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How shut-down Bay Area tech companies ditch their fancy gear
- Cheng2023 2y ago[dead]
- lysace 2y agoExample: VitroLabs raises $46 million to build and scale the world's first pilot production of cell cultivated leather (2022) -> https://svdisposition.com/auction-detail?id=698 https://svdisposition.com/auction-detail?id=698 Featuring Late-Model Research and Development Instruments, 3D Printers, Laser Cutters: Phenom Pro Desktop SEM, Sartorius Stedim and Eppendorf Benchtop Bioreactor Systems, Perkin-Elmer Operetta CLS (High Content Analysis System), Molecular Devices SpectraMax iD3, and much more! Milpitas, CA
- saagarjha 2y ago> In a 2020 sale for what Silicon Valley Disposition called a “Major Bay Area Wind Energy Kite Company,” the auction site listed a 2016 Magni crane. I assume this must have been Makani: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makani_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makani_(company)
- pveierland 2y agoThere's a beautiful feature film about the story of Makani. It's a great watch with plenty of technical details that follows the story from beginning to end. Available for free on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd_hEja6bzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd_hEja6bzE
- sgerenser 2y agoAs "cool" as the project seems, I completely agree with some of the comments in the video expressing disbelief that they were able to get funding for the project for more than a decade. It seems immediately obvious at the outset that there's no commercial application for the technology, as cool as it is. Way too many moving parts, way too complicated, for something that likely will only ever provide much less energy than a traditional wind turbine.
- joeofbook 2y ago[dead]
- liontwist 2y agoThis is an ad.
- rUsHeYaFuBu 2y agoThis is a site related to tech startups. While content here is not intended to solely be focused on that, development of good business sense is relevant. Buying used but functional equipment and saving your start-up money makes for good business.
- pookha 2y agoCertainly feels like a native add... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_advertising
- rbanffy 2y agoA very interesting one, BTW
- lelandfe 2y agoMy dentist keeps yacht sale and swap magazines in his waiting room, which are all ads, but they're completely irrelevant to me and fascinating. That's how I feel about this ad.
- liontwist 2y agoNo complaints here. I wasn’t interested and projected that expectation on others. My mistake.
- karaterobot 2y agoAre you saying it was sponsored? At any rate, it's clear that many people in this thread don't know that this is a type of business that exists—evidently they did experience the first dot com crash, or the second dot com crash. So, there is informational value at least.
- 2y ago
- myfakebadcode 2y agoIs there an equivalent for nyc?
- rbanffy 2y agoI’d love to find one in Ireland, but people here seem to be far too diligent at recycling stuff.
- herodoturtle 2y ago“Hireland” needs to be a thing. Please tell me someone’s done this already.
- rbanffy 2y ago"Hireland"?!
- bombcar 2y agoIt’s just an auction site, albeit one that specializes. Search around and you should find similar auction sites for NYC, some will specialize in government sales, some in private liquidation, and some in estates.
- Eridrus 2y agoNYC doesn't really have the ecosystem. You can definitely find used Aerons on facebook marketplace though.
- nailer 2y agoNY is the centre of the world for fintech and blockchain.
- myself248 2y agoLook around on Bidspotter, there's industrial auctions all the time. They're extremely user-hostile. No shipping, no weekend hours, so you gotta take off work time to go to the inspection and pickup days. The photos and descriptions are insultingly sparse, and the terms are egregious. But sometimes you can score a real gem for pennies, and it's all worth it.
- lordnacho 2y agoI remember seeing a shop near Old Street in London that I thought was definitely just selling the office chairs of failed businesses. You'd walk past and there would be some fancy chairs and desks, from yet another dream that died. Vital part of the economy, a bit like fungus in ecology.
- nailer 2y agoThere’s a place in London Bridge called something like ‘London office furniture’ that regularly sells Aeron chairs for about 100 quid
- changadera 2y agoI think that's where my Aeron came from, or somewhere similiar, but it was more like 300ish quid and via eBay.
