Companies. In 1968, California was already dreaming of the young people in their opening prospects of artificial paradise, freedom, hippie pacifism flourished. Fifty years later, it captivates now by his business disruptive, the readiness with which young men assert that they are going to change the world, and the perfumes of dollars that emerge from it.
The fumes begin, however, to dissipate a little about the revolutions ‘ economic and social that it designs. The ridiculous case Juicero has come as a rude awakening. This start-up founded in 2013 promised to democratize the global consumption of fruit juice. Its founder, Doug Evans, had invented a machine capable of applying three tons of pressure on a pocket containing fresh fruits already peeled and cut up to extract the juice.
It had raised $ 120 million from venture capital funds such as Google ventures or Kleiner Perkins (which also invests in Google, Twitter, Amazon). Alas, two journalists from Bloomberg showed in a video that the result obtained by this marvel of technology sold $ 700 could be… simply by pressing the pocket of his hands. Become the laughing stock of Palo Alto, Juicero was closed in September 2017.
Results are almost non-existent and figures fudged
Less funny is the story of Theranos. Founded in 2003 by Elizabeth Holmes, a 19-year-old, the start-up was given for mission of transforming the industry of medical analysis due to a technical genius to achieve 200 types of exams by dedicating only a few drops of blood from a patient.
Theranos has raised $ 700 million from investors, its capitalization has exceeded 10 billion in 2014, and its leader became one of the stars billionaires the most high profile cases in Silicon Valley. Until march 2018 the scam of the icon of the start-up is stale : the technology was…
