13 ms·

Engineer and Investor in Spat About Wireless Charging Startup UBeam

160 points by w1ntermute 10y ago

vonklaus 10y ago
Theranos is working on a technology that will exist in the near future, confirmed by many many other companies working on it, so it seems quite likely: someone will succeed in using less blood, to run more tests. That doesn't sound like a totally alien idea, and since Theranos will probably not deliver on this promise fully, someone else likely will. However, the uBeam sounds super dubious. I think wireless energy is probably possible, but without a prototype a consumer could feasibly use in their home, and the large amount if scientists I coming out against this a few years ago doesn't seem to have shrunk. So, yes it is a really hard interesting problem, but all the fun ones are. I wouldn't have invested with the expectation of success, but that the technology developed could be used for something else/is valuable.
- w1ntermute 10y ago
  > Theranos is working on a technology that will exist in the near future, confirmed by many many other companies working on it, so it seems quite likely: someone will succeed in using less blood, to run more tests. Except we don't need more blood tests[0]. With uBeam, there's no doubt that if the technology works, it would be a game-changer. Theranos was facing both technical and market challenges, but with uBeam, it's a purely technical challenge. 0: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/theranos-is-wrong-we-dont-need-more-blood-tests/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/theranos-is-wrong-we-don...
  - qaq 10y ago
    I can't agree more our startup is working on time travel there's no doubt that if the technology works, it would be a game-changer. Since it's a purely technical challenge we expect to raise a trillion dollars in our seed round.
    - twic 10y ago
      And if not, pivot to perpetual motion, like this chap: https://vimeo.com/148032441 https://vimeo.com/148032441
    - malz 10y ago
      I should point out that time travel would fix the phone charging problem quite handily. Just send your phone back in time a few hours. Not sure if there are other applications.
    - danieltillett 10y ago
      You don't even need to do this - if you need a trillion dollars then just get in your time machine once it is built, head back 25 before today and invest $1 in all the hot stocks and winning lotto number so that by today you have the trillion you need to build the time machine. Simple.
  - vonklaus 10y ago
    I disagree with that article as it makes no sense. Their assertion that tests === diagnostics that map 1:1 to a disease was baseless. Tests don't answer the question "doe patient have diabetes?", they answer the question "what is the patients glucose level?" 115 mg/dl. Maybe the patient forgot to fast, maybe the test was a fluke? Either way a consistent average of 85 would put that out of range. SO I found the five thirty eight article stupid so I guess I misunderstood why more health data would be bad.
    - deleted 10y ago
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    - kevinnk 10y ago
      The 538 article actually makes a lot of sense and is a pretty decent introduction to a common public health issue. > Their assertion that tests === diagnostics that map 1:1 to a disease was baseless. Tests don't answer the question "doe patient have diabetes?", they answer the question "what is the patients glucose level?" 115 mg/dl. Medical tests that aren't actionable aren't useful. So while you're correct in a very narrow sense, you have to use the results to make a decision about treatment. If you're going to make treatment decisions based on tests that have some amount of inherent error, you may end up over or under-treating patients. > Maybe the patient forgot to fast, maybe the test was a fluke? Either way a consistent average of 85 would put that out of range. Medical tests have both random and systematic error. What you're talking about is random error (i.e. a single test result being bad). However, many tests have systematic error (i.e. the result being wrong every time the test is taken) just due to personal variation in what's "normal". The article makes the point that if more tests lead to worse outcomes[1] (due to overtreatment) then adding more tests is useless or worse than useless. This effect is particularly pronounced when testing across large populations, even if the test is highly accurate. [1] And in many cases they do. For example, early mammogram screenings result in worse outcomes for patients when done across a large population. See http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2480757 http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2480757
      - cperciva 10y ago
        Medical tests that aren't actionable aren't useful. True, but screening tests are very useful. If you can separate the population into "definitely diabetic", "definitely not diabetic", and "needs more testing" quickly and cheaply, that's a win. The fact that it doesn't always give you an actionable result doesn't make it useless.
- onion2k 10y ago
  I don't think they will. Or rather they won't deliver anything as good as what they promise. Imagine you're testing for something that requires 10 modified white blood cells per million. A pinprick drop of blood has about 7,000,000 white blood cells in it. So you might expect to see 70 modified cells... but only if those cells are evenly distributed throughout the patients blood. They're not. They're randomly distributed. So the statistical likelihood of getting a false negative is high. The answer to that is to take more blood, from a vein. You can't make a more accurate test because you simply don't have the necessary information. If you do take more blood then the test gets as expensive as a normal test and you no longer have any cost advantage.
aerovistae 10y ago
