The primary driver behind my decision to walk away from a lucrative Wall Street career was my coming to terms with the fact that our financial system is largely a rent-seeking scheme designed to enrich parasitical, unethical behavior at the expense of the nation as a whole. As soon as I recognized this, I could no longer feel proud of my work and certainly couldn’t justify my large paycheck for being a compliant, highly productive cog in this machine.
In the nearly decade since, I’ve come to understand that the financial system, while absolutely core to the propagation of the declining U.S. empire, is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our problems. Not only is the financial system broken; the American political system is broken, healthcare is broken, policing is broken, intelligence agencies are broken, rules for engagement in warfare are broken. Pretty much everything is captured and broken, systematically designed to benefit the few at the expense of the many.
In contrast, one of the few things that seemed to be working, at least relatively well, was the technology sector. Silicon Valley is the poster child for this industry, and while the “innovative” nature of products coming out that celebrated tech hub have been declining for years, it still seemed vibrant and dynamic compared to the rest of the U.S. economy. I’m increasingly starting to wonder whether much of that was just an elaborate illusion.
Most of you probably haven’t heard of the company Juicero, but you should be paying attention to it.
What follows are choice excerpts from a recent Bloomberg article, Silicon Valley’s $400 Juicer May Be Feeling the Squeeze:
One of the most lavishly funded gadget startups in Silicon Valley last year was Juicero Inc. It makes a juice machine. The product was an unlikely pick for top technology investors, but they were drawn to the idea of an internet-connected device that transforms single-serving packets of chopped fruits and vegetables into a refreshing and healthy beverage.
Doug Evans, the company’s founder, would compare himself with Steve Jobs in his pursuit of juicing perfection. He declared that his juice press wields four tons of force—“enough to lift two Teslas,” he said. Google’s venture capital arm and other backers poured about $120 million into the startup. Juicero sells the machine for $400, plus the cost of individual juice packs delivered weekly. Tech blogs have dubbed it a “Keurig for juice.”
But after the product hit the market, some investors were surprised to discover a much cheaper alternative: You can squeeze the Juicero bags with your bare hands. Two backers said the final device was bulkier than what was originally pitched and that they were puzzled to find that customers could achieve similar results without it. Bloomberg performed its own press test, pitting a Juicero machine against a reporter’s grip. The experiment found that squeezing the bag yields nearly the same amount of juice just as quickly—and in some cases, faster—than using the device.
Juicero declined to comment. A person close to the company said Juicero is aware the packs can be squeezed by hand but that most people would prefer to use the machine because the process is more consistent and less messy. The device also reads a QR code printed on the back of each produce pack and checks the source against an online database to ensure the contents haven’t expired or been recalled, the person said. The expiration date is also printed on the pack.
Evans, 50, follows a diet of mostly raw, vegan foods. Technology was a new thing for him, but he picked it up quickly. He said he spent about three years building a dozen prototypes before devising Juicero’s patent-pending press. In an interview with technology website Recode, he likened his work to the invention of a mainstream personal computer by Apple’s Jobs. “There are 400 custom parts in here,” Evans told Recode. “There’s a scanner; there’s a microprocessor; there’s a wireless chip, wireless antenna.”
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers joined Alphabet Inc. and others in funding Juicero. Evans’s subscription model had hit on a sweet spot for venture capitalists, said Brian Frank, who invests in food-tech companies through his FTW Ventures fund. The successes of Nespresso and Dollar Shave Club have made VCs eager to chase such deals, he said. “Investors are very intrigued by businesses that combine the one-time sale of hardware that ends up leading to repeat purchases of consumable packages,” said Frank, who doesn’t own Juicero shares.
But after the product’s introduction last year, at least two Juicero investors were taken aback after finding the packs could be squeezed by hand. They also said the machine was much bigger than what Evans had proposed. One of the investors said they were frustrated with how the company didn’t deliver on the original pitch and that their venture firm wouldn’t have met with Evans if he were hawking bags of juice that didn’t require high-priced hardware. Juicero didn’t broadly disclose to investors or employees that packs can be hand squeezed, said four people with knowledge of the matter.
