20 ms·

uBeam's insider story by ex employee?

154 points by techitreal 10y ago

techitreal 10y ago
An insider's perspective on how really things really are in one of Silicon Valley's next unicorn startup- uBeam. Mark Cuban calls it a "Zillion Dollar Idea". Fortune calls her "Next Elon Musk". Reminded me about Theranos. But then, the author himself has brought up the comparison as well. This post is pretty interesting too- http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/04/must-have-precious.html http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/04/must-have-preci... which talks about the start of uBeam. Seems like the MIT CTO, VP, and the recent CFO- all left the company. Thoughts?
- rahimiali 10y ago
  ubeam's in southern CA, not silicon valley.
- deleted 10y ago
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manigandham 10y ago
> Surely the VC's are performing their due-diligence and there are adults minding the store? They're not. VC's (especially in SV) are notoriously bad at actually understanding any tech and very easy to trick into delivering large checks. This has been seen countless times.
- minimaxir 10y ago
  uBeam is an interesting case because the problems were pointed out as soon as it was announced. But then Mark Suster said "hey, our engineers said it's legit, quit your whining!" https://bothsidesofthetable.com/the-audacious-plan-to-make-electricity-as-easy-as-wifi-45d9e26d81f0 https://bothsidesofthetable.com/the-audacious-plan-to-make-e...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - smoyer 10y ago
    Suster keeps talking about it being safe because they put sound-waves into pregnant women's bellies ... the FDA actually regulates how much power can be sent, and those probes require direct (usually gel coupled) contact with the target. Sound waves can definitely damage flesh.
- nihonde 10y ago
  I used to be puzzled by this, but then I listened to an episode of A16z podcast and realized that these guys use Microsoft Office, Facebook, Twitter, and Medium all day long——in other words, they're typically not people who understand bleeding-edge technology except in a pop-science-article-in-wired-mag sense.
  - galistoca 10y ago
    and what does using microsoft office, facebook, twitter, and medium have to do with not understanding bleeding-edge technology?
    - nihonde 10y ago
      Fair question. On the episode that I listened to, they were proclaiming that the iPad Pro has replaced the need for a desktop/laptop because it does everything that they need to do. Conspicuously absent from the list of things that an iPad Pro can do is writing code in any sane kind of development workflow. The idea that an iPad Pro could satisfy my everyday work needs is so foreign to me that I was shocked by how cursory and superficial their technology immersion really is. They need 'desktop publishing' tools, at best. I'm not claiming that a person who spends all day using Excel and Powerpoint and WhatsApp (and not Vim/Emacs/Sublime/IDE) is incapable of having a nuanced understanding of bleeding edge tech. But I am going to claim that they most likely have a "dentist's office waiting room magazine" understanding of hard tech, and I'll proudly declare that to be my not-so-expert opinion.
      - galistoca 10y ago
        You're making a lot of assumptions. Just because someone doesn't code on a daily basis doesn't mean that person doesn't know about tech. If I were their LP, I would be worried if the VCs were coding. Lastly, being good at predicting the future in terms of technology has very little to do with those little details you mentioned. I see so many developers just focused on learning the next new technology like react, grunt, es6, etc. but never even think about where this is all going, they're just satisfied that they have great skills. Not saying it's a bad thing, I'm saying being very good at technical details and seeing the trend has very little to do with each other and sometimes even contradictory (If your goal is to become the best developer who knows every single new technology, you won't have time to think about other things)
- zeemonkee3 10y ago
  Don't they hire/contract experts to evaluate the technology?
  - mbesto 10y ago
    I do due diligence for a living and many VCs at the early stage (seed to A) do very little diligence. When you take a portfolio approach, it's usually not economical to do so for every investment.
- shostack 10y ago
  Source?
minimaxir 10y ago
I made the comparison between uBeam and Theranos last week which led to interesting discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11615206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11615206 In other posts by the OP (the linked post is the first of the blog), they make the same comparisons too. I was suspicious of the OP's credibility, but one of the posts has detailed physics on airborne waves which fits their experience and skills at uBeam: http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/05/acoustic-nonlinearity.html http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/05/acoustic-nonlin...
rdtsc 10y ago
> Surely the VC's are performing their due-diligence and there are adults minding the store? If your goal was to run a startup (not necessarily build a product, but just be a CEO of a startup), you just had to find someone with money more stupid than you. I saw it happen before. Someone came with a silly idea for the company, managed to convince a few non-very technical people to trust them, and off they went playing SV CEO for a while. If startups weren't hot a few years ago, they'd probably be buying and selling subprime mortgages or other such thing. Gotta wonder what is next in the pipeline. VC money is drying up I hear but money doesn't like to stay put, wonder what's the next bubble (genetics, robots, self driving cars, medical devices...)?