I remember very clearly when something or other about this company got posted here awhile ago and almost immediately thereafter someone submitted a blog post explaining in basic physics terminology that the company's premise was in no uncertain terms total bullshit, and reamed the entire startup community for heaping attention and praise on them without thinking through what (to the author) were obvious faults in their plan. I enjoyed that piece. I like it when the discussion reverts to basic math and physics to resolve points of contention. At any rate, it continues to amuse/distress me in the time since then that the company is still around and still has investors, etc. Do people still not get it? It won't work. On some level, moreover, it disturbs me that people are actively pursuing a technology that would effectively be torture to household pets. Does that mean nothing to anyone? Do they get that dogs and cats would be able to hear this as a siren in their skull?
- minimaxir 10y ago
  Link to HN discussion of referenced blog post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091
  - codezero 10y ago
    I'd love to know the name of the company they're referencing is.
    - alanh 10y ago
      Ubeam, of course. I guess you are referring to the top comment by cperciva, about the company that banked on communications speeds surpassing the speed of light? I’m curious, too.
      - codezero 10y ago
        Yep, specifically the company cperciva referred to in his comment.
sajid 10y ago
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."
puppetmaster3 10y ago
Investor seem to like bombastic claims and bombastic people.
calcsam 10y ago
When a reputable investor and a good engineer are in a dispute about whether a startup is financially viable, believe the investor. When a reputable investor and a good engineer are in a dispute about whether a startup is technically viable, believe the engineer.
- jboydyhacker 10y ago
  I'm not entirely sure either side is lying. It's pretty tough to go around a CEO to the board or investors with concerns like that. I don't think it's necessarily fair for Suster to say "Hey I talked to this engineer and he never voiced these concerns while I worked with him" based on that reason. Mark is an operator and knows that most people do respect the CEO chain of command unless the behavior is unethical or the situation extreme. On the other hand, what's the bloody point of the engineer coming out in a secret blog to raise concerns on the tech. If the team can't develop a solution, the company will not be able to raise money and fail. If enough people read the blog and get concerned reading the blog- the company fails because of litigation around fraud etc and everyone loses their jobs and the company for sure fails to find a solution. Either way, if all of our goals is to see innovation, it's not a very constructive approach.
  - paulsutter 10y ago
    calcsan never suggested anyone is lying. He said in each circumstance a different party is much more likely to be right.
  - ryguytilidie 10y ago
    At this point I honestly have no idea what people at startups are supposed to do if they suspect wrongdoing/foul play by executives. Tell your boss, who tells the CEO, who fires you. Tell an investor, who wants to protect their investment, and they fire you. Tell the CEO and they fire you. Tell the HR manager and, again, their job is to protect the CEO and the exec team so they fire you. I'm genuinely wondering what the expectation was here. I imagine if this person had expressed these concerns to Suster he would have been shushed/fired, so thats why he didn't...
gundar 10y ago
Even if they can dynamically track the receiver and use beam steering on the transmitted ultrasonic energy. How does that work in their coffee shop example? Do they need to dynamically track and steer multiple beams for every coffee shop patron? How tightly could they form the beam? If you have the phone on your ear or in your pocket, what leakage/side lobes are directed at your body. I know that ultrasounds are used medically, but there are power limits to prevent tissue heating/cavitation. If they want to deliver 5-10W at the target what about someone standing in a sidelobe closer to the transmitter. How quickly can they shut off the beam from going right into your ear if you move the phone away from your head?
state 10y ago
Hard not to be impressed by how aggressive 'the engineer' is on his blog[0]. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this. It's pretty bold. Seems rare to find someone being so candid. Am I missing something? Does this happen in public regularly? 0 - http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com.au/ http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com.au/
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jeffmould 10y ago
Someone will eventually do this, or at least something similar, just maybe not with ultrasound. Whether that company is uBeam or another company is hard to say. I was a little surprised to see Suster's response. One half of me says that is great to see an investor sticking his neck out for one of his investments and conveying the faith he has in that investment. Personally, I don't get judging uBeam and calling them a failure quite yet. I think it is unfair to compare them to Theranos. At least with uBeam there is no claim they have faked results or compliance issues. There are no criminal investigations over falsified technology. The only issue really at hand with uBeam is an overzealous CEO who stated they would have a prototype available and they haven't delivered yet. So what? They are behind, it is bleeding edge tech that will have a huge impact if they are able to pull it off. Is it because she is a female everyone is quick to judge her a failure at this point? Or because she is a young, first-time CEO? If Elon Musk was the CEO would the same negative press be surrounding uBeam about a failure to deliver? Now on the flip side, even Suster's post lends truth to Reynolds' statements. This part, to me at least, is a little more damning, and leads me to believe that Reynolds really was trying to put a stop to the hyperbole marketing. Suster states, "Throughout my many discussions with Paul over our time together, he never questioned the viability of uBeam and the technology that he was critical in developing. Instead he expressed concerns that