Built on the promise of technology, Juicero was among the top-funded U.S. hardware startups in 2016. But in October, Evans was replaced as chief executive officer by Jeff Dunn, a former president at Coca-Cola Co. A few months later, Juicero dropped the price of the machine to $400 from $700. “It’s very difficult to differentiate yourself in the food and beverage sector,” said Kurt Jetta, who runs retail and consumer data firm Tabs Analytics. “Entrepreneurs may be tempted to have a technology angle when it’s not really there.”
Evans is now chairman of the startup’s board. The company sells produce packs for $5 to $8 but limits sales to owners of Juicero hardware. The products were only available in three states until Tuesday, when the company expanded to 17. Packs can’t be shipped long distances because the contents are perishable.
In Bloomberg’s squeeze tests, hands did the job quicker, but the device was slightly more thorough. Reporters were able to wring 7.5 ounces of juice in a minute and a half. The machine yielded 8 ounces in about two minutes.
Now watch the video.
There’s so much wrong here, it’s gonna take a little time to unravel it all. Let’s start with the company’s founder, Doug Evans, who apparently liked to compare himself to Steve Jobs. Here’s a free tip for everybody. Whenever a company’s founder compares him or herself to Steve Jobs, run the other way. There’s a high probability the product is an overhyped fraud. I recall another disgraced, overhyped CEO who was frequently compared to Steve Jobs; Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of blood testing company Theranos. In a 2014 Fortune profile on her, Jobs was mentioned on several occasions.
During my four days at Theranos, Holmes dressed identically every day: black jacket; black mock turtleneck; black slacks with a wide, pale pinstripe; and black low-heel shoes. Steve Jobs, because of his vision and perfectionism about “great products”–words Holmes punches out with precisely Jobs’ brio–is obviously a hero to her. As an apparent memento mori, she hangs in her office a framed screenshot of his Apple Internet bio, printed out on Aug. 24, 2011, the day he stepped down as CEO because of pancreatic cancer.
That clinched it for him. “When I finally connected with what Elizabeth fundamentally is,” he says, “I realized that I could have just as well been looking into the eyes of a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates.”
Although I believe Balwani when he says that Holmes’s “overall goal and direction” for the company “has been linear,” I don’t believe that Walgreens wellness centers represent the ultimate target of that vector. There are pieces of the puzzle we haven’t seen yet. In some cases she may be waiting for regulatory approval, while in others she may just be waiting, like Steve Jobs, to finish perfecting her next “great product” before unveiling it with a flourish.
We all know how that turned out. But I digress, let’s get back to Juicero. According to Bloomberg, the company’s founder went around claiming that the “juice press wields four tons of force—“enough to lift two Teslas,” but then a few paragraphs later we learn that “a person close to the company said Juicero is aware the packs can be squeezed by hand but that most people would prefer to use the machine because the process is more consistent and less messy.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. So the company knew the machine squeezes juice from its packets as effectively as two human hands, but in order to sell this monstrosity for $400 a pop (originally $700), they had to market it as some technological breakthrough. Is that what’s happening here?
Finally, and perhaps most concerning, look at a couple of the entities that helped fund Juciero to the tune of $120 million: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Alphabet Inc. (the parent company of Google). These are large, sophisticated players and they bought into this thing. From what I can tell, they were mesmerized by the fact the machine looked like and iPhone, connects to the internet, and was headquartered in San Francisco. Either that, or they knew the whole thing was a marketing scheme designed to trick morons into spending an enormous sum of money for the right to buy expensive juice packets that could probably be emptied just fine using a $20 machine.
