You may have seen on social media yesterday that Humane, a Silicon Valley startup, has just released a new product, a little device that sits on your jacket and does some AI stuff. No one can tell exactly what it does, other than after raising $230 *million* dollars they’ve created a device that does less than an Apple Watch, and costs more.
The product is a complete flop, and yet no one would admit to it. Why?
Even people who should know better that the market for this product does not exist are responding with things like : "I don’t know if this is it, but I love what they’re trying.” , or “congratulations to the founders for trying something hard, and to the investors who invested into this.”
This is wrong. We should be honest about successes and failures regardless where they come from. If a pair of 20 something college dropouts launched a product like this, they would’ve been the laughing stack of the Internet for days. Remember Juicero, a startup that raised millions to reinvent a juicer, and failed spectacularly. We all recognized that was a waste. We understood, embraced it, and moved forward. The are plenty other examples where founders get scolded for trying hard things. Media constantly bashes Adam Neumann for doing something hard, or Elon Musk for building not one, but multiple spectacular companies. So why not Humane then?
I think Silicon Valley has a vision problem, where they fund and celebrate people they like, regardless of the outcomes, and they ignore people they don’t like, regardless of the outcomes.
$230 million could’ve founded 500 different startups, scrappy founders, who would’ve worked hard to first identify a problem and test the market before committing millions in resources to build something that nobody wants. Instead that money was wasted on very high salaries that produced a very murky result.
Trying hard things should be celebrated, but doing it poorly should not be rewarded.
One small change in focus, and it will be worthwhile. Build an AI companions for Children from age group 3-15. It has vision understanding, voice, and internet, help a child to cope with moder problems of being loneliness and learning. Help children in their daily learning, schools assignments, cognitive development, cope with bullying, help to match right friends in schools…
Silicon Valley is not a monolith. Nor are investors. (Ditto the media.)
I’m skeptical of Humane, but maybe lets let someone use it before declaring the entire idea is a failure.
This whole post reads like jealousy driven whining.
The new interface is no interface; this seems to further that thinking.
This post really shows a profound lack of foresight.
Being instantly dismissed as useless is the hallmark of any disruptive product. Also it was launched yesterday so maybe it’s a bit premature to call it a failure.
Not to mention the two people on their site explaining the product come off as serial killers. Weirdest presentation I’ve ever seen.
This video appeared in my YouTube feed this afternoon, and I had absolutely the same thought having never heard of the company or device previously LOL. It was so bizarre!
Your statement is generalizing a big population based on a few investors.
Remember, the amount of investment is not equal to the amount of investors.
However, in terms of flops 90% of investments are flops, so it’s not uncommon.
Look at wework.
The $230M didn’t just vanish into thin air–it was paid as salaries and as costs too other companies.
That money is still out there in the ecosystem.
This is nothing new and it’s unlikely to stop.
I’m confused about the premise. Where’s the evidence that a product that hasn’t been publicly sold yet is a flop?
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Producing hardware is expensive business. So, it is normal they need big money.
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I agree the product is weird but it may open a new category like iPhone’s touch phone. It is worth to try.
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Wearable devices are a difficult category. People generally do not prefer it. It took a long time to get used to smart watches, but this device can adapt to the flow of life and surprise us all.
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It’s a cool device, kind of like a StarTrek communicator. We will be seeing many wearables.
It is basically a cell phone with a different interface. You are supposed to be able to do most things by just talking to it and it can project visuals as needed without a screen. Hardware is difficult, so it makes sense that this gamble cost a lot to back and produce.
The real problem here is the analysis, though. You looked at some freaking left field bet and determined that Silicon Valley is represented by this thing. It is just a device. The lack of criticism you heard is probably because most people haven’t heard of it and don’t care.
If you were really interested in Silicon Valley and recent new devices then you might have looked at the newer ultrasound machines that hospitals are using. They are far better than the old units and cheaper while also being quite profitable for the makers. But you don’t actually care, you are just sniping for click bait. Whatever.
Juicero was literally a scam. It didn’t do anything but squeeze mashed fruit out of a bag.
One of the reasons we are getting into a big crisis, we fund shit like this while the things that ACTUALLY MATTER get less funding. I’m talking about the actual HUMAN things, agtech, affordable and quality housing, recycle technologies, healthcare, food quality, there are soooooo many startups I can think of that do way more important shit.
Market and society need to autocorrect itself, god I love nature
> a vision problem, where they fund and celebrate people they like
The VC world, and the world *in general* has always been and will always be a “who you know” system. VCs talk All. The. Time. about how they invest in founders not ideas. That literally translates into funding who they like.
This isn’t a secret, it’s the publicly advertised strategy.
Humane will get whatever is coming its way. It’s been what, 72 hours since that video? Things happen a lot slower than you think. It’s easy to compress time in hindsight…Adam Neumann ran WeWork for years even after it was apparent that he was pulling all sorts of financial tricks and heading straight for bankruptcy.