we not overstate our capabilities or fall prey to hyperbole." To me these are one in the same essentially. Reynolds apparently was concerned about the claims being made, said something to Suster, which Suster confirms in this statement, and now Suster is downplaying those concerns. In the end this seems like drama over nothing to me. So what if they fail to deliver? Thousands of companies before them and thousands of companies after them will fail to deliver on a product at some point. That's the nature of the beast. To me it seems the only issue is that there is a young CEO who is excited about a product that has yet to be developed. She makes exciting, dramatic statements about her company and product than she really should be making, and both Reynolds and Suster tend to confirm this. But I believe her statements and the Theranos situation are in two different ballparks, so I think the comparison is far from fair to uBeam.
- madengr 10y ago
  They aren't going to do it with EM either, as most of the same fundamental limits apply.
Twirrim 10y ago
> “There is too much noise. There are too many flags popping up. What the heck is going on there?” Thorpe says. So the reason to to invest more is because of the 'noise' and the 'flags popping up'. Not because the company has consistently failed to meet any of its ambitions?
- beambot 10y ago
  So... post-facto crowd-sourced due diligence?
- DanFeldman 10y ago
  To be fair, not meeting any of its ambitions is probably one of the biggest flags popping up...
rajacombinator 10y ago
Came in ready to denounce Suster, but after reading his post, he handled the situation pretty tactfully. The engineer's blog on the other hand, is pure drivel. He may be correct, but his blog posts are awful and not helping him at all.
andmarios 10y ago
It is a scam. The only difference between other scams is that they managed to take a bite of larger investors than usual. There are always people who want to believe. Some months ago there was a man who claimed that he could create hydrogen from water by bombarding the water with radio waves. The electricity needed for the radio waves was neglible to the energy we could get by burning the hydrogen. I tried to explain with physics, maths, equations, I pointed to esteemed professors' materials. Nothing. For the people who wanted to believe, even if they had a nobel laureate explain them the “inventor's” fallacies, they wouldn't budge.
harryh 10y ago
FWIW I've been following this story for a long time and here is what I think the situation is. Early on the uBeam folks built a pretty low power acoustic transmitter/receiver that could, over a relatively short distance, actually deliver a charge to a phone. Not a super useful charge but, you know, something. Based on this demo and some handwaving (and maybe a bit of math) they went out and said "something that delivers more charge is possible. give us some money and time and we'll work out the engineering." Mostly they raised money on this. Likely without a ton of due diligence. The actual engineers working on the project (including the one in this "spat") at some point realize the actual limitations of what is possible physics wise. But they still think "a useful product is possible here." Maybe you can deliver enough to charge a phone overnight while it sits on your coffee table. That could actually be cool? Maybe? Meanwhile the PR machine gets going and, as so often happens, the exaggeration kicks in. Those that haven't been here themselves look at it and see LIES. I have a more nuanced view. The press can misunderstand and distort things on their own side. And then if you don't refute it fast enough then you almost have to support it. Not saying this is ok, but I can see how it happens. The statements about what is possible just get out of hand and then you're stuck with them. So behind the scenes some of the engineers read the press and go "WTF, this is insane, I'm out!" Others say "well, that's all bullshit, but this overnight charger thing could be useful. So I'm gonna keep my head down and work on that. If we can get it to the point that we can release a commercial product then we'll see what the actual market is." Inevitably actually building a commercial product takes longer than you think. These are just normal engineering delays. No "trying to defy physics" type delays. Which brings us to the present day. Almost certainly what has been hyped is not real. But there might be something less good there. Maybe. If they can balance the tradeoffs between input power, actual power delivered, distance and safety. That's real engineering work right there. All just speculation. Take it for whatever it's worth.
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- gundar 10y ago
  But you can take even normal audio and blast it loud enough to generate some trivial power in a receiving microphone. Phased-array/beam-searing is known technology. You can google and see that she was doing the PR circuit and making some grandiose statements herself. You can't just tackle a hard problem, take in lots of money, produce nothing and say "oops, technology is hard". And shouldn't they have " realize[ed] the actual limitations of what is possible physics wise" before they took the money and started the engineering? Getting 90% of the way to the finish line, but getting beaten there by a competitor is a normal business failure. Getting 0% of the way there, but putting out lots of PR is a con job.
iaw 10y ago
