - not just because Holmes
was a fraud, but because the wokeness of Silicon Valley was _complicit_ in her
fraud, but letting her deflect any and all criticism as sexism.

Criticising a fraud who happens to be a woman isn't sexist and we shouldn't
let people get away with suggesting otherwise. Thats the only way to prevent
this exact same scenario from happening again.

[1] [https://www.bustle.com/articles/117841-is-criticism-of-
billi...](https://www.bustle.com/articles/117841-is-criticism-of-billionaire-
elizabeth-holmes-sexist-yes-no) [2] [http://fortune.com/2015/12/10/elizabeth-
holmes-sexism-theran...](http://fortune.com/2015/12/10/elizabeth-holmes-
sexism-theranos/) [3] [https://medium.com/@abyah.wynn/elizabeth-holmes-and-
the-stru...](https://medium.com/@abyah.wynn/elizabeth-holmes-and-the-struggle-
of-being-a-female-entrepreneur-5a34bd154d57) [4]
[https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/15/theranos-ceo-elizabeth-
holme...](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/15/theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-is-a-
victim-venture-capitalist-tim-draper-says.html) [5]
[https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/08/03/48...](https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/08/03/488569884/is-
there-a-double-standard-when-women-ceos-in-tech-stumble) [6]
[https://www.google.com.au/search?q=theranos+sexism](https://www.google.com.au/search?q=theranos+sexism)

~~~
api
Was "wokeness" a factor in Juicero? Clinkle? There are dozens of these.

The common denominator is charisma and hubris on the part of the founder(s).
Lots of investors go for that. I'd put the blame on the cult of the
charismatic leader in business.

~~~
legostormtroopr
Juicero was an overpriced juicer. The people who bought it still got the
machine and the juice - albeit DRM juice that could be squeezed by hand. There
is zero fraud, just an overhyped product.

Theranos made fraudulent claims about their product, pressured themselves into
the health care market, and violated hundreds of ethical guidelines. Not only
were investors defrauded (oh well, its only money) - people used them in
clinical scenarios and impacted actual healthcare patients. When people
questioned these claims, the CEO publicly claimed criticism of her was sexist,
and the media was complicit.

These two scenarios are vastly different.

~~~
phonon
Sure Juicero was a fraud. The founder claimed (to the public, investors,
employees, board members) that the pulp had to be cold pressed with thousands
of pounds of pressure per square inch, so they developed a juicer to do that.
Except it turned out you could "juice" the packets with your bare hands, and
the results would not be that different. Why did he do that? Because if all
users needed was a $20 manual roller press to juice the packets, there would
be no specialized "DRM" juicer device, and no business model.

~~~
wpietri
Yeah. I don't think it was as big a fraud as Theranos. But the amount of money
spent, the level of self-promotion, the utter uselessness of their solution,
and the suddenness of the collapse all make me think that they at best acted
with utter disregard for the sort of concerns that keep sane entrepreneurs up
at night. Did the CEO know it was a fraud? Hard to say. But that's not a
question we ask of other frauds like anti-vaxxers, spirit mediums, and snake
oil salesmen. Since we can't crack open people's minds and look, for me a
standard of "knows or should have known" is generally good enough for me to
call something a fraud.

~~~
phonon
It's not of the same magnitude of Theranos to be sure. And there is no
consumer fraud now as they offered to fully refund all the juicers. I think
the investors have a significant fraud claim against senior management who
solicited them but:

a) Juicero is broke, and "piercing the corporate veil" is difficult and
expensive.

b) It would show exactly how credulous the investors were, as well as their
outstanding lack of initial and ongoing due diligence and oversight.

~~~
wpietri
Definitely. I think B is why we don't see many fraud cases brought here. I
doubt Theranos would have been exposed like this if they weren't working in a
regulated space. Although doing big fraudulent deals with Walgreens and
Safeway didn't help; as non-investors and publicly traded companies, they had
less reason to just slink away quietly.

------
nhylated
From 2014:

> The Audacious Plan to Make Electricity as Easy as WiFi >
> [https://bothsidesofthetable.com/the-audacious-plan-to-
> make-e...](https://bothsidesofthetable.com/the-audacious-plan-to-make-
> electricity-as-easy-as-wifi-45d9e26d81f0)

------
pbreit
Isn't this, like Theranos, a company where if the product works, it prints
money?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yes, but unlike Theranos, it was known from day one that the product is
bullshit, as the physics part doesn't add up.

~~~
nikanj
One of the most ironic parts is Meredith Perry's TEDx talk, where she's proud
about not having any education in the field. "I was not an engineer, and I did
not have Asperger's(!!)"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukgnU2aXM2c&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukgnU2aXM2c&feature=youtu.be&t=240)

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yeah, well. It shows.

Also, I'm proud of my self-diagnosed aspie. I don't know of an engineer who
isn't.

------
dbcooper
LOL @ Mark Suster still in denial mode in the Techcrunch comments.