- jamessb 2y agoApaprently there's an "Office Furniture in London" that might be it: https://www.officefurnitureinlondon.co.uk/product-category/second-hand-office-furniture/ https://www.officefurnitureinlondon.co.uk/product-category/s... Their online listings for Aeron chairs are for more like £400, but that's still less than a third of the price when new.
- esskay 2y agoBought a Mirra from there about 15 years ago for £115 including delivery, sitting on it right now, still going strong!
- sebastiennight 2y agoWould you sit in such a "haunted" chair if you're just launching your own startup though?
- yard2010 2y agoI'm not superstitious. Well, maybe I'm a bit stitious.
- flobosg 2y agoPreviously: The business of gutting failed Bay Area tech companies – https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42107870 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42107870
- xtiansimon 2y agoThere used to be some killer junk warehouses in San Jose filled with the detritus of electronics industry. Triangle comes to mind.
- rbanffy 2y agoIn Brazil there were large warehouses in São Paulo near the local “electronics” street, Santa Efigênia (we joked she was the saint patron of electrical engineering). From those places you could get almost anything, from a tomography machine or a jet engine test stand, all the way to each and every kind of electronic component of every imaginable vintage. As far as I know, the ecosystem that powered it no longer exists. I got a sizeable chunk of my vintage computer collection there.
- rbanffy 2y ago> As far as I know, the ecosystem that powered it no longer exists. I take that back. Going through the place on Google Street View shows it quite vital as late as April 2024. Some of the places that had the most interesting stuff seem closed, but it really depends on the actual day of the week of the photo, as those places had notoriously unreliable opening hours.
- kristianp 2y agoI'm getting a weird William Gibson vibe from this comment. Your 1st two paragraphs could be the start of one of his short stories.
- snowwrestler 2y agoEven cooler were the shops near LA filled with the detritus of the aerospace industry. Like, piles of titanium tubing, and big rocket nozzles sitting on the floor. Example: https://www.sfgate.com/la/article/los-angeles-sci-fi-prop-house-norton-sales-18527669.php https://www.sfgate.com/la/article/los-angeles-sci-fi-prop-ho...
- throw0101c 2y agoThe profiled company has a Youtube channel where they occasionally post tours of the facilities of the companies being liquidated: * https://www.youtube.com/@svdauctions/videos https://www.youtube.com/@svdauctions/videos
- Simon_O_Rourke 2y agoAny tech company that thought it a good idea to buy rather than lease a Cessna deserves to be made bankrupt.
- krisoft 2y agoDepends on what were they doing with it? If they were just flying with it from A to B then I tend to agree with you. If they were working on tech actually attached to the airplane (like a fly-by-wire system, sensors attached, or something like that) then I can imagine the point of it. Paperwork around test flights are hard enough without also having to convince the lessor to let you do what the FAA lets yo do.
- bombcar 2y agoThat wasn’t a Cessna, but a Piper Warrior, and depending on the age it might not have been terribly much (even new ones can be had for $250k or so).
- bluGill 2y agoEven still in most cases leasing is what you want to do. Preferably in terms where they take care of maintenance (if the crankshaft fails inspection it doesn't increase your costs), and if "yours" is down you get a loaner. You probably want shared plane terms, not a plane that is all yours, and they provide trained pilots. There are lots of tax reasons this is better. Buying a plane makes sense when it is your personal plane (and leasing your personal plane to the company is done - though the laws/ethics get weird) and you fly a lot. It also makes sense when you have several (though I don't know where the break even is). It make might sense for bragging rights, but generally your customers won't be as impressed as you think.
- sangnoir 2y agoThe particular startup in the article was developing tech to replace regular aircraft engines with those running on Hydrogen. I don't think any lessor would appreciate those extensive modifications on their aircraft.