There are two approaches to this concept: 1) One heavily rooted in Physics, Math, and well understood Mechanical properties that says it is not feasible. 2) One heavily dogmatic approach that boils down to a fundamental misunderstanding of Engineering and it's limits. There are things that can be done, and there are things that cannot be done. Examples of things that can be done: 1) Human travel to Mars - It's hard but very feasible 2) Economically Positive Controlled Fusion - It's harder than getting a man to Mars, the economics of investing in the technology are difficult to justify relative to things like oil exploration, but it remains theoretically, if not technically, possible. 3) Completely Green Energy on Earth - Technical, political, and economic forces make this goal challenging but it is very possible if we try as a species. Examples of things that cannot be done: 1) Faster than light travel - It's not physically possible with our current understanding of the universe, and nothing indicates this will be changing at any point. There are mathematical constructs that imply it's a possibility, but the physical requirements of these constructs are considered super unlikely to exist (and in some senses have very little meaning). Unless our understanding of the physical world changes to include materials like the ones described mathematically, this is thoroughly impossible. 2) Fly People 1000s of miles on 1 fluid ounce of gasoline - The energy isn't chemically in the substance. Unless you have some new fission and/or fusion mechanism (see earlier) this is physically impossible. Even if you could beat all of our observations around the engine cycles and overcome the theoretical maximum efficiencies (e.g. extract 100% of the energy from the gasoline), it would still not be possible because the raw energy required to perform the function of raising people into the air and changing their momentum is so much greater than what is chemically available in that much gasoline. 3) Pack enough energy safely into air via sound (or another mechanism) to allow for wireless charging - You should have seen this item coming. For reasons outlined by people who have spent much more time on this than I have, this is physically impossible. Long-range cohesive sound waves : not possible. Air efficiency for sound transmission : very very poor. Using EM runs the risk of all sorts of nasty side effects (it burns, it burns). Lasers are the only thing I can think of that could work, they're coherent and relatively efficient, they could target high density solar cells to charge the phone right? Yep, they sure could. Bill Gates investigated high energy lasers as a means of killing mosquitos in developing nations to prevent the spread of malaria, they built a fantastic system that worked perfectly, the concern over injury or loss of human life was just too great so they abandoned it. Would you want to get laser burns every so often in trade for wireless phone charging? I don't.
yarou 10y ago
I'm surprised these guys are still around. I remember having a hearty chuckle when I first saw it on either HN or Product Hunt, thinking to myself "wow, does anyone take this seriously?" A rising tide lifts all boats I suppose. Even if your boat is actually a floating piece of debris.
svskeptic 10y ago
For me the big issue is Mark insisting on holding on to the case that this was a good investment. Last time he insisted on calling out the non-believers about tech. This time, he only writes a couple sentences defending the tech and is laying the groundwork for abandoning the physics and just supporting the team. Something like.. 'yeah, we took a chance. Someone has to. It didn't pan out, but the team is great.' I have done my share of pitching the VCs and they have to uphold the image that they are the smartest people in the room, or else what are they? Just Money who can't possibly know everything about everything? No! can't be. So, here is a smart person dispensing advice on all things life, entrepreneurship, investment and technology who is clearly been had and out of his depth in this particular field. But smart enough to know that he's been had and the only remaining way out is to abandon tech and back the team. This is a personal issue for Mark and has nothing to do with science and the rest of us. The science is clear. He just can't admit that he was had, because that kills his standing in his day job.
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alberthartman 10y ago
People ask me all the time will this ubeam technology work. I tell them of course it will, believe me I know. And who are those naysayers anyway? Have you looked at ubeam's investors? They're yuuuge. 4 rounds financing and counting. Number one in the polls that matter. And who's complaining? Low energy unfunded technoid losers just sitting around and throwing bricks. Where is their funding? Ubeam's got $23M in four rounds. If they slander them much more, I think they'll have to sue them for libel. That'll show them. Just another few rounds and they'll get this stuff finished and shipped. There will be energy zapping all over the place. People will get sick of all their gadgets that will be charging for free everywhere. They'll pay the company to remove the chargers, there's too much ubeam energy everywhere. Investors are calling all the time wanting to give ubeam more money. They never had a deal this good. Yuuuuge I tell you, yuuuuge!
- cududa 10y ago
  Personally, I kind of find pop-culture parodying a bit annoying. Not sure if it's just my taste, or if others dislike it too - thoughts on if it's appropriate for HN?
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lordnacho 10y ago
Aside from it not being physically possible, there's a question of whether it would beat alternatives. My wife told me IKEA are now selling wireless charging surfaces. So for example if you buy a shelf, it could have magnetic induction charging, which a number of phones now support. It's not a big deal hooking up some wires, and once it becomes common, there may well be a time when everyone expects every table, shelf, or countertop to charge their devices. It's not something that requires much research either. I already have a magnetic charging unit for my samsung phone. At the moment it's a toy, but not hard to imagine it built into a shelving unit.
- aliston 10y ago
  This was my thought too... why use ultrasound when you can use induction? Was there some perceived advantage to sound?
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techitreal 10y ago
This post is amazing. What Mark Suster Missed In His Blog Post Defending uBeam https://ludwitt.wordpress.com/2016/05/13/what-mark-suster-missed-in-his-blog-post-defending-ubeam/ https://ludwitt.wordpress.com/2016/05/13/what-mark-suster-mi... Sums this up the best.

