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Can you tell more about the things you've seen? If no one offers enough money, perhaps their research found it's just a bunch of hot air and not actually a via

Can you tell more about the things you've seen? If no one offers enough money, perhaps their research found it's just a bunch of hot air and not actually a viable design.

OutOfHere 2y ago
That's not at all what the parent comment is saying. Also, such materials are real.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  > That's not at all what the parent comment is saying. That's what I'm saying. It's how discussion works, he said one thing, I said something different. > Also, such materials are real. Real but not feasible for any reason. The other commenter didn't give any info that would deny that. You didn't, too. I don't blame you, it would take non trivial amount of time and money to just understand if an idea doesn't work out in real world. Maybe manufacturing too expensive, maybe there's some blocking regulation, maybe health hazards for workers, environmental hazards... But yeah of course a random guy on HN knows for sure it's the IP law that's always ruining things. Who would care about potential drawbacks of some tech, we got PFAS into blood of probably everyone now so why stop there?
freedomben 2y ago
> If no one offers enough money, perhaps their research found it's just a bunch of hot air and not actually a viable design. I won't go into specifics because none of them are my story to tell, and I don't have enough inside information to say with certainty anyway, but their research clearly showed it was not just a bunch of hot air, but the economic viability was mixed and often not there. In one case, it was only a marginal improvement over something that was already in high production, and the economies of scale made it so that this slightly better product would initially cost 100x more to produce, and even at moderate scale still 10x. My friend was offered some small amount (IIRC it was like $5,000) by some research firm to buy out the patent. He refused because he felt it was worth a lot more, but AFAIK it never ended up going anywhere. He (like the other cases) was inundated with (often conflicting) advice from a ton of angles, by many people who wanted to profit from the whole thing. It was pretty disheartening to watch. There was another one where a friend of a friend who was a professor discovered a way to improve efficiency in transmissions. They ended up raising substantial money but wanted too much to license out the IP to auto-makers, and the auto-makers walked. They ended up with essentially nothing and shortly afterward an even better CV transmission was discovered/invented, rendering his design obsolete anyway.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  Thanks. Fascinating story. It looks like the market worked but of course subject to human greed and such. Auto makers didn't see enough value to justify the expense. If it was something radical then presumably everyone would have a big enough piece...

Can you tell more about the things you've seen? If no one offers enough money, perhaps their research found it's just a bunch of hot air and not actually a viable design.

OutOfHere 2y ago

That's not at all what the parent comment is saying. Also, such materials are real.

throwaway290 2y ago
> That's not at all what the parent comment is saying. That's what I'm saying. It's how discussion works, he said one thing, I said something different. > Also, such materials are real. Real but not feasible for any reason. The other commenter didn't give any info that would deny that. You didn't, too. I don't blame you, it would take non trivial amount of time and money to just understand if an idea doesn't work out in real world. Maybe manufacturing too expensive, maybe there's some blocking regulation, maybe health hazards for workers, environmental hazards... But yeah of course a random guy on HN knows for sure it's the IP law that's always ruining things. Who would care about potential drawbacks of some tech, we got PFAS into blood of probably everyone now so why stop there?

freedomben 2y ago

> If no one offers enough money, perhaps their research found it's just a bunch of hot air and not actually a viable design. I won't go into specifics because none of them are my story to tell, and I don't have enough inside information to say with certainty anyway, but their research clearly showed it was not just a bunch of hot air, but the economic viability was mixed and often not there. In one case, it was only a marginal improvement over something that was already in high production, and the economies of scale made it so that this slightly better product would initially cost 100x more to produce, and even at moderate scale still 10x. My friend was offered some small amount (IIRC it was like $5,000) by some research firm to buy out the patent. He refused because he felt it was worth a lot more, but AFAIK it never ended up going anywhere. He (like the other cases) was inundated with (often conflicting) advice from a ton of angles, by many people who wanted to profit from the whole thing. It was pretty disheartening to watch. There was another one where a friend of a friend who was a professor discovered a way to improve efficiency in transmissions. They ended up raising substantial money but wanted too much to license out the IP to auto-makers, and the auto-makers walked. They ended up with essentially nothing and shortly afterward an even better CV transmission was discovered/invented, rendering his design obsolete anyway.

throwaway290 2y ago
Thanks. Fascinating story. It looks like the market worked but of course subject to human greed and such. Auto makers didn't see enough value to justify the expense. If it was something radical then presumably everyone would have a big enough piece...