- w1ntermute 10y ago
  > Elizabeth Parrish, CEO of the biotech company BioViva, claims that her body's cells are 20 years younger after testing her company’s age-reversing gene therapy on herself. > The 45-year-old Seattle-area woman, who has no scientific or medical training, underwent the experimental treatment last September in an undisclosed clinic in Colombia. The unorthodox, overseas trial, which was designed to skirt US federal regulations, prompted the resignation of one of the company’s scientific advisors. George Martin, of the University of Washington, quit after telling MIT Technology Review, "This is a big problem. I am very upset by what is happening. I would urge lots of preclinical studies.”[0] She'll be raising a series A in no time. 0: http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/ceo-tests-crazy-genetic-therapy-on-herself-claims-it-added-20-years-of-life/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/ceo-tests-crazy-genet...
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    I guess genetics is the new bubble ;-). Previously if uberfordogs.ly failed dogs didn't make it to the park in time to play with their friends. I am afraid to find out what happens when growanextrabrain.io fails.
ErikAugust 10y ago
I wish I could find it - there is a blog post out there about someone meeting with a VC. The VC and the person get to talking - and the convo goes to uBeam. The VC says something to the effect of, "Yeah, I know the physics don't make sense. But the CEO is so charismatic that more investors will want in down the line."
- Kronopath 10y ago
  This is what happens when companies are expected to sustain themselves on ever-increasing investment money until an IPO, instead of actually making money themselves. It's a Keynesian beauty contest gone wrong.
  - Super_Jambo 10y ago
    It's what happens when people are too removed from market forces. The VC is not attempting to invest in a business that will make lots of money. They're investing in a business which they can _sell_ for lots of money. The market doesn't get a look in until the last greater fool buys it and is holding it when the music stops. Everyone else has been handsomely rewarded for their tomfoolery so when the music starts playing again they'll dance.
- Mandatum 10y ago
  That's Ponzi time territory isn't it?
- hackaflocka 10y ago
  I remember the first time I saw a group of young VCs (in Palo Alto no less) in public. Walking down the street together. They looked like male supermodels. All of them perfectly dressed, tall, good looking, triathlon physiques... As soon as I saw this, I could sense that this business is driven by "Confirmation Bias" and "Representativeness Bias", the Halo Effect. These guys are hiring people who look like themselves, who do the same (extreme) sports like themselves, etc. It's a case of Steve Jobs looking for someone who looks like Steve Jobs, instead of the plump, dowdy, disheveled, and genius Steve Wozniak.
muglug 10y ago
Here's a former uBeam VP of Engineering (the title the author says they had) who left the same month the author says they left: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulreynolds6 https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulreynolds6
- x0x0 10y ago
  maybe don't do this? If he or she wanted to be easily googleable, he or she could have put a name directly on the blog...
  - chx 10y ago
    You realize of course his name is on the first page of Google results on "VP engineering" ubeam https://www.google.ca/search?complete=0&&gws_rd=ssl&q=%22VP+Engineering%22+ubeam https://www.google.ca/search?complete=0&&gws_rd=ssl&q=%22VP+... and the only result which is not "we are hiring". Then copypasting firstname lastname ubeam back into Google will spit out that LinkedIn page as the first result. It took longer to type this than do two Google searches.
    - x0x0 10y ago
      I did not realize it was that easily found
      - chx 10y ago
        I literally grew up with web searches having started browsing the (very nascent) web in 1993 with a Mosaic beta. I have tried to disseminate my knowledge in this topic via articles, book chapters and speeches. But really, we are on hacker news. This is quintessential hacking: try, change what you did based on the results, try again, repeat rinse. It will eventually work. Given the speed of Google and scanning ten results, you can fire off a search every few seconds and get to the result real quick. (Or just never if the material is not well searchable. Did you know the best or perhaps the only travel VESA monitor stand is a microphone stand? )
techitreal 10y ago
http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/05/abandon-ship.html http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/05/abandon-ship.ht... - Interesting that the CFO left less than one year after this article. http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/28/electric-liberation/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/28/electric-liberation/ Also another fun point- every techcrunch article on ubeam is by Josh Constine Turns out the VP joined because of Merc Berte - the MIT/Raytheon engineer, who also left right after series A fund raising. Both Merc and this VP guys seems amazingly sharp. But what's surprising is nowhere in the media you see any credit given to these guys.Perry is branded as a sole genius. The VP writes- "And the point of this story? In my opinion, don't take the presence of smart engineers as confirmation of a technology's viability (either way), and don't think the engineers at a company you find questionable aren't smart and are fully aware of the technical issues of what they're working on. They just want to play with fun toys."