160 points by w1ntermute 10y ago

Theranos is working on a technology that will exist in the near future, confirmed by many many other companies working on it, so it seems quite likely: someone will succeed in using less blood, to run more tests. That doesn't sound like a totally alien idea, and since Theranos will probably not deliver on this promise fully, someone else likely will. However, the uBeam sounds super dubious. I think wireless energy is probably possible, but without a prototype a consumer could feasibly use in their home, and the large amount if scientists I coming out against this a few years ago doesn't seem to have shrunk. So, yes it is a really hard interesting problem, but all the fun ones are. I wouldn't have invested with the expectation of success, but that the technology developed could be used for something else/is valuable.

w1ntermute 10y ago
> Theranos is working on a technology that will exist in the near future, confirmed by many many other companies working on it, so it seems quite likely: someone will succeed in using less blood, to run more tests. Except we don't need more blood tests[0]. With uBeam, there's no doubt that if the technology works, it would be a game-changer. Theranos was facing both technical and market challenges, but with uBeam, it's a purely technical challenge. 0: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/theranos-is-wrong-we-dont-need-more-blood-tests/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/theranos-is-wrong-we-don...
- qaq 10y ago
  I can't agree more our startup is working on time travel there's no doubt that if the technology works, it would be a game-changer. Since it's a purely technical challenge we expect to raise a trillion dollars in our seed round.
  - twic 10y ago
    And if not, pivot to perpetual motion, like this chap: https://vimeo.com/148032441 https://vimeo.com/148032441
  - malz 10y ago
    I should point out that time travel would fix the phone charging problem quite handily. Just send your phone back in time a few hours. Not sure if there are other applications.
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    You don't even need to do this - if you need a trillion dollars then just get in your time machine once it is built, head back 25 before today and invest $1 in all the hot stocks and winning lotto number so that by today you have the trillion you need to build the time machine. Simple.
- vonklaus 10y ago
  I disagree with that article as it makes no sense. Their assertion that tests === diagnostics that map 1:1 to a disease was baseless. Tests don't answer the question "doe patient have diabetes?", they answer the question "what is the patients glucose level?" 115 mg/dl. Maybe the patient forgot to fast, maybe the test was a fluke? Either way a consistent average of 85 would put that out of range. SO I found the five thirty eight article stupid so I guess I misunderstood why more health data would be bad.
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  - kevinnk 10y ago
    The 538 article actually makes a lot of sense and is a pretty decent introduction to a common public health issue. > Their assertion that tests === diagnostics that map 1:1 to a disease was baseless. Tests don't answer the question "doe patient have diabetes?", they answer the question "what is the patients glucose level?" 115 mg/dl. Medical tests that aren't actionable aren't useful. So while you're correct in a very narrow sense, you have to use the results to make a decision about treatment. If you're going to make treatment decisions based on tests that have some amount of inherent error, you may end up over or under-treating patients. > Maybe the patient forgot to fast, maybe the test was a fluke? Either way a consistent average of 85 would put that out of range. Medical tests have both random and systematic error. What you're talking about is random error (i.e. a single test result being bad). However, many tests have systematic error (i.e. the result being wrong every time the test is taken) just due to personal variation in what's "normal". The article makes the point that if more tests lead to worse outcomes[1] (due to overtreatment) then adding more tests is useless or worse than useless. This effect is particularly pronounced when testing across large populations, even if the test is highly accurate. [1] And in many cases they do. For example, early mammogram screenings result in worse outcomes for patients when done across a large population. See http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2480757 http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=2480757
    - cperciva 10y ago
      Medical tests that aren't actionable aren't useful. True, but screening tests are very useful. If you can separate the population into "definitely diabetic", "definitely not diabetic", and "needs more testing" quickly and cheaply, that's a win. The fact that it doesn't always give you an actionable result doesn't make it useless.
onion2k 10y ago
I don't think they will. Or rather they won't deliver anything as good as what they promise. Imagine you're testing for something that requires 10 modified white blood cells per million. A pinprick drop of blood has about 7,000,000 white blood cells in it. So you might expect to see 70 modified cells... but only if those cells are evenly distributed throughout the patients blood. They're not. They're randomly distributed. So the statistical likelihood of getting a false negative is high. The answer to that is to take more blood, from a vein. You can't make a more accurate test because you simply don't have the necessary information. If you do take more blood then the test gets as expensive as a normal test and you no longer have any cost advantage.

