4 ms·
a similar statup ubeam by a female founder, with secrecy, and non proven prototype yet. however, a16z invested in them to my surprise. https://techcrunch.com/
by bedros 10y ago
a similar statup ubeam by a female founder, with secrecy, and non proven prototype yet.
however, a16z invested in them to my surprise.
https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/11/charged/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/05/11/charged/
- nikanj 10y agoUBeam et al don't make a product, their product is the company. A16z is betting there's high demand for pie-in-the-sky, female-ceo, headline-making companies. So far, they've been right.
- bedros 10y agoI would expect a16z to have a better due diligence before investing.
- thebiglebrewski 10y agoI really don't like your tone about female CEOs. UBeam and Theranos are terrible examples. Far more companies have been run into the ground by male leadership. PS - I'm a dude
- dleslie 10y agoThere's a present fad to seek out and support female contenders, and this makes those with good intentions meaty targets for those inclined to exploit good intentions. It's not that women are less capable, it's that there's an angle where well meaning individuals may be exploited by predators. In a way, it's flattery to claim that there may exist women who are aware of this opportunity and are exploiting it.
- nikanj 10y agoGuessing the tone right is hard on a pure-text medium. I was not referring to leadership abilities of various genders, but to the recent market trend where the gender (and age!) of the founder/ceo forms a major part of the pitch and media image.
- bedros 10y agothat's not the point; there are many successful female founders; the point I'm raising is some VCs, even top tier, rush to be the investor in next big startup run by a female founder, without doing the proper research about the company or the technology.
- CaptainZapp 10y agoAhem, Carly Fiorina, anyone? Arguably the worst tech CEO, ever! Male or female.
- sfifs 10y agoThe industry operates on the greater fool theory. They only need someone else to buy their stake out at a higher price than they paid at some point.
- TeMPOraL 10y agouBeam still exists?! That has to be the longest running joke in the whole SV.
- revelation 10y agoIt's amazing, I just visited their Twitter to confirm and it appears the virus is spreading, they now have two offices and 30 odd employees. Not a cent in revenue or a kWh "beam"ed, of course.
- grzm 10y agoa16z invests in a lot of companies. Have you done an analysis across all companies a16z has invested in to see which of these descriptors are key? - female founder - secrecy - non-proven prototype Might make for some interesting reading.
- bedros 10y agoa16z is arguably the cream of the crop of VCs; I'm not talking about their overall investment outcome. what I'm talking about is, in that instance, they made a decision based on emotions not data. smart VCs should ALWAYS make data driven decisions. not emotions.
- grzm 10y agoWhat is your evidence that a16z made their decision to invest in Theranos in any way differently from how they decide to invest in any other company?
- acgourley 10y agoIs the gender bit really useful data?
- protomyth 10y agoNot at all for the performance of the CEO. I suspect it might be an indicator of funding if the VCs feel that would be a positive signal for them. I would love for a study to be done, but I suspect secrecy is going to be problematic for anyone studying this time period in history.
- iaw 10y agoI don't think a male founder would've gotten UBeam off the ground. The press around it was about the novelty of "look! girl engineer!"
- acgourley 10y agoI'll grant you it gives you more and different press. I won't grant you that press coverage matters very much when it comes to fundraising and recruiting. It matters some, but the delta created by a founder's gender multiplied by the general small impact of press is really not moving the "get off the ground" needle. If it did, you'd see wildly variable outcomes indexed by founder gender.
- tedmiston 10y agoI don't know much about uBeam but I would just like to add that there are competing wireless charging startups that do have proven prototypes and real products on the market. One example is Chargifi. They have wireless charging mats in coffee shops. (Their charging distance is much smaller than what's shown in sketches for uBeam.)
- maverick_iceman 10y agoI looked into uBeam a while back. The technology is unproven and unlikely to work because of basic physics. (They are trying to transmit energy using ultrasonic sound and it usually has severe health consequences for any significant amount of power delivered.) The CEO, Meredith Perry, delivered a TED talk[1] which was nauseating. She was basically saying it doesn't matter what the experts say, if you're a plucky disruptor you should just follow your half-baked ideas. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukgnU2aXM2c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukgnU2aXM2c