- petra 10y ago
  >> every techcrunch article on ubeam is by Josh Constine Techcrunch is just a PR channel for startups.
chx 10y ago
I know this is trite but Madoff got away with his Ponzi scheme for decades despite numerous SEC (and other authorities) investigations. What makes you think uBeam can't get away for a few years with a Ponzi scheme thinly veiled by impossible tech?
neya 10y ago
To those who are interested in reading more of this tech: uBeam's patent: https://www.google.com/patents/US20120299540 https://www.google.com/patents/US20120299540 "Because decibels are a logarithmic scale, a decrease of 3dB is half the power. With the uBeam system, being just one meter away from the transmitter will bring the power down by half... It’s also absolutely insane. For something that claims to be as easy as WiFi to install, look at the differences: WiFi merely requires a single router to be installed anywhere in the store. uBeam would require a dozen transmitters, each of with include mechanical steering for their transducers. uBeam would require everyone to buy an ultrasonic power receiver for each device."[0] [0]http://hackaday.com/2015/10/20/the-curious-case-of-ultrasonic-power-transfer/ http://hackaday.com/2015/10/20/the-curious-case-of-ultrasoni...
- mbrameld 10y ago
  In no way am I saying uBeam is legit, but there was a time when you had to buy a wireless adapter for each device you wanted to use with your Wi-Fi access point.
mikeyouse 10y ago
Am I the only one who thinks the HN reaction to uBeam is pretty gross? Now we're encouraging shit-talking by former employees? It's an innovative hard tech company with an audacious goal that would change the world if successful and was funded by knowledgeable investors using private money. Why is everyone here so eager to trash talk them? Because their stated goal of wireless phone charging is likely too hard to get to work right? If they "only" figure out short distance beam-formed wireless power at 25% efficiency, is the company a failure? Look around any apartment in an 'old' city and you'll see dozens of things that would benefit from being able to throw power like WiFi. 60-watt equivalent LEDs are something like 9W -- there are about 100 places in my apartment I'd like to have better light but my landlord has no interest in running new power lines. Smoke detectors trickle charging at even 1W would never run out of power. Modern 40" TVs can use as little as 25W of power -- with a powerful uBeam and a Chromecast, you could attach it to any wall and never see a cable. Those "smart mirrors" that everyone builds then never shows full frame due to the ugly cord running out of it could easily be charged via wireless tech. There are obviously many obstacles and who knows if they'll make it, but it seems extremely short sighted and against the spirit of HN to actively cheer for a company's failure. Edit: Apparently, yes, I'm the only one.
- flashbang 10y ago
  We believe in science here, not voodoo.
- minimaxir 10y ago
  The official numbers from uBeam are 1.5W maximum, in ideal circumstances: http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/07/wireless-power-charger/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/07/wireless-power-charger/ You may want to read the writeup which forced that disclosure: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam-faq/ http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam-faq/
  - mikeyouse 10y ago
    Yes yes, for their phone-sized receiver. If you change the receiver size or transmitter size, you can change the power delivered.. If you fix the distance and take away the requirement to track a moving object, you can reliably send more power as well.. Adding battery capacity to a TV that's used 4 hours per day effectively cuts the power requirement to 1/6th. Lights that are used for a few hours each night are in the same range. Why does everyone's creativity suddenly disappear when the hivemind has decided to attack a company? I'll run some better numbers tomorrow for a fixed distance / size, but intuitively, eliminating the "tracking a phone from 5M away" requirement dramatically expands the use cases.
Pitarou 10y ago
TL;DR Theranos, uBeam and Energous have all figured out how to bilk investors by exploiting their well-known tendency to "invest in teams not products". Hired some great engineers? That's good enough for us; we don't need to check whether your science is snake oil or not. The bosses of Energous are especially slick. They went for IPO early and started paying themselves huge salaries. At the point when the market might have started asking questions like, "Why is there still no product?" they headed off trouble by adding a bunch of reassuringly big names to the board.
Animats 10y ago
I commented on this 200 days ago.[1] I pointed out that you could build a demo version with off the shelf components. 4000 piezoelectric transducers in a 1 meter square frame, with enough separate drivers that you could form and steer a beam, ought to do it. It would take several kilowatts of power to get the claimed sound power level. Audio in that power range is used for ultrasonic welding of plastics. It's attenuated with distance, of course, so a few meters out, you're not getting much power. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10420539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10420539
- asmithmd1 10y ago