aerovistae 10y ago

I remember very clearly when something or other about this company got posted here awhile ago and almost immediately thereafter someone submitted a blog post explaining in basic physics terminology that the company's premise was in no uncertain terms total bullshit, and reamed the entire startup community for heaping attention and praise on them without thinking through what (to the author) were obvious faults in their plan. I enjoyed that piece. I like it when the discussion reverts to basic math and physics to resolve points of contention. At any rate, it continues to amuse/distress me in the time since then that the company is still around and still has investors, etc. Do people still not get it? It won't work. On some level, moreover, it disturbs me that people are actively pursuing a technology that would effectively be torture to household pets. Does that mean nothing to anyone? Do they get that dogs and cats would be able to hear this as a siren in their skull?

minimaxir 10y ago
Link to HN discussion of referenced blog post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8542091
- codezero 10y ago
  I'd love to know the name of the company they're referencing is.
  - alanh 10y ago
    Ubeam, of course. I guess you are referring to the top comment by cperciva, about the company that banked on communications speeds surpassing the speed of light? I’m curious, too.
    - codezero 10y ago
      Yep, specifically the company cperciva referred to in his comment.

sajid 10y ago

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled."

puppetmaster3 10y ago

Investor seem to like bombastic claims and bombastic people.

calcsam 10y ago

When a reputable investor and a good engineer are in a dispute about whether a startup is financially viable, believe the investor. When a reputable investor and a good engineer are in a dispute about whether a startup is technically viable, believe the engineer.

jboydyhacker 10y ago
I'm not entirely sure either side is lying. It's pretty tough to go around a CEO to the board or investors with concerns like that. I don't think it's necessarily fair for Suster to say "Hey I talked to this engineer and he never voiced these concerns while I worked with him" based on that reason. Mark is an operator and knows that most people do respect the CEO chain of command unless the behavior is unethical or the situation extreme. On the other hand, what's the bloody point of the engineer coming out in a secret blog to raise concerns on the tech. If the team can't develop a solution, the company will not be able to raise money and fail. If enough people read the blog and get concerned reading the blog- the company fails because of litigation around fraud etc and everyone loses their jobs and the company for sure fails to find a solution. Either way, if all of our goals is to see innovation, it's not a very constructive approach.
- paulsutter 10y ago
  calcsan never suggested anyone is lying. He said in each circumstance a different party is much more likely to be right.
- ryguytilidie 10y ago
  At this point I honestly have no idea what people at startups are supposed to do if they suspect wrongdoing/foul play by executives. Tell your boss, who tells the CEO, who fires you. Tell an investor, who wants to protect their investment, and they fire you. Tell the CEO and they fire you. Tell the HR manager and, again, their job is to protect the CEO and the exec team so they fire you. I'm genuinely wondering what the expectation was here. I imagine if this person had expressed these concerns to Suster he would have been shushed/fired, so thats why he didn't...

gundar 10y ago

Even if they can dynamically track the receiver and use beam steering on the transmitted ultrasonic energy. How does that work in their coffee shop example? Do they need to dynamically track and steer multiple beams for every coffee shop patron? How tightly could they form the beam? If you have the phone on your ear or in your pocket, what leakage/side lobes are directed at your body. I know that ultrasounds are used medically, but there are power limits to prevent tissue heating/cavitation. If they want to deliver 5-10W at the target what about someone standing in a sidelobe closer to the transmitter. How quickly can they shut off the beam from going right into your ear if you move the phone away from your head?

state 10y ago

Hard not to be impressed by how aggressive 'the engineer' is on his blog[0]. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this. It's pretty bold. Seems rare to find someone being so candid. Am I missing something? Does this happen in public regularly? 0 - http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com.au/ http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com.au/

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jeffmould 10y ago

Someone will eventually do this, or at least something similar, just maybe not with ultrasound. Whether that company is uBeam or another company is hard to say. I was a little surprised to see Suster's response. One half of me says that is great to see an investor sticking his neck out for one of his investments and conveying the faith he has in that investment. Personally, I don't get judging uBeam and calling them a failure quite yet. I think it is unfair to compare them to Theranos. At least with uBeam there is no claim they have faked results or compliance issues. There are no criminal investigations over falsified technology. The only issue really at hand with uBeam is an overzealous CEO who stated they would have a prototype available and they haven't delivered yet. So what? They are behind, it is bleeding edge tech that will have a huge impact if they are able to pull it off. Is it because she is a female everyone is quick to judge her a failure at this point? Or because she is a young, first-time CEO? If Elon Musk was the CEO would the same negative press be surrounding uBeam about a failure to deliver? Now on the flip side, even Suster's post lends truth to Reynolds' statements. This part, to me at least, is a little more damning, and leads me to believe that Reynolds really was trying to put a stop to the hyperbole marketing. Suster states, "Throughout my many discussions with Paul over our time together, he never questioned the viability of uBeam and the technology that he was critical in developing. Instead he expressed concerns that we not overstate our capabilities or fall prey to hyperbole." To me these are one in the same essentially. Reynolds apparently was concerned about the claims being made, said something to Suster, which Suster confirms in this statement, and now Suster is downplaying those concerns. In the end this seems like drama over nothing to me. So what if they fail to deliver? Thousands of companies before them and thousands of companies after them will fail to deliver on a product at some point. That's the nature of the beast. To me it seems the only issue is that there is a young CEO who is excited about a product that has yet to be developed. She makes exciting, dramatic statements about her company and product than she really should be making, and both Reynolds and Suster tend to confirm this. But I believe her statements and the Theranos situation are in two different ballparks, so I think the comparison is far from fair to uBeam.

madengr 10y ago
They aren't going to do it with EM either, as most of the same fundamental limits apply.