Neither of the above conclusions is comforting. Either high-profile VCs were tricked by this ridiculous product, or they willingly went along with a what appears to be a sleazy scheme. Unfortunately, the bottom-line here seems to be that Silicon Valley is rapidly running out of ideas. That, or perhaps something far more perverse and systemic might be going on.
Tomorrow’s post will attempt to address the above question, but for now it’s safe to say that this Juicero episode bodes very poorly for the one area of the U.S. that had heretofore been one of the last remaining hubs of innovation.
If this is the state of Silicon Valley, the American economy is in even worse shape than I thought.
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$700 for a machine whose sole purpose is to press juice out of a highly perishable packet costing $5 – $8 a shot and only available in three states? And people who should know better threw money at this scheme? You can’t make this shit up.
Now if the machine had a screen which popped up ads to view while your juice was being squeezed they might have a future. After all, the only “innovations” SV has come up with are ultimately no more than overvalued advertising platforms.
Then again Jamba Juice isn’t looking too good either. Perhaps the whole juice trend has run its course?
I reached this conclusion about Silicone Valley several years ago when I saw that they were rushing to automate every possible job in the U.S. economy with absolutely no thought or care given about who would be able to afford their products or indeed keep the whole consumer economy afloat when all the jobs were gone. Once everyone had an electronic device in their hands that (nor coincidentally) helps destroy their attention spans and critical thinking skills, and every computer has become so advanced that upgrades increase their functionality only marginally, Silicone Valley was done as a source of innovation.
My opinion of silicon valley is it has become a champion for globalization and a more socialist America.
People are broken. It’s a symptom of the fall in the garden. The war we face is spiritual. Once you understand this truth, everything else makes sense. Jesus Saves…
Spiritually doesn’t begin and end with Jesus. Once you understand this truth everything else makes sense.
Everyboyd has to live according to their own concience. I believe Jesus is the beginning and the end. The first and the last. Nobody sees God the Father without accepting Jesus first.
I accept that you believe that, and I hope you are secure enough in your own spirituality to not preach it to others here who don’t want to be lectured on your specific version of spirituality.
This isn’t a website for preaching individual religious dogma, so let’s stick to the topics at hand.
Mike, Matt’s response was quite related to the topic at hand. More specifically, you write about how different aspects of our society are “broken”, and Matt’s response was to share how a worldview espoused by millions of people can consistently explain how and why it is broken.
I hope you are secure enough in YOUR own spirituality to realize that not all commentators will share your exact beliefs. Whatever snowflakes can’t read a harmless comment that they disagree with out feeling lectured to, have literally zero business reading internet comments (aka the cesspool of disagreement.) So don’t worry about protecting [me/us] from such comments. We read your (excellent) site because we support free speech, not because we want a bubble of agreements.
In liberty,
Andy
Here’s the thing. The comment section for my website is not and has never been a free for all. I’ve seen too many websites’ comment sections destroyed by trolls and hateful people who just want to spout off and ruin the conversation. Matt’s comment was certainly not in the hateful category, but it was being preachy and off topic and just entirely not helpful to the conversation. Note that Matt didn’t say “Christianity provides me with an ethical framework that is valuable, and here is how.” That would’ve be a helpful, interesting comment. “Jesus saves” is superficial, adds nothing of use to anyone and is just divisive and lecturing without making an actual point about how specifically his faith helps him.
People who think everything revolves around Jesus, think that everything revolves around Jesus. Great for them! But people like me who don’t think that will not be moved to appreciate the Christian perspective by someone simply saying “Jesus saves.” So all that does is distract and push the conversation in a direction that is not logical debate, but a question of faith, which is almost always not a debatable issue.
But I’m glad you commented, so I can make clear that the comment section here is not a sounding board for everyone wanting to make some case for their pet issues. I want people debating issues of the day. Issues that are actually debatable, which blind faith is not.
I have no interest in readers sharing my spiritual beliefs, which is why I almost never discuss them and certainly not in a preachy manner that turns off everyone who isn’t already a believer.
