
How putting $10M into UBeam illustrates what is wrong with tech investing (2014) - jon-wood
http://lookatmeimdanny.tumblr.com/post/101432017159/how-putting-10m-into-ubeam-illustrates-everything
======
tomasien
Didn't we go through this before?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091)

Then there was this - [http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/26/kill-the-
cord/#.mdch08:KANb](http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/26/kill-the-
cord/#.mdch08:KANb)

It turns out it's ridiculously hard to evaluate what can and can't work about
an idea just from reading the website you guys.

~~~
vitd
Is it ridiculously hard to go to the nearest university and ask a physics
professor if an idea is even plausible? If it is, then maybe investors should
pass on stuff they don't understand.

~~~
dang
> Is it ridiculously hard to go to the nearest university and ask a physics
> professor

How likely is it that no investor asked any physicist about this?

~~~
IshKebab
Unlikely. But how likely is it that _some_ investors didn't ask, or didn't
like the answer?

------
ghshephard
Does anybody seriously think, for even a second, that A16Z didn't do massive
due diligence with extraordinarily intelligent and experienced individuals
before investing?

One thing that A16Z is _not_ lacking is access to tons of Stanford/Berkeley
physics PHDs....

~~~
yankoff
People make mistakes all the time. Even VCs (sic!) Argument in the form of "it
must be true because they are very smart and have access to experts" is not a
good one. The real facts and evidence should be evaluated.

~~~
dang
> The real facts and evidence should be evaluated

Yes indeed, and neither the OP nor the commenters in this thread have access
to it. That's why threads like this degenerate.

------
jobenjo
All these physics-debunking conversations seem to assume a single source. I
naively assumed that UBeam will work sort of like the Gamma Knife
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosurgery#Gamma_Knife](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosurgery#Gamma_Knife)),
where there are many sources that intersect just at your phone or device. This
completely changes all the physics assumptions, and is a good reminder to keep
an open mind.

That being said, I'd be highly skeptical of the health risks of this
technology, especially given the only benefit is convenience.

------
malisper
From [0]:

> She connected me with Andreessen’s due diligence team who were surprisingly
> open with all the technical analysis they had done.

[0] [http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2014/10/30/the-
audacious-...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2014/10/30/the-audacious-
plan-to-make-electricity-as-easy-as-wifi/)

~~~
IshKebab
Err right...

> Did the physics actually work? Check

Ok I'm convinced?

> Was it safe? Well … for starters it is just an inaudible soundwave being
> transferred – as in the kind also used for women during pregnancy. It also
> happens to be how your car likely tells the distance to objects when you
> park or if you have a side assist whether you can change lanes safely.

Yeah just like bullets are made of the same metal you use for door knobs.
Totally safe!

This is a stupid infeasible idea. One of those things that maybe initially
sounds plausible, but when you look at the actual numbers it's off by orders
of magnitude.

------
minthd
This comment[1] , by bfritz , has another, reasonable view.

[1][http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/ubeam-ultrasonic-
wirel...](http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/ubeam-ultrasonic-wireless-
charging-a-familiar-fish-smell/msg495391/#msg495391)

------
pietrofmaggi
This was on HN 9 months ago. Here's the original discussion
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091)

------
vonklaus
So what? Those investors are pretty smart accomploshed people[0]. Obviously,
clinkle proved that doesn't matter, but the company evidently has a working
prototype and the VCs deemed it worth betting on. Funding isn't really zero-
sum as there is a ton of capital in the market. Fuck it, it's small money
chasing a big impossible goal. Exactly what I want to see in tech investing.

[0][https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ubeam](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ubeam)

------
MathsOX
There was already a lengthy discussion of this piece:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091)

The piece aside - which I won't make a commentary on - I wonder whether this
is just the right level of snark and intellectual elitism (founded or not) to
be consistently popular on HN. Why it's worth dredging up, with apparently no
new or novel updates, is beyond me.

~~~
yankoff
But is there anything wrong with his arguments? I don't understand why people
get upset at this kind of thing. Why is it bad to try to critically analyze
someone's idea especially when it comes to an area of your expertise?

~~~
MathsOX
"He starts with the assumption of 100dB as the max power but OSHA's ultrasonic
recommendation[1] is actually 145dB which is 31,000x more power.. Even if you
use 130dB, it's still 1,000x more power than he assumes."