Twirrim 10y ago

> “There is too much noise. There are too many flags popping up. What the heck is going on there?” Thorpe says. So the reason to to invest more is because of the 'noise' and the 'flags popping up'. Not because the company has consistently failed to meet any of its ambitions?

beambot 10y ago
So... post-facto crowd-sourced due diligence?
DanFeldman 10y ago
To be fair, not meeting any of its ambitions is probably one of the biggest flags popping up...

rajacombinator 10y ago

Came in ready to denounce Suster, but after reading his post, he handled the situation pretty tactfully. The engineer's blog on the other hand, is pure drivel. He may be correct, but his blog posts are awful and not helping him at all.

andmarios 10y ago

It is a scam. The only difference between other scams is that they managed to take a bite of larger investors than usual. There are always people who want to believe. Some months ago there was a man who claimed that he could create hydrogen from water by bombarding the water with radio waves. The electricity needed for the radio waves was neglible to the energy we could get by burning the hydrogen. I tried to explain with physics, maths, equations, I pointed to esteemed professors' materials. Nothing. For the people who wanted to believe, even if they had a nobel laureate explain them the “inventor's” fallacies, they wouldn't budge.

harryh 10y ago

FWIW I've been following this story for a long time and here is what I think the situation is. Early on the uBeam folks built a pretty low power acoustic transmitter/receiver that could, over a relatively short distance, actually deliver a charge to a phone. Not a super useful charge but, you know, something. Based on this demo and some handwaving (and maybe a bit of math) they went out and said "something that delivers more charge is possible. give us some money and time and we'll work out the engineering." Mostly they raised money on this. Likely without a ton of due diligence. The actual engineers working on the project (including the one in this "spat") at some point realize the actual limitations of what is possible physics wise. But they still think "a useful product is possible here." Maybe you can deliver enough to charge a phone overnight while it sits on your coffee table. That could actually be cool? Maybe? Meanwhile the PR machine gets going and, as so often happens, the exaggeration kicks in. Those that haven't been here themselves look at it and see LIES. I have a more nuanced view. The press can misunderstand and distort things on their own side. And then if you don't refute it fast enough then you almost have to support it. Not saying this is ok, but I can see how it happens. The statements about what is possible just get out of hand and then you're stuck with them. So behind the scenes some of the engineers read the press and go "WTF, this is insane, I'm out!" Others say "well, that's all bullshit, but this overnight charger thing could be useful. So I'm gonna keep my head down and work on that. If we can get it to the point that we can release a commercial product then we'll see what the actual market is." Inevitably actually building a commercial product takes longer than you think. These are just normal engineering delays. No "trying to defy physics" type delays. Which brings us to the present day. Almost certainly what has been hyped is not real. But there might be something less good there. Maybe. If they can balance the tradeoffs between input power, actual power delivered, distance and safety. That's real engineering work right there. All just speculation. Take it for whatever it's worth.

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gundar 10y ago
But you can take even normal audio and blast it loud enough to generate some trivial power in a receiving microphone. Phased-array/beam-searing is known technology. You can google and see that she was doing the PR circuit and making some grandiose statements herself. You can't just tackle a hard problem, take in lots of money, produce nothing and say "oops, technology is hard". And shouldn't they have " realize[ed] the actual limitations of what is possible physics wise" before they took the money and started the engineering? Getting 90% of the way to the finish line, but getting beaten there by a competitor is a normal business failure. Getting 0% of the way there, but putting out lots of PR is a con job.