  This seems like the definitive source for technical information on uBeam: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam-faq/ http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam-faq/
logicallee 10y ago
Would anybody fault uBeam if they got to market using stuff Tesla showed in the 19th century? All this story shows is that after selling snake oil you should buckle up and ship aspirin. What, are investors going to sue them for not being acoustic enough? "these sales are great but this isn't the tech we were promised."? Who cares. It's called uBeam not uScream. I've never heard anyone complain about someone shipping different tech from what they raised money with. Have you?
- shrewduser 10y ago
  i don't think tesla's stuff was all that viable
  - logicallee 10y ago
    okay - but why not pivot to something that could work, as a backup project? why wouldnt the company diversify when they realized their tech probably doesn't work? they had tons of money . . .
- smirksirlot 10y ago
  There are tons of companies out there trying to get Tesla's technology to market. None of them have promised what uBeam is promising.
kumarski 10y ago
The CEO responded to some of my inquiries when I had challenged Ubeam's claims on a productHunt thread 2 years ago. https://www.producthunt.com/tech/ubeam https://www.producthunt.com/tech/ubeam I've always felt bold scientific claims required extremely bold evidence.
marincounty 10y ago
"How does a company, founded by someone with no realistic credentials or experience, raise so much money on what may never be delivered? Who decides it gets so much press coverage? Surely the VC's are performing their due-diligence and there are adults minding the store?" I think there's so much money being thrown around by the rich boys, they start to look at it like gambling. Instead of "How it works?". It's more about preceived value? All to wow a very gullible public? It's that perceived value that brings up stock price? It's those carefully carfted speeches. It's having the right look--the right back story. How many great ideas were lost because the founder didn't have the right look/dubious credentials(affilited at one time with an Ivy League School), wealthy friends, and a air of brilliance--usually just a turtleneck, or a very meticulous appearance. (It's funny how this industry has changed. You used to need to be overweight/underweight, and dress terribly in order to gain investment attention.) Of course, the junk bond boys have their hidden stash, and the right LLC. When it all crashes, they will still have the best of everything. They will wait a few years, and set up shop. It's the retail investors that will be left holding the bag. And, if you are pimping a complex scientific product, all the better, especially if you have a fall person? See a product that's kinda hard to understand, but has the o.k. of the paid pseudo science boys; that's gold! Create a product that people can't prove doesn't work--brilliant. Can't divulge trade secrets--great. Can't give up patents--great. I still wouldn't want to be on that Theranos BOD. And to the dude who emailed me at home--don't!
auvi 10y ago
uBeam is working on this since 2011. I wonder at what point uBeam will be considered "Vaporware"? If they don't deliver anything by 2021 (that's a big if), I would consider uBeam a vaporware for sure.
stelfer 10y ago
It's times like this that I'm reminded that the world really needs more physicists.
- wklauss 10y ago
  What it needs is common sense. Plenty of people pointed at the flaws, its just nobody listened. Or preferred to acto like they didn't hear.
littletimmy 10y ago
Would uBeam have received half its funding if the founder was not a woman? Between the Theranos case and now the uBeam case, I think the drive for "equality" has gone so far that it is affecting investing decisions. There are people in the Valley so desperate for female CEOs that they are willing to overlook science and commonsense if they can get a marketable female CEO. What do you think?
- zeemonkee3 10y ago
  It's about the story. An underdog - such as a very young female CEO - always makes for a good story for the press and investors (how Holmes, born into privilege, can be considered an "underdog" is beyond me, but I digress).
- Nanite 10y ago
  Yes it probably also would have gotten funding if the founder was a man. If you boldly state you can cut the cord for most mobile devices, you're going to get a lot of VC attention, this is no surprise. What is (to me at least) is the shocking realization, that due diligence apparently is not always what it is cracked up to be.
GeorgeOu 10y ago
It looks like this former uBeam engineer exposed Energous too. http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/04/those-other-guys-pt-1.html http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/04/those-other-guy... He linked to this story on Energous. http://seekingalpha.com/article/3811296-energous-buy-companys-story-stock http://seekingalpha.com/article/3811296-energous-buy-company... "Using the 1 watt as our transmitter power translates to 0.000507 watt (0.507 milliwatts or 507 microwatts) at the receiving end. " But it's even worse than this! The FCC does not allow you to transmit at the full 1 watt (30 dBm) if you focus the energy with more than 6 dB gain. If you want to use a phase array to get 21 dB antenna gain, you must drop your transmit power to 25 dBm or 0.316 watts. Every 3 dBi of antenna gain must be accompanied by 1 dBm decline in transmit power.
sargun 10y ago
What do you guys think about Lightsail (http://lightsail.com/ http://lightsail.com/)? I'm not entirely sure how they can make an economical 500 KW CAES system, but I don't totally understand their tech.