It's not bad, it's that this has already been done nine months ago. The linked
post isn't updated - in which case I wouldn't have a problem with it - it's
just another outlet for HN to vent at the injustices of the VC world.

~~~
dang
> it's just another outlet for HN to vent at the injustices of the VC world

Bingo—where the primary "injustice" is that they're giving money to others and
not to me.

~~~
david927
We're at the end of a cycle, so there's a real sense of pop investing and
other characteristics that come with it, such as what happened in 1999. That
annoys some people, maybe for the reason you mention, or maybe because they
like technology and are ashamed that it makes us look like fools.

We both know that in a year from now (but no more than three) there will be
10% of the current number of startups, and investing will be much more
grounded. It happens every 7-10 years. No need to take shots.

~~~
dang
I don't know that, nor do I know about cycles.

My statement was too glib (I edit most of those out, but you got me this
time). I do think that one can't understand discussions like this without
understanding implicit resentment. Underneath "others are stupid" lies "my
intelligence goes unrecognized"; underneath "others are undeservedly rich"
lies "I deserve better"; and so on. The drivers, at bottom, are personal,
which explains why the discussions aren't _intellectually_ interesting—they're
driven by a different kind of interest. It also explains why people are quick
to anger and/or show up with guns blazing: these feelings are already in
cache. It also, sadly, explains why such posts invariably get many upvotes.

Actually, the discussion might become interesting again if people would speak
openly and personally about such feelings. It's the posture of pseudo-critique
that's the problem: the format of substantive discussion without the content.
The real content there is the emotional charge in the language.

My point here doesn't have to do with VCs or startups or UBeam but with the
quality of discussion we want on HN.

~~~
danieltillett
Dang I agree with you. I actually think at this point the most important thing
that YC has invested in is HN. There is no other forum that has a higher
signal to noise.

YC has no interest to me as an incubator, but HN has changed the way I look at
the world and is directly responsible for my newest venture. I am sure there
are many others out there like me.

~~~
dang
> HN has changed the way I look at the world and is directly responsible for
> my newest venture. I am sure there are many others out there like me.

That's good to hear! One of my dreams for HN is for it to stimulate or at
least facilitate more new projects. It feels like so much more is possible.

------
Htsthbjig
Sometimes things work even when they should not.

We had a teacher in University that proved to us how bees could not fly,
making the assumption of laminar flow of course, that is what we use for
flying airplanes.

Ever flying over terrain or water at small heights the physics are completely
different than general flight (ground effect).

So If a guy is fool and young enough to actually make a prototype(stay
foolish, stay hungry) he could discover specific "special cases" that could
make this invention useful enough for something.

For example, probably when you put your telephone over a small 1 millimeter
distance of the charger you could get some time of resonance and you could
increase the frequency, making the amplitude necessary smaller. I don't know,
some times our assumptions(generalizations) are just wrong.

------
apsec112
It's at least conceivable, from my amateur physics knowledge, that the safety
issue could be worked around by having a very narrow beam that shuts off if
anything interrupts it. The issue I haven't seen anyone mention is that you
must have a continuous line-of-sight between receiver and transmitter.
Realistically, under real world conditions, how often would you have that long
enough for your phone to charge? Either you're using your phone, in which case
your hand is covering the back, or you aren't, in which case it's in your
pocket or bag. (I'm assuming that the receiver would be integrated with the
casing, but the alternative is to have a big bulky thing sticking out the top,
which carries its own problems.)

------
thewarrior
I remember this being posted on HN before and many in the tech industry
criticising HN's negative reaction and dismissal of the idea.

Marc Andressen tweeted "Hater News" on that day. But still , noone really
knows how this thing works but I assume that VCs aren't going to throw 10
million dollars at somebody without doing atleast some due diligence.

Atleast they got a few PhDs to audit this device and its working. So maybe we
don't have the full story on how this works.

Here's a VC saying it works: [http://www.quora.com/Is-uBeam-
practical/answer/Ben-Parr?srid...](http://www.quora.com/Is-uBeam-
practical/answer/Ben-Parr?srid=3ZRI&share=1)

~~~
tinco
It should be very easy to debunk this article though. Just a single line tweet
along the lines of "you discount xxxx". A bit weird to call it hater news
without really engaging.

~~~
corkill
They might value that knowledge being kept private to them more than debunking
the article in the short term.

