Call me crazy, but I always thought Quirky was solving the wrong thing. The limit on a hardware company usually isn't the idea, it's the execution. And crowd

Call me crazy, but I always thought Quirky was solving the wrong thing. The limit on a hardware company usually isn't the idea, it's the execution. And crowd sourcing significant portions of the design process to an amorphous community doesn't seem like a huge advantage: hardware design and manufacturing is really the province of specialists, oftentimes with very deep domain knowledge. If I'm going to build a camera, I'm going to get someone who's built cameras before, not cars. I just think the wisdom of the crowd can't replace that deep domain knowledge, but I might have been biased against Quirky from the beginning: I met the team at TED years ago, before they were Quirky -- I think they were called 'Kluster' at the time. They were trying to transition from being a hardware startup that made ipod/iphone accessories to a 'crowd-sourced idea marketplace' or something. But their most impressive employee was leaving, because they couldn't find a role for him through the transition, and clearly weren't doing anything to retain him (ironically, he was a hardware guy... would've been helpful in the transition to Quirky). So I guess I see this as a morality tale about recognizing and retaining talent more than anything.