- trollbridge 2y agoWe bought our Aeron chairs during Covid. Went for about $100, although the bored guy selling them sold for a bit less for cash. We didn’t ask any questions. The warehouse had hundreds of them, mostly new and mostly in decent shape. 5 years later, a few repair kits ($35) have been needed, and a few backrests have cracked, but mostly been an excellent value.
- ge96 2y agoso funny I'm like wtf is an Aeron chair, I look it up I'm sitting on one now
- adastra22 2y agoSame, lol.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- OtherShrezzing 2y agoIf you're in a major city, I suspect those chairs came out of a renegotiated/cancelled WeWork type building. In my city, one of the WeWork copycats cancelled a brand new lease at short notice in May 2020. The building owner sold a lot of the furniture at the front door.
- jkestner 2y agoWhere do you find Herman Miller repair parts? I need an armrest for my Celle (20+ years, going strong except for a worn arm pad).
- abcd_f 2y agoAt any official distributor.
- nubinetwork 2y agoIf only I lived closer, I could get some cheap Macbooks...
- bena 2y agoIsn't this how Overstock.com made their nut as well?
- snowwrestler 2y agoI think they started off disposing of surplus inventory, which is different. The products are new, just never sold, and now the manufacturer, distributor, or retailer wants them off the books (unsold inventory is an expense).
- dymk 2y agoI've gone to similar industrial auction sites in WA. Sometimes there's gold to be had for pennies on the dollar, other times it's trash. Either way, I've got some good equipment out of them for very cheap.
- comrade1234 2y agoUCSF had a surplus store in south San Francisco. I worked nearby and we’d make it an office excursion occasionally to go there at lunch. One coworker found a fresnel lens, our company bought a server rack there… they had small auctions for the more expensive items but you could also just buy things… sorry, this was so long ago I can barely remember other than the dusty smell and the comfy feeling of wandering the warehouse. I just looked it up and it looks like they still use the warehouse but now sell everything online.
- mihaaly 2y ago> Startups burn through cash as they skyrocket in size and ambition, accumulating outrageous perks and office equipment along the way. Then they crash to Earth, with nothing but their private planes or massive 3D printers to pad the impact. This does not sound healthy. Almost sounds intentional by its common knowledge usual occurance. Taking the money of some clueless holder of money - optimistically calling themselves as investors, never as suckers for sure - and fraud away. Having a good life while doing it. Putting it proudly into the CV to repeat. Like if this is the original intent to begin with. To fail and skim the money while losing bad. Not really doing/attempting something beneficial and lasting in the end. That might sound scary - meaning they have to worry about being permanently successfull, balancing the sheet, react to adverse changing, for long, long, long. 'Starting up' (and fall) is easy, 'keep on going' is too hard?
- SemioticStandrd 2y ago[flagged]
- aftbit 2y agoSame logic could apply to Enron or Bernie Madoff. Fraud is fraud, even if it's perpetrated against the rich. Besides, many of the biggest investors are actually defined-benefit pension funds for teachers, firefighters, etc.
- pm90 2y agoNot for early stage startups.
- SemioticStandrd 2y agoIf there's fraud, then prosecute it legally. But I am in no way obligated to feel any sympathy to investors getting fleeced. It's their responsibility to do their own due diligence, and if they're getting taken in for, I am hard pressed to give a shit.
- 2y ago
- cess11 2y agoI'm in a similar business. It's fun working with the spoils of corporations in crisis or bankruptcy, one gets to see the insides of them and figure out where they went wrong without having to get employed there.
- mamcx 2y agoAny way to buy overseas that is relatively reputable?
- yellowapple 2y agoNone of the auctions seems to offer shipping, so you'd probably need to hire someone to pick up whatever you buy and ship it to you.
- Tijdreiziger 2y agoIf you’re in Europe, Troostwijk (no affiliation) is pretty big in used corporate goods. https://www.troostwijkauctions.com/ https://www.troostwijkauctions.com/ Otherwise, perhaps there are local auction houses/warehouses in your country/region?