154 points by techitreal 10y ago

An insider's perspective on how really things really are in one of Silicon Valley's next unicorn startup- uBeam. Mark Cuban calls it a "Zillion Dollar Idea". Fortune calls her "Next Elon Musk". Reminded me about Theranos. But then, the author himself has brought up the comparison as well. This post is pretty interesting too- http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/04/must-have-precious.html http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/04/must-have-preci... which talks about the start of uBeam. Seems like the MIT CTO, VP, and the recent CFO- all left the company. Thoughts?

rahimiali 10y ago
ubeam's in southern CA, not silicon valley.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

manigandham 10y ago

> Surely the VC's are performing their due-diligence and there are adults minding the store? They're not. VC's (especially in SV) are notoriously bad at actually understanding any tech and very easy to trick into delivering large checks. This has been seen countless times.

minimaxir 10y ago
uBeam is an interesting case because the problems were pointed out as soon as it was announced. But then Mark Suster said "hey, our engineers said it's legit, quit your whining!" https://bothsidesofthetable.com/the-audacious-plan-to-make-electricity-as-easy-as-wifi-45d9e26d81f0 https://bothsidesofthetable.com/the-audacious-plan-to-make-e...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- smoyer 10y ago
  Suster keeps talking about it being safe because they put sound-waves into pregnant women's bellies ... the FDA actually regulates how much power can be sent, and those probes require direct (usually gel coupled) contact with the target. Sound waves can definitely damage flesh.
nihonde 10y ago
I used to be puzzled by this, but then I listened to an episode of A16z podcast and realized that these guys use Microsoft Office, Facebook, Twitter, and Medium all day long——in other words, they're typically not people who understand bleeding-edge technology except in a pop-science-article-in-wired-mag sense.
- galistoca 10y ago
  and what does using microsoft office, facebook, twitter, and medium have to do with not understanding bleeding-edge technology?
  - nihonde 10y ago
    Fair question. On the episode that I listened to, they were proclaiming that the iPad Pro has replaced the need for a desktop/laptop because it does everything that they need to do. Conspicuously absent from the list of things that an iPad Pro can do is writing code in any sane kind of development workflow. The idea that an iPad Pro could satisfy my everyday work needs is so foreign to me that I was shocked by how cursory and superficial their technology immersion really is. They need 'desktop publishing' tools, at best. I'm not claiming that a person who spends all day using Excel and Powerpoint and WhatsApp (and not Vim/Emacs/Sublime/IDE) is incapable of having a nuanced understanding of bleeding edge tech. But I am going to claim that they most likely have a "dentist's office waiting room magazine" understanding of hard tech, and I'll proudly declare that to be my not-so-expert opinion.
    - galistoca 10y ago
      You're making a lot of assumptions. Just because someone doesn't code on a daily basis doesn't mean that person doesn't know about tech. If I were their LP, I would be worried if the VCs were coding. Lastly, being good at predicting the future in terms of technology has very little to do with those little details you mentioned. I see so many developers just focused on learning the next new technology like react, grunt, es6, etc. but never even think about where this is all going, they're just satisfied that they have great skills. Not saying it's a bad thing, I'm saying being very good at technical details and seeing the trend has very little to do with each other and sometimes even contradictory (If your goal is to become the best developer who knows every single new technology, you won't have time to think about other things)
zeemonkee3 10y ago
Don't they hire/contract experts to evaluate the technology?
- mbesto 10y ago
  I do due diligence for a living and many VCs at the early stage (seed to A) do very little diligence. When you take a portfolio approach, it's usually not economical to do so for every investment.
shostack 10y ago
Source?

minimaxir 10y ago

I made the comparison between uBeam and Theranos last week which led to interesting discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11615206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11615206 In other posts by the OP (the linked post is the first of the blog), they make the same comparisons too. I was suspicious of the OP's credibility, but one of the posts has detailed physics on airborne waves which fits their experience and skills at uBeam: http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/05/acoustic-nonlinearity.html http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/05/acoustic-nonlin...

rdtsc 10y ago

> Surely the VC's are performing their due-diligence and there are adults minding the store? If your goal was to run a startup (not necessarily build a product, but just be a CEO of a startup), you just had to find someone with money more stupid than you. I saw it happen before. Someone came with a silly idea for the company, managed to convince a few non-very technical people to trust them, and off they went playing SV CEO for a while. If startups weren't hot a few years ago, they'd probably be buying and selling subprime mortgages or other such thing. Gotta wonder what is next in the pipeline. VC money is drying up I hear but money doesn't like to stay put, wonder what's the next bubble (genetics, robots, self driving cars, medical devices...)?

