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I'm still amazed that companies like Zume were getting funded in the first place. Not that there was anything inherently wrong with what they were trying to do
by ansible 7y ago
I'm still amazed that companies like Zume were getting funded in the first place. Not that there was anything inherently wrong with what they were trying to do, but just... was it even appropriate for a startup to be taking on these tasks.
With Zume specifically, they were working on compostable packaging. Great... though most people aren't going to be able to actually do composting. If this packaging does perform as good or better than conventional plastic packaging, why does Zume need to do that? Is it really central to their mission?
- jes5199 7y agoOh, I met the Zume guy last year. His whole thing was to sell the idealized future without worrying about whether it was feasible in the present or even the medium term - if he could just convince people to keep funding it, he’d make it happen. If an engineer said - real example here - you can’t charge an electric delivery truck in 5 minutes without melting the charge plug, he’s say “then we’ll refrigerate the charge plug,” they say you’d need more than refrigeration you’d need to pump liquid nitrogen through it, he’s say “great, we’ll pump liquid nitrogen through it” Sort of like the Fyre Festival of startups, really Someone must have said “pizza delivery isn’t green because of all those boxes” and his response to was have someone invent a new box. And then ship the first attempt without worrying about whether it’s food safe! Well, it sounded great as a slide in a pitch deck. (exit to fix typo)
- JPKab 7y agoSome companies are using the virus as cover to do layoffs they needed to do before, but couldn't do without hurting their reps with the VCs. A certain Boston based data science startup comes to mind.
- calvinbhai 7y agowhich one specifically?