- rsynnott 2y ago... Okay, how common is it for startups to have _private planes_, even small ones like the one pictured? I've never seen that. You'd think at some point investors would get irritated.
- bluGill 2y agoMore common than it should be. There is a group that is impressed that you are large enough to afford to own a plane. If you have to travel often a plane at your command saves a lot of time. If you often travel with the same group the size of the plane, it can be cheaper than first class. Generally you should be better off leasing 25% of private jet though for the above needs. Of course airplanes are always an environmental disaster. That doesn't matter to many people though.
- adastra22 2y agoIt may have been an aviation-related startup. There are many of those in the area too. Or agriculture, given the size of the plane.
- buildsjets 2y agoYou'd think at some point the investors would read the startup's prospectus, and realize that they have invested in a company that wants to modify airplanes to run off of hydrogen, and that the company has purchased not just a a _private plane_, but a _whole blimey airliner_ and a bunch of _jet turbine parts_ and to try and implement this scheme. https://svdisposition.com/auction-detail?id=664 https://svdisposition.com/auction-detail?id=664
- rsynnott 2y agoI really think that the resellers should offer a provenance. "This aeron has been through both the early twenties cryptocurrency bubble and the mid-twenties AI bubble!" There _has_ to be a collectors' market for this sort of thing. This beanbag was at Theranos!
- jjkaczor 2y agoheh - I bought a 17-year old Aeron in 2020 - 2nd best office purchase I ever made. (First was a Brother MFC office-class laser printer in 2016... still going strong, still gets driver updates for new OS's - and still allows me to use 3rd-party or refilled toner carts)
- zeroonetwothree 2y agoMy Brother from 2004 is still going strong
- bookofjoe 2y agoMy HP B210 inkjet from 2010 works just as well as it did the day I got it 15 years ago. Which means it takes about 3 minutes to warm up and make its Willy Wonka-like noises before spitting out a perfectly fine document. Believe it or not, wireless printing works just fine!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- c6400sc 2y agoI call that trickle-down ergonomics.
- dr-detroit 2y ago[dead]
- sandworm101 2y agoDidn't theranos have a "no killing bugs" policy? I say let them keep the beanbag chairs. The PawnStars show had a great bit about valuing a hypothetical "Bill Clinton's lawn mower". Famous names dont necessarily make everything more valuable.
- MisterTea 2y agoA former tenant of mine was an office furniture and moving company. His business was pretty interesting as he was big into buying and selling Aeron chairs. He even gave me a top of the line Aeron for free. All of his inventory just circulated through NYC: he'd furnish an office with chairs he refurbished from another that was closing or moving. My favorite part about his business was how he charged for cleaning out the office of furniture he would turn around and resell making money on both ends. He even tried making Aeron parts overseas to bypass Herman Miller but got caught by customs and had to surrender the shipment. When Covid hit he tried pivoting to home service to try and build a WFH office furnishing company but struggled to get it going (the scale was beyond his ability.) His business in shambles he quickly shut it down and liquidated his inventory in a week.
- tomcam 2y agoA dynamic career condensed into 2 cracking paragraphs. Well done!
- blindriver 2y agoDuring the dot com bust they had a bunch of these auctions where a ton of equipment was for sale. I bought a Cisco router (2514 iirc) and a Napster T-shirt when Napster went bankrupt.
- bluedino 2y agoSo if early Amazon employees built their own desks out of doors, what did they use for chairs?
- htrp 2y agowooden crates
- rib3ye 2y agoI really envy the auctioneer featured in the piece. [√] Gets to learn about real tech economy [√] Gets to learn about many different unrelated businesses and tech [√] Gets to interact with people across many industries
- mmooss 2y agoWhat is the square root of "Gets to learn about real tech economy"? (I think you mean: :) ) EDIT: Why did HN nuke my checkmark (U+2713)? I insert it between the colon and smiley, and it disappears when I click submit/update. !! Now I understand the parent's mathematical expression better.