~~~
droopyEyelids
This might be the time to drag out the old quotation "extraordinary claims
require extraordinary evidence"

In general your point is correct, there is value to secrecy in some instances.
And often people who really know whats going on can laugh at naysayers. But,
for example, if someone said they have a perpetual motion machine, and laughed
at people who questioned it, the laugh would seem more like delusion than
informed confidence.

------
fasteo
>>>> Except, here’s the problem. IT’S AN IMPOSSIBLE IDEA

While I would agree with the general idea, I do not like the general tone of
the post. It is as if this guy knew everything about ultrasound technology. A
given idea does not seem to make sense ? Maybe it is just that you don't know
enough about it.

Happily concluding that Marc Andreessen, Mark Cuban et al. are just dumb
investors pouring their money into impossible products is a bit short sighted.

~~~
sharpneli
[http://fortune.com/2015/07/29/ubeam-meredith-perry-
wireless-...](http://fortune.com/2015/07/29/ubeam-meredith-perry-wireless-
charging/)

This article implies they were rather hasty in investing.

~~~
moron4hire
> In the third grade she invented a pair of reading glasses with lightbulbs on
> them. In the fourth grade she developed a robot to carry firewood. In the
> fifth grade she cultured bacteria from her mouth and a dog’s to see which
> was cleaner.

Sheesh, who _didn 't_ do that?

------
mixedmath
> I’m no physicist - oh, wait, I am - but I did a little back-of-the-envelope
> (ok, front of the paper) calculation this morning...

I react very negatively to this sort of catty writing. I find it obnoxious. I
understand that I shouldn't necessarily expect more from something from
tumblr. On the other hand, I do like that the calculations were included.

------
ironch456
Here is another way to look at it:

For this technology to actually take off, an industry working group will need
to be formed to promote and share it in the same way we have working groups
for existing wireless charging techniques.

We already have the Wireless Power Consortium who currently foster the Qi
inductive power standard:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi_(inductive_power_standard)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi_\(inductive_power_standard\)).
Same sort of deal.

What good is a new wireless charging technique that doesn't come built into my
iPhone or Android phone? If it isn't included in every phone and gadget no one
is going to bother with it.

In the process of forming such a working group, some extremely smart people
are going to take a very close look at this from both an engineering and
business standpoint. If it isn't absolutely rock solid it is going to die.

Until a working group is formed to share this technology with the likes of
Samsung, Apple, Sony (major hardware device manufacturers), you can pretty
much discount it.

------
davidgerard
Venture capitalists investing in blatantly wrong and scammy pseudoscience is
nothing new. Andrea Rossi (a convicted fraudster) got VC money for the E-Cat
cold fusion scam.

(Which doesn't really contradict the poster's point: that made-up BS >> tawdry
physical reality.)

------
shah_s
It's been a while since they invested in UBeam. Any updates? I can't seem to
find any.

------
serve_yay
I don't care if VCs waste their money like idiots. Let them. Plus, the sad
part isn't that they wasted $10 million on this worthless "idea", it's that
$10 million is probably nothing to them.

------
jotm
So this is directed ultrasound?

Frankly, I'd prefer not to use any technology that could directly affect one
of my most important senses if I don't have to...

~~~
harryh
Totally. All those pregnant women who want to have their fetus examined really
shouldn't be doing that.

------
amelius
I guess that if you put enough energy in an out-of-hearing-range frequency, at
some point you will start hearing the harmonic distortion.

~~~
sharpneli
And that's how you can build something like this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_from_ultrasound](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_from_ultrasound)

------
55555
Only tangentally mentioned but I'm not sure "yogurt enemas" are the best
example of an idea that has no legs on which to stand. That would entail
putting bacteria directly into a microbiome. It would be niave and extremely
ignorant-reductionist to conclude that that would have no effect. You need a
peer-reviewed study before making it a procedure covered by insurance, etc. --
i get that -- but certainly not prior to it making sense.

~~~
thewarrior
Have you heard of therapeutic poop implants ?

~~~
55555
Yes, exactly my train of thought.

