5 ms·
Whenever I see companies like this with a spectacular demo but no product to show, I always think of the Richard Feynman quote, "For a successful technology, re
by tyleo 10y ago
Whenever I see companies like this with a spectacular demo but no product to show, I always think of the Richard Feynman quote, "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."
- neduma 10y agoMeh.. what about NeXT/BlackBox/SteveJobs? There was actually none of it exists and he did awesome PR and made it work.
- enraged_camel 10y agoSteve Jobs was one of a handful of people in the world who could pull off such feats. I think tyleo's comment still stands when it comes to everything (and everyone) else.
- rgbrenner 10y agobut next was well on its way to declaring bankruptcy... Next had terrible sales.. even jobs said so. The factory they built was so underutilized, they assembled the computers by hand instead of using the equipment because it was less work than doing the maintenance on it. It was designed to produce 150,000 machines a year... next sold 50,000 machines total over 6 years (an average of 700/month). After 6 years, Next abandoned the computer market, focusing on software. They tried to sell the factory to Canon, who pulled out of the deal. They laid off 2/3rds of their employees. On multiple occasions, investors were forced to put in more funding just to keep Next solvent. Just a couple of years after abandoning hardware, they agree to merge with apple. I wasnt able to find an exact number, but the amount of money apple paid for next may actually exceed the total revenue next pulled in during the 12 years they were in business.
- tim333 10y agoFeynman's quote was more in terms of the product obeying the laws of physics. Most of Jobs' products did.
- Hydraulix989 10y agoRight. Feynman's quote is much more applicable to Theranos, Magic Leap, and uBeam.
- settsu 10y agoSeems safe to assume that NeXT's existence was predicated largely—possibly entirely—on Steve Jobs reputation to actually deliver millions of units. In the end, he arguably "made it work" by the thinnest of margins. A better, if flawed, comparison to Lily might be the Apple I: entering an established, growing market with a product which lowers the threshold for adoption in very specific ways. (I'll defer to more informed, educated, and insightful individuals to carry this comparative analysis any further...)
- Isamu 10y agoRight, Steve never existed, nor did the NeXT box ever ship.
- elmar 10y agoI think the killer was really the very low projected price of the pre-order, even today nobody makes a drone that does what Lily was supposed to do for less than $999. They figure out they could do it but not at that price point, they would be losing a loot of money on each unit.
- jlarocco 10y agoThat's one thing that keeps me away from most Kickstarter projects and very early pre-orders from new or unknown companies. Even if the technology is feasible and there's a working prototype, there's still a lot of work to do to get it mass produced, and problems and unanticipated expenses can crop up all along the way, especially for people who've never gone through the process before.
- ptero 10y agoThis is a good point, but demos (real, hardware-based demos, "not made in powerpoint") are also critical to prove that one has a working technology. There is still a big step to make it cheap, reliable and appealing enough to be commercially successful, but "X is possible and we know how to do it" demo is good base to build from. My 2c.
- nom 10y agoYou don't need working demos or even abide to physical laws to attract investors. Thanks to the power of social media you just have to choose a good cause, make it look cool and create a fake demo video. Most people just repeat what they read, critical thinking is a thing of the past. See WaterSeer [0], SolarRoadways [1], Fontus self-filling waterbottle [2], ... [0] https://www.waterseer.org/ https://www.waterseer.org/ [1] http://www.solarroadways.com/ http://www.solarroadways.com/ [2] http://www.fontus.at/ http://www.fontus.at/
- benologist 10y agoYou don't need a scam or ill intentions to fail to deliver.
- mbrumlow 10y agoSure, but all 3 of the projects listed had people very early on point out that back of the envelope calculations don't add up and warned them that their projects are going to fail. Each of those those groups proceeded to ignore or not understand the evidence presented to them and continued to collect money. At that point I consider it a scam. Ignorance is not an excuse. That being said what we are seeing here is a education problem. The masses of people who (including government officials) who seem to be so gullible and lack basic science skills and critical thinking to understand how some of these technologies might work is astounding. And with the 3 efforts listed above it has slowly come out that the minds behind the idea did not know how it would all work either. A good example of that is fontus. This as dream big art design project. How awesome is that? We can make a 3d model of this cool device! A year later confessing to taking apart dehumidifiers to "understand" how they work as if it was some mistry. As if they could somehow crack this alien technology then they too could build one! At the rate these too good to be true ideas are coming out one has to stop and think that maybe, just maybe, somebody is gaming the system.
- covercash 10y agoAccording to this, the demo video was faked: http://boingboing.net/2017/01/16/lily-drone-demo-video-that-gen.html http://boingboing.net/2017/01/16/lily-drone-demo-video-that-...
- ransom1538 10y agoI would much rather fail at the power point stage. Failing later is worse: inventory, employees, lawyers, bankruptcy.
- latenightcoding 10y agoNew favourite quote.