iaw 10y ago

There are two approaches to this concept: 1) One heavily rooted in Physics, Math, and well understood Mechanical properties that says it is not feasible. 2) One heavily dogmatic approach that boils down to a fundamental misunderstanding of Engineering and it's limits. There are things that can be done, and there are things that cannot be done. Examples of things that can be done: 1) Human travel to Mars - It's hard but very feasible 2) Economically Positive Controlled Fusion - It's harder than getting a man to Mars, the economics of investing in the technology are difficult to justify relative to things like oil exploration, but it remains theoretically, if not technically, possible. 3) Completely Green Energy on Earth - Technical, political, and economic forces make this goal challenging but it is very possible if we try as a species. Examples of things that cannot be done: 1) Faster than light travel - It's not physically possible with our current understanding of the universe, and nothing indicates this will be changing at any point. There are mathematical constructs that imply it's a possibility, but the physical requirements of these constructs are considered super unlikely to exist (and in some senses have very little meaning). Unless our understanding of the physical world changes to include materials like the ones described mathematically, this is thoroughly impossible. 2) Fly People 1000s of miles on 1 fluid ounce of gasoline - The energy isn't chemically in the substance. Unless you have some new fission and/or fusion mechanism (see earlier) this is physically impossible. Even if you could beat all of our observations around the engine cycles and overcome the theoretical maximum efficiencies (e.g. extract 100% of the energy from the gasoline), it would still not be possible because the raw energy required to perform the function of raising people into the air and changing their momentum is so much greater than what is chemically available in that much gasoline. 3) Pack enough energy safely into air via sound (or another mechanism) to allow for wireless charging - You should have seen this item coming. For reasons outlined by people who have spent much more time on this than I have, this is physically impossible. Long-range cohesive sound waves : not possible. Air efficiency for sound transmission : very very poor. Using EM runs the risk of all sorts of nasty side effects (it burns, it burns). Lasers are the only thing I can think of that could work, they're coherent and relatively efficient, they could target high density solar cells to charge the phone right? Yep, they sure could. Bill Gates investigated high energy lasers as a means of killing mosquitos in developing nations to prevent the spread of malaria, they built a fantastic system that worked perfectly, the concern over injury or loss of human life was just too great so they abandoned it. Would you want to get laser burns every so often in trade for wireless phone charging? I don't.

yarou 10y ago

I'm surprised these guys are still around. I remember having a hearty chuckle when I first saw it on either HN or Product Hunt, thinking to myself "wow, does anyone take this seriously?" A rising tide lifts all boats I suppose. Even if your boat is actually a floating piece of debris.

svskeptic 10y ago

For me the big issue is Mark insisting on holding on to the case that this was a good investment. Last time he insisted on calling out the non-believers about tech. This time, he only writes a couple sentences defending the tech and is laying the groundwork for abandoning the physics and just supporting the team. Something like.. 'yeah, we took a chance. Someone has to. It didn't pan out, but the team is great.' I have done my share of pitching the VCs and they have to uphold the image that they are the smartest people in the room, or else what are they? Just Money who can't possibly know everything about everything? No! can't be. So, here is a smart person dispensing advice on all things life, entrepreneurship, investment and technology who is clearly been had and out of his depth in this particular field. But smart enough to know that he's been had and the only remaining way out is to abandon tech and back the team. This is a personal issue for Mark and has nothing to do with science and the rest of us. The science is clear. He just can't admit that he was had, because that kills his standing in his day job.

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alberthartman 10y ago

People ask me all the time will this ubeam technology work. I tell them of course it will, believe me I know. And who are those naysayers anyway? Have you looked at ubeam's investors? They're yuuuge. 4 rounds financing and counting. Number one in the polls that matter. And who's complaining? Low energy unfunded technoid losers just sitting around and throwing bricks. Where is their funding? Ubeam's got $23M in four rounds. If they slander them much more, I think they'll have to sue them for libel. That'll show them. Just another few rounds and they'll get this stuff finished and shipped. There will be energy zapping all over the place. People will get sick of all their gadgets that will be charging for free everywhere. They'll pay the company to remove the chargers, there's too much ubeam energy everywhere. Investors are calling all the time wanting to give ubeam more money. They never had a deal this good. Yuuuuge I tell you, yuuuuge!

cududa 10y ago
Personally, I kind of find pop-culture parodying a bit annoying. Not sure if it's just my taste, or if others dislike it too - thoughts on if it's appropriate for HN?

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lordnacho 10y ago

Aside from it not being physically possible, there's a question of whether it would beat alternatives. My wife told me IKEA are now selling wireless charging surfaces. So for example if you buy a shelf, it could have magnetic induction charging, which a number of phones now support. It's not a big deal hooking up some wires, and once it becomes common, there may well be a time when everyone expects every table, shelf, or countertop to charge their devices. It's not something that requires much research either. I already have a magnetic charging unit for my samsung phone. At the moment it's a toy, but not hard to imagine it built into a shelving unit.

aliston 10y ago
This was my thought too... why use ultrasound when you can use induction? Was there some perceived advantage to sound?

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techitreal 10y ago

This post is amazing. What Mark Suster Missed In His Blog Post Defending uBeam https://ludwitt.wordpress.com/2016/05/13/what-mark-suster-missed-in-his-blog-post-defending-ubeam/ https://ludwitt.wordpress.com/2016/05/13/what-mark-suster-mi... Sums this up the best.