------
raverbashing
$10M dollars? That's pocket change for VCs basically. It's the "ok, I believe
you, now build me something" (but still cheap enough to risk it and lose 100%
in case of failure)

So, how many scientists believed that you couldn't get a train to go faster
without suffocating the people inside? (and a load of other things)

I am definitely doubtful of UBeam, but for every sayer that is right there are
10 naysayers.

~~~
ThomPete
That it's pocket change is exactly the problem especially when compared to how
cheap it is to start and run most companies.

------
BRValentine
I still think remote in situ denture cleaning sounds like a billion dollar
idea.

------
vendel
what else would they be spending money on? money has to be spent. might as
well do it on a low probability potential breakthrough

------
kmfrk
(October 2014 - this isn't a new round.)

------
bane
It doesn't matter, they'll burn most of it up, raise another round and pivot
into a B2B client-customer IM app with patented business emoji or something.

No lessons will be learned, nobody will understand physics more because the
things they (re)learned about basic science will be lost behind the veil of
"stealth mode" and all of society will be a bit poorer in the end.

It doesn't matter because the money will vaporize, nobody will learn anything
and we'll get another useless app that nobody will use (unless they do then
they'll be lauded for great execution and their investors will be called
visionaries, the pivot from ear shattering charge-tech to chat app will be
just a footnote in everybody's success story).

Then the whole thing will be acquired by IBM or something and will disappear
into history.

------
xacaxulu
Did anyone else think "10M is an absolute drop in the bucket"? I mean
seriously, this is such a small amount of money that due diligence could have
consisted of 'does the website look good?'. It's not like they can't write it
off.

~~~
BurningFrog
I should build a good looking web site...

------
andersoncooper
This may sound sobering, but $10M is nothing to VCs that have billions of
dollars to throw around. So, they see a young attractive female founder, and
may think "what the hell, at the very least we can use uBeam as an example of
diversity in the companies we fund" or even more cynically, an attractive face
at their annual parties. It's _nothing_ to them.

~~~
hodgesrm
That's not how it works at least in my experience. Real VCs are investing not
just money but _time_. That's why they dump bad investments so quickly--bad
ones take away time from the investments that might work out.

Also, VCs are comp'ed on outcomes. Folks that don't deliver do not last very
long.

------
curiousjorge
This and add _disruptive_ million dollar javascript websites that could've
been built with jQuery and some HTML5, stupid shit like an app that sends two
characters, and entire businesses built on the back of existing social network
that almost always ends up getting the rug pulled under them.

Money is flowing to people who don't need it and shouldn't have it (Because
they don't know what they are doing) based on some weird self-fullfilling
prophecies of naive investors (I know what I'm doing I rolled a dice a few
times and got lucky) combined with idiots (I'll just burn all this cash and
look for new ones or I'll get the most unrealistic valuation possible so I get
kicked out of my own company).

Quietly, many corners of HN, people are building and making money by
bootstrapping. There is no money to burn here, only due dilligence. There is
no bail out or connections, only yourself and your employees. There is no
chance to make costly mistakes so you focus on making money _today_.

But everywhere you look it seems like we've reinvented the value of money.
Money that will be made in the distant unknown future seems to be more
valuable than money made today.

We are in for some major market correction that's going to evaporate a lot of
dreams, jobs, and capital. All so they have a chance at another Uber.

~~~
fredkbloggs
> idiots (I'll just burn all this cash and look for new ones or I'll get the
> most unrealistic valuation possible so I get kicked out of my own company)

Doesn't sound idiotic to me. So far as anyone has been able to prove, humans
live only once. And realistically speaking have about 20 years in which to
make money that will determine the level of comfort and luxury they will enjoy
for the duration of that single life. If at some point in that 20 years one
finds oneself in an environment in which "naive investors" are willing to hand
out $10m at a throw on the basis of a physically unworkable idea and a pitch
deck, I would strongly advise coming up with physically unworkable ideas and
pitch decks. Writing articles about how foolish people are to pursue these
ideas does not put money in your wallet, even if it's true.

~~~
arielm
This naive view that if is someone is silly enough to throw money at your
silly idea you should take it isn't just hurting the current industry by
setting unrealistic expectations but will also be the driving force behind the
collapse of the unhealthy capital market in the valley. Unrealistic salaries
(that completely ignore any roi calculations), ideas that aren't grounded, and
the need to get it all done super fast are what's going to cause a drought in
capital for tech and then both good and bad ideas will suffer.

I urge you to rethink your statement with the future of the industry in mind,
not just a single bank account.