I didn’t delete his comment or censor him, but I made it clear I don’t want the comment section to move in the direction where people debate whose religion is best. As moderator of the comment section (and I am absolutely that from time to time out of necessity), that’s my role in trying to keep this comment section superior to many other sites, which I am proud to say, it usually is.
Thanks for your note.
This is a little off the subject; however, all ties into Globalists agenda.
Understand that Geo Engineering, “internet of things”, “smart appliances”, smart meters and the proposed 5G wireless network all ties together to create a global Tyrannical Technocracy. Controlled by international corporations that “own and use” governments to make policy and laws to create monopolies, reduce free enterprise and force new markets and technologies on the citizenry all the while tracking and spying on them in the name of billions of dollars. Climate Change is being used to transfer monetary and political power into the hands of a few based on the idea of CO2, global warming to create a carbon dictatorship (Cap and Trade) that will lead to mandating what we do in our homes and how we use energy based on the new smart appliances that allow the government to see what and when we use them. For example, “they“ will monitor your toaster or vacuum cleaner and mandate which manufacture and how and when we can use them. Sounds crazy but it’s not.
Three months ago if you had tried warning people that the CIA was spying on them through their smart television they would have fitted you for a tinfoil had and a straitjacket. They’re not laughing now.
If you can squeeze the packet and the juice comes out then the vegetables are already squeezed or at least partially juiced. You cannot squeeze shredded carrot or apple by hand efficiently to get juice. A press is very cool for juicing but it really doesn’t make sense. If a user can do it by hand the contents have to be already juiced to some degree which means the press is total BS. And at $6-$8 per packet for a small juice you might as well go to the local juice place.
So it’s not really a juicer but a bag opener/squeezer-$400-brilliant! $700–Genius! Consumers/purchasers of such product..not so much. Can it squeeze down the price of a Tesla to $16,000 so the average Joe can buy one? Nah. Doesn’t former AG Eric Holder work for Kleiner Perkins?
It is an IoT so that on the way home you can start it up with a pouch that has been festering at room temp all day? Maybe it has a cooler attachment for only another $300. Or you can use your Nest to keep the kitchen at 38 degrees. The mind, mine at least, boggles.
Lemme say that this is the reason basic phyisics MUST had be banned from American public schools. Because after even one year of beginners mid-school physics would make purchasing this machine but impossible.
Oookay, if someone wants to buy it for its “beauty” – he may, but he would at least understand why he do it.
Guess they are just incompatible, some basic science in public schools and growing nation of good consumers. If your worshipped economic metric is GDP, then good citizen = overspending consumer. There is no other choice then.
————
I looked at Juicero official YouTube commercial, and – it does not click.
Sources say it presses with two or even four metric tonnes of force.
No need to search for fake news in the Putin-paid alt-media, you know.
Just one look at the OFFICIAL promo.
That easily lifted lightweight door – can withstand 4 tonnes of presser without slightly bending?
Those small plastic latches of it – are withstanding 4 tonnes concentrated in about 2-4 square centimeters? Those slick thin hinges too ?
Worse of all, those cheap plastic packets that used in Russia to sell cheap milk, do THOSE SOFT BAGS of luquid hold damn pressure of 2-4 tonnes of force at their ever-thinning EDGES and SEALS ????????????
Come one guys, even American unsung genius Richard Feynmann related how he was asked to review books for public schools library and how he was kicked away from it…..
Only in Moderno Americano would the idea occur–let alone be venture funded–that you need 400 custom parts in an Internet of Things device to squeeze freaking vegetable juice. The Onion couldn’t come up with something this funny. Do I have to wear a turtleneck and jeans to be able to understand how to use it?
The more I think about a “wireless juicer” the funnier it gets. But it does encourage me enough to drag out my old prototype drawings for a Bluetooth jockstrap that I had laid aside years ago.
This is right on, “the fact that our financial system is