w1ntermute 10y ago
> Elizabeth Parrish, CEO of the biotech company BioViva, claims that her body's cells are 20 years younger after testing her company’s age-reversing gene therapy on herself. > The 45-year-old Seattle-area woman, who has no scientific or medical training, underwent the experimental treatment last September in an undisclosed clinic in Colombia. The unorthodox, overseas trial, which was designed to skirt US federal regulations, prompted the resignation of one of the company’s scientific advisors. George Martin, of the University of Washington, quit after telling MIT Technology Review, "This is a big problem. I am very upset by what is happening. I would urge lots of preclinical studies.”[0] She'll be raising a series A in no time. 0: http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/ceo-tests-crazy-genetic-therapy-on-herself-claims-it-added-20-years-of-life/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/04/ceo-tests-crazy-genet...
- rdtsc 10y ago
  I guess genetics is the new bubble ;-). Previously if uberfordogs.ly failed dogs didn't make it to the park in time to play with their friends. I am afraid to find out what happens when growanextrabrain.io fails.

ErikAugust 10y ago

I wish I could find it - there is a blog post out there about someone meeting with a VC. The VC and the person get to talking - and the convo goes to uBeam. The VC says something to the effect of, "Yeah, I know the physics don't make sense. But the CEO is so charismatic that more investors will want in down the line."

Kronopath 10y ago
This is what happens when companies are expected to sustain themselves on ever-increasing investment money until an IPO, instead of actually making money themselves. It's a Keynesian beauty contest gone wrong.
- Super_Jambo 10y ago
  It's what happens when people are too removed from market forces. The VC is not attempting to invest in a business that will make lots of money. They're investing in a business which they can _sell_ for lots of money. The market doesn't get a look in until the last greater fool buys it and is holding it when the music stops. Everyone else has been handsomely rewarded for their tomfoolery so when the music starts playing again they'll dance.
Mandatum 10y ago
That's Ponzi time territory isn't it?
hackaflocka 10y ago
I remember the first time I saw a group of young VCs (in Palo Alto no less) in public. Walking down the street together. They looked like male supermodels. All of them perfectly dressed, tall, good looking, triathlon physiques... As soon as I saw this, I could sense that this business is driven by "Confirmation Bias" and "Representativeness Bias", the Halo Effect. These guys are hiring people who look like themselves, who do the same (extreme) sports like themselves, etc. It's a case of Steve Jobs looking for someone who looks like Steve Jobs, instead of the plump, dowdy, disheveled, and genius Steve Wozniak.

muglug 10y ago

Here's a former uBeam VP of Engineering (the title the author says they had) who left the same month the author says they left: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulreynolds6 https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulreynolds6

x0x0 10y ago
maybe don't do this? If he or she wanted to be easily googleable, he or she could have put a name directly on the blog...
- chx 10y ago
  You realize of course his name is on the first page of Google results on "VP engineering" ubeam https://www.google.ca/search?complete=0&&gws_rd=ssl&q=%22VP+Engineering%22+ubeam https://www.google.ca/search?complete=0&&gws_rd=ssl&q=%22VP+... and the only result which is not "we are hiring". Then copypasting firstname lastname ubeam back into Google will spit out that LinkedIn page as the first result. It took longer to type this than do two Google searches.
  - x0x0 10y ago
    I did not realize it was that easily found
    - chx 10y ago
      I literally grew up with web searches having started browsing the (very nascent) web in 1993 with a Mosaic beta. I have tried to disseminate my knowledge in this topic via articles, book chapters and speeches. But really, we are on hacker news. This is quintessential hacking: try, change what you did based on the results, try again, repeat rinse. It will eventually work. Given the speed of Google and scanning ten results, you can fire off a search every few seconds and get to the result real quick. (Or just never if the material is not well searchable. Did you know the best or perhaps the only travel VESA monitor stand is a microphone stand? )

techitreal 10y ago

http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/05/abandon-ship.html http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/05/abandon-ship.ht... - Interesting that the CFO left less than one year after this article. http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/28/electric-liberation/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/28/electric-liberation/ Also another fun point- every techcrunch article on ubeam is by Josh Constine Turns out the VP joined because of Merc Berte - the MIT/Raytheon engineer, who also left right after series A fund raising. Both Merc and this VP guys seems amazingly sharp. But what's surprising is nowhere in the media you see any credit given to these guys.Perry is branded as a sole genius. The VP writes- "And the point of this story? In my opinion, don't take the presence of smart engineers as confirmation of a technology's viability (either way), and don't think the engineers at a company you find questionable aren't smart and are fully aware of the technical issues of what they're working on. They just want to play with fun toys."