- adastra22 2y agoHN removes most Unicode that isn’t used as part of an actual language. Ever noticed you never see emoji here? Math symbols are an exception, I guess.
- bushbaba 2y agoah silicon valley disposition, my favorite place to window shop at. If your ever curious just go to hibid.com and put in a Silicon valley zip code.
- addled 2y agoYeah, I’ve been waiting for bidding to open on https://hibid.com/lot/214229120/comino-gando-rm-long-fully-liquid-cooled-server https://hibid.com/lot/214229120/comino-gando-rm-long-fully-l... just see what it gets up to. (5955wx + 4x RTX 4090’s)
- Mistletoe 2y agoThe waste of our generation really kills me. We all pay for these things. It’s in the price of everything we buy, all companies pass on costs to the consumers.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoThe company's out of business. What do you expect them to do?
- Mistletoe 2y agoI mean when they originally went hog wild buying stuff at God knows what prices new. At least this company is recycling the waste.
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoOK. And why is that a waste? If you need it, you need it.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoI wonder what was in the Juicero auction ;)
- jonfromsf 2y agoDuring the great recession I went to the Kodak offices that were shutting down. I bought 4 aerons for $25 each, but could only fit 2 in my car. Fortunately, I sold 2 to a guy in the parking lot for $40 so my chairs were almost free.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Onavo 2y agoI will take Universal Hydrogen's Piper Dakota for $5.
- sciencesama 2y agoOne mans trash is an another mans treasure !!
- black_13 2y ago[dead]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- analog31 2y agoSomething I've learned in present and past jobs, serving as a de facto millwright in R&D and small factories: If someone is offering something on the used market, it's because it really exists, and they want to get rid of it quickly. Next day shipping on some giant machine? No problem. Some things, it's dumb to buy them new, like optics benches and some equipment that's expensive to make but easy to qualify and calibrate. In contrast, even "catalog" items from mainstream suppliers might have long waiting times if the supplier is a build-to-order outfit.
- lostmsu 2y agoIs there anything like that in WA?
- advaitruia 2y agoNothing like buying 12 TGIFs in the midwest? https://svdisposition.hibid.com/catalog/607470/tgi-fridays--3 https://svdisposition.hibid.com/catalog/607470/tgi-fridays--...
- kmoser 2y ago> Carroll remembers a sale from 2022 as one of his favorites. The Arizona car company Local Motors had shut down and was trying to offload one of the world’s largest 3D printers, big enough to print a car. I guess that finally answers the question, "Would you download a car?"
- joseda-hg 2y agoI've always envied Americans access to offloaded high end gear In places less blessed, corporate gear is either low end (The good ones get passed around internally), or the nerds go after it so aggresively that it ends up at a high premium
- AstroJetson 2y agoSo in the early 2000 Dot Com crash network equipment was the hot item. We did a new startup and got top of the line Cisco gear for pennies on the dollar. The rub came at license time a few years later, Cisco wanted a fortune. We sold the Cisco gear for about what we paid for it and went to Juniper gear, who at the time let the license transfer for free.
- sieabahlpark 2y ago[dead]
- whimsicalism 2y agonot as good as allston christmas, but pretty good
- op00to 2y agoHow do I get me some ex-startup laptops? I'm in the market for a last-year-Macbook Pro.
- disgruntledphd2 2y agoYou can get refurbs from Apple. Generally about 25% off.
- op00to 2y agoThey don’t have the same stench of failure and despair, though.
- disgruntledphd2 2y agoThat's true, and I suppose that does add a little something. This Macbook has been associated with the wasting of billions of dollars of VC money etc.
- Kozmik1 2y agoFor anyone getting started, especially if you just got funded, I highly suggest you personally buy a stack of laptops, chairs or desks from one of these places to provide all your new hires. The experience should leave you humbled and give some foreshadowing of what is likely to come.