UI development is so specialized now that I bet you could sell enough snake oil to lots of investors who would have a hard time verifying if your idea has profit potential or not.
I also think it's deplorable that Steve Newcomb went straight to investors for this without putting any of his own money into paying employees. It's one thing to sell snake oil, it's another not to even try to build a working snake oil prototype on your own time without taking someone else's money and burning it.
You could say that about literally anything, at these prices investors should be able to find their own experts in the field to evaluate these kinds of things.
Almost none of the comments I saw on HN were positive about this, which should be more of a red flag than usual given that developers are their target audience.
But whatever, I have no sympathy for VCs who have no idea what they're doing.
If you don't know whether or not the founder put his own money into it, then don't say things like: "I also think it's deplorable that Steve Newcomb went straight to investors for this without putting any of his own money into paying employees."
I also think it's deplorable that Steve Newcomb went straight to investors for this without putting any of his own money into paying employees. It's one thing to sell snake oil, it's another not to even try to build a working snake oil prototype on your own time without taking someone else's money and burning it.