petra 10y ago
>> every techcrunch article on ubeam is by Josh Constine Techcrunch is just a PR channel for startups.

chx 10y ago

I know this is trite but Madoff got away with his Ponzi scheme for decades despite numerous SEC (and other authorities) investigations. What makes you think uBeam can't get away for a few years with a Ponzi scheme thinly veiled by impossible tech?

neya 10y ago

To those who are interested in reading more of this tech: uBeam's patent: https://www.google.com/patents/US20120299540 https://www.google.com/patents/US20120299540 "Because decibels are a logarithmic scale, a decrease of 3dB is half the power. With the uBeam system, being just one meter away from the transmitter will bring the power down by half... It’s also absolutely insane. For something that claims to be as easy as WiFi to install, look at the differences: WiFi merely requires a single router to be installed anywhere in the store. uBeam would require a dozen transmitters, each of with include mechanical steering for their transducers. uBeam would require everyone to buy an ultrasonic power receiver for each device."[0] [0]http://hackaday.com/2015/10/20/the-curious-case-of-ultrasonic-power-transfer/ http://hackaday.com/2015/10/20/the-curious-case-of-ultrasoni...

mbrameld 10y ago
In no way am I saying uBeam is legit, but there was a time when you had to buy a wireless adapter for each device you wanted to use with your Wi-Fi access point.

mikeyouse 10y ago

Am I the only one who thinks the HN reaction to uBeam is pretty gross? Now we're encouraging shit-talking by former employees? It's an innovative hard tech company with an audacious goal that would change the world if successful and was funded by knowledgeable investors using private money. Why is everyone here so eager to trash talk them? Because their stated goal of wireless phone charging is likely too hard to get to work right? If they "only" figure out short distance beam-formed wireless power at 25% efficiency, is the company a failure? Look around any apartment in an 'old' city and you'll see dozens of things that would benefit from being able to throw power like WiFi. 60-watt equivalent LEDs are something like 9W -- there are about 100 places in my apartment I'd like to have better light but my landlord has no interest in running new power lines. Smoke detectors trickle charging at even 1W would never run out of power. Modern 40" TVs can use as little as 25W of power -- with a powerful uBeam and a Chromecast, you could attach it to any wall and never see a cable. Those "smart mirrors" that everyone builds then never shows full frame due to the ugly cord running out of it could easily be charged via wireless tech. There are obviously many obstacles and who knows if they'll make it, but it seems extremely short sighted and against the spirit of HN to actively cheer for a company's failure. Edit: Apparently, yes, I'm the only one.

flashbang 10y ago
We believe in science here, not voodoo.
minimaxir 10y ago
The official numbers from uBeam are 1.5W maximum, in ideal circumstances: http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/07/wireless-power-charger/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/07/wireless-power-charger/ You may want to read the writeup which forced that disclosure: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam-faq/ http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam-faq/
- mikeyouse 10y ago
  Yes yes, for their phone-sized receiver. If you change the receiver size or transmitter size, you can change the power delivered.. If you fix the distance and take away the requirement to track a moving object, you can reliably send more power as well.. Adding battery capacity to a TV that's used 4 hours per day effectively cuts the power requirement to 1/6th. Lights that are used for a few hours each night are in the same range. Why does everyone's creativity suddenly disappear when the hivemind has decided to attack a company? I'll run some better numbers tomorrow for a fixed distance / size, but intuitively, eliminating the "tracking a phone from 5M away" requirement dramatically expands the use cases.

Pitarou 10y ago

TL;DR Theranos, uBeam and Energous have all figured out how to bilk investors by exploiting their well-known tendency to "invest in teams not products". Hired some great engineers? That's good enough for us; we don't need to check whether your science is snake oil or not. The bosses of Energous are especially slick. They went for IPO early and started paying themselves huge salaries. At the point when the market might have started asking questions like, "Why is there still no product?" they headed off trouble by adding a bunch of reassuringly big names to the board.