~~~
Trevor908
He's trying to unload the company and save a bit of his reputation. Of course
he'll still hype it.

------
logicallee
I've often thought about this predicament. The original inventor made a demo
and raised a lot of money. It's clear that after they went ahead, they didn't
quite get it working due to the physics involved. (It's not viable.)

Around the time that this was becoming super clear to everyone (around three
years ago), I wrote them this (not sure if they got it):

[https://imgur.com/a/WQicmGS](https://imgur.com/a/WQicmGS)

Since then I've thought about this so much. Here's Suster's glowing praise
when handing them a huge check, a year earlier:

[https://imgur.com/a/i2zIslW](https://imgur.com/a/i2zIslW)

What I concluded in the past 4 years of lightly watching this is that you must
retain total, like, _totalitarian_ power over your company, to do whatever you
want to do. Because uBeam did the hard part: getting the cash. It's
practically impossible to fund a company. Really, go ahead and try it. I'll
wait. See you when you're 45 and have been trying for 15 years across ten
companies, and finally said fuck it and built your own organic revenues of
half a million a month with 90% margin, and still aren't getting the checks.
The hard part is the Series A.

But the problem is signing paperwork that gives investors (such as Suster),
any amount of control whatsoever.

It's clear that Perry was smart enough to figure out the tech wasn't working.
But she wasn't _powerful_ enough to pivot to something that was.

Her lesson, at least to me, is that you must retain almost total power to do
whatever you want at the company.

I'll never sign anything that gives investors any amount of power whatsoever.
If they want to be along for the ride, go ahead. But you don't get to be Steve
Jobs without negotiating enough power to _be_ Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs has gone down a lot of rabbit holes that, uh, didn't lead anywhere.
He could do that because he negotiated for it.

If you're founding CEO, you need to negotiate for total power at your company.
Or you will end up like Meredith Perry.

The problem isn't with the tech. It's that she just wasn't _powerful_ enough
to keep doing whatever the fuck she wanted. Her lesson to me is: "Get more
power."

If you're the visionary CEO of a tech company, and aren't powerful enough to
do whatever the fuck you want to do, including pivoting out of what you _just_
sold to investors - then you didn't get the negotiations and the paperwork
right. Be more powerful.

\-----

EDIT: downvoter, I'm happy to engage in a conversation about your opinion on
this matter.

~~~
URSpider94
This makes zero sense.

If you prove that your tech won’t work, and you have a better idea, go back to
your board. Because of the way venture investing works, they’d almost
certainly rather bankroll you to pivot, than take their money back and shut
you down.

In any case, the board usually has no control over how you operate the
company. Their only choice, if they don’t like it, is to fire you - and a
majority of them would have to agree to do so.

I see no evidence that the founder is somehow trapped inside her company,
totally aware of her terrible idea and yet unable to pivot. All evidence
points to the fact that she is still a believer. If anything, she’s now being
pushed aside by her board, who are putting an adult in charge and looking for
some kind of licensing deal or IP buy-out as a last-ditch exit.

~~~
copperx
> IP buy-out as a last-ditch exit

IP of what? of a trivial circuit?

~~~
xkcd-sucks
If there were really some kind of new beamforming tech it could find use in
sonar, defense, imaging etc. If it can do milliwatts in air without radiating
painfully loud harmonics in every direction that's something too

~~~
Trevor908
There is no evidence that any of this exists.

------
bookofjoe
Nikola Tesla, where are you when we really, really need you?

------
fabricexpert
I'm not sure the criticism at UBeam (especially at the CEO) is all that fair.
Shouldn't we be encouraging moon-shoots that look impossible? Isn't that the
point of VC funds? I'd rather see 100 UBeams than one more social media
network or adtech company getting funding.

VCs tend to invest in the team over the tech. In this case you have a young
woman leading the team, which (sadly) looks great for your portfolio and makes
it easier to raise the capital needed to make progress on tough engineering
issues. Despite what she says, she isn't an engineer so she's not solving the
hard problem. Actually she did quite a good job to raise 30m USD on basically
nothing, it's not really her fault the physics doesn't work out.

The problem is that they haven't built up any useful IP here to pivot with,
it's fine if they said hey we failed at wireless charging at 10 feet, but we
made 50% gains in improved efficiency of Qi chargers and we're going to still
build the next gen of wireless chargers. But they haven't managed that.

~~~
kiba
There's physically impossible and there's "impossible".

~~~
mojuba
I remember people saying capacitive touch display is impossible on mobile
devices because "physics". Not everyone and not always is right when they cite
physics. Ubeam seems like a more clear case of physical impossibility, but who
knows maybe someone improves this tech at some point. That probably won't be
Ubeam though, the DNA of this company already seems to be broken.