~~~
fredkbloggs
Everything you've said is sensible, though I question whether in a cheap money
environment investors will stay away if they've been burned. People fall all
over themselves to lend money to sovereigns who have defaulted fairly
recently, and that at very low interest rates. I would be surprised if people
with access to unlimited cheap money will really stay away.

That said, even if I agreed with you 100% (and you're certainly right in
principle), I would not change my view. That's why I noted that humans live
only once and have a short time frame to accumulate money. In the fullness of
time, yes, this behavior is harmful. But humans don't live in the fullness of
time; they live when they're born. Secure your own future and to hell with the
industry's.

~~~
arielm
> Secure your own future and the hell with the industry's

This is just not something I can agree with, regardless how it's twisted.
Accumulating a sustainable amount of money isn't as easy as raising a few
rounds on a weak idea. It takes a real idea, perseverance, and thinking really
long term. The mindset quoted above isn't likely to support any of these
requirements.

So, really what you'll end up with is a nice house, a pretty car, and a few
fake friends while it's all running smoothly. The second you can no longer
deliver it all goes away. I might be in the minority here, but I plan to leave
my children an empire. Not a house of cards.

~~~
fredkbloggs
Assets don't just "go away" unless they're encumbered by debt. If you're
paying yourself a bloated salary, living frugally, and taking advantage of
opportunities to sell things that are ridiculously overvalued, you should not
have any trouble building durable wealth in a short time.

It's fine to say that you don't like what I'm saying. It's fine to think it's
unethical, or that it harms others. But don't suggest that it doesn't work; it
very obviously does.

~~~
arielm
You're right in your approach. However, in the capital market founders don't
usually get to dictate their salaries or suck in more of the loot than is
absolutely necessary. That's why VCs keep a good portion of the control.

Now this may not be the case always, so yes, a short term plan could work. But
I doubt it works reliably enough to be turned into a rule.

------
meeper16
I prefer not to spend my time proving and writing about how something is
impossible. Find a way and it will most likely be a solution or path you could
have never predicted. This is a fundemental principle held by companies that
innovate.

~~~
ebbv
This attitude is exactly the problem. It's magical thinking.

Thinking "outside the box" when it comes to industry standards may be a path
to innovation. Thinking "outside the box" when it comes to the laws of physics
is a path to nowhere.

~~~
meeper16
Postive attitude does equate to "magical thinking".

Check with Einstein and others on what it takes to make breatkthroughs,
discoveries and think outside the box in the context of science. With the
attitudes of some, we'd never make discoveries!

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited;
imagination encircles the world.” ~Albert Einstein

You might also enjoy these references as well:

[http://serenityhacker.com/2009/09/albert-einstein-problem-
so...](http://serenityhacker.com/2009/09/albert-einstein-problem-solving/)

[https://cultivatedpages.wordpress.com/2007/04/10/einsteins-b...](https://cultivatedpages.wordpress.com/2007/04/10/einsteins-
brain-and-thinking-outside-the-box/)

~~~
kuschku
“Only two things are infinite: The universe and the stupidity of manking.
Although I’m not that sure about the universe” – Albert Einstein.

This quote fits this situation far better.

~~~
dang
There's no evidence that Einstein said that. The quote comes from Fritz Perls:

[http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/04/universe-
einstein/](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/04/universe-einstein/)

~~~
kuschku
Which attributes it to Einstein. The article you linked says that Perls heard
it while meeting Einstein in person.

~~~
dang
The article quotes Perls saying (in 1969) "As Albert Einstein said to me".
That's not evidence of Einstein saying anything, but of Perls appealing to
authority.

When Perls published the quip in the 1940s he said "a famous astronomer", not
Einstein. He wouldn't have put it that way if Einstein had been the source,
especially since he mentions Einstein elsewhere in the same paragraph.

The Quote Investigator is extremely conservative in refuting bogus quotes;
when they say "probably not", they mean "hell freezes over if". The readiest
explanation is that Perls, a showman who (unlike Einstein) often made caustic
quips like this one, simply optimized his story over time.