Animats 10y ago

I commented on this 200 days ago.[1] I pointed out that you could build a demo version with off the shelf components. 4000 piezoelectric transducers in a 1 meter square frame, with enough separate drivers that you could form and steer a beam, ought to do it. It would take several kilowatts of power to get the claimed sound power level. Audio in that power range is used for ultrasonic welding of plastics. It's attenuated with distance, of course, so a few meters out, you're not getting much power. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10420539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10420539

asmithmd1 10y ago
This seems like the definitive source for technical information on uBeam: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam-faq/ http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/the-ubeam-faq/

logicallee 10y ago

Would anybody fault uBeam if they got to market using stuff Tesla showed in the 19th century? All this story shows is that after selling snake oil you should buckle up and ship aspirin. What, are investors going to sue them for not being acoustic enough? "these sales are great but this isn't the tech we were promised."? Who cares. It's called uBeam not uScream. I've never heard anyone complain about someone shipping different tech from what they raised money with. Have you?

shrewduser 10y ago
i don't think tesla's stuff was all that viable
- logicallee 10y ago
  okay - but why not pivot to something that could work, as a backup project? why wouldnt the company diversify when they realized their tech probably doesn't work? they had tons of money . . .
smirksirlot 10y ago
There are tons of companies out there trying to get Tesla's technology to market. None of them have promised what uBeam is promising.

kumarski 10y ago

The CEO responded to some of my inquiries when I had challenged Ubeam's claims on a productHunt thread 2 years ago. https://www.producthunt.com/tech/ubeam https://www.producthunt.com/tech/ubeam I've always felt bold scientific claims required extremely bold evidence.

marincounty 10y ago

"How does a company, founded by someone with no realistic credentials or experience, raise so much money on what may never be delivered? Who decides it gets so much press coverage? Surely the VC's are performing their due-diligence and there are adults minding the store?" I think there's so much money being thrown around by the rich boys, they start to look at it like gambling. Instead of "How it works?". It's more about preceived value? All to wow a very gullible public? It's that perceived value that brings up stock price? It's those carefully carfted speeches. It's having the right look--the right back story. How many great ideas were lost because the founder didn't have the right look/dubious credentials(affilited at one time with an Ivy League School), wealthy friends, and a air of brilliance--usually just a turtleneck, or a very meticulous appearance. (It's funny how this industry has changed. You used to need to be overweight/underweight, and dress terribly in order to gain investment attention.) Of course, the junk bond boys have their hidden stash, and the right LLC. When it all crashes, they will still have the best of everything. They will wait a few years, and set up shop. It's the retail investors that will be left holding the bag. And, if you are pimping a complex scientific product, all the better, especially if you have a fall person? See a product that's kinda hard to understand, but has the o.k. of the paid pseudo science boys; that's gold! Create a product that people can't prove doesn't work--brilliant. Can't divulge trade secrets--great. Can't give up patents--great. I still wouldn't want to be on that Theranos BOD. And to the dude who emailed me at home--don't!

auvi 10y ago

uBeam is working on this since 2011. I wonder at what point uBeam will be considered "Vaporware"? If they don't deliver anything by 2021 (that's a big if), I would consider uBeam a vaporware for sure.

stelfer 10y ago

It's times like this that I'm reminded that the world really needs more physicists.

wklauss 10y ago
What it needs is common sense. Plenty of people pointed at the flaws, its just nobody listened. Or preferred to acto like they didn't hear.

littletimmy 10y ago

Would uBeam have received half its funding if the founder was not a woman? Between the Theranos case and now the uBeam case, I think the drive for "equality" has gone so far that it is affecting investing decisions. There are people in the Valley so desperate for female CEOs that they are willing to overlook science and commonsense if they can get a marketable female CEO. What do you think?

zeemonkee3 10y ago
It's about the story. An underdog - such as a very young female CEO - always makes for a good story for the press and investors (how Holmes, born into privilege, can be considered an "underdog" is beyond me, but I digress).
Nanite 10y ago
Yes it probably also would have gotten funding if the founder was a man. If you boldly state you can cut the cord for most mobile devices, you're going to get a lot of VC attention, this is no surprise. What is (to me at least) is the shocking realization, that due diligence apparently is not always what it is cracked up to be.

GeorgeOu 10y ago

It looks like this former uBeam engineer exposed Energous too. http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/04/those-other-guys-pt-1.html http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/2016/04/those-other-guy... He linked to this story on Energous. http://seekingalpha.com/article/3811296-energous-buy-companys-story-stock http://seekingalpha.com/article/3811296-energous-buy-company... "Using the 1 watt as our transmitter power translates to 0.000507 watt (0.507 milliwatts or 507 microwatts) at the receiving end. " But it's even worse than this! The FCC does not allow you to transmit at the full 1 watt (30 dBm) if you focus the energy with more than 6 dB gain. If you want to use a phase array to get 21 dB antenna gain, you must drop your transmit power to 25 dBm or 0.316 watts. Every 3 dBi of antenna gain must be accompanied by 1 dBm decline in transmit power.

sargun 10y ago

What do you guys think about Lightsail (http://lightsail.com/ http://lightsail.com/)? I'm not entirely sure how they can make an economical 500 KW CAES system, but I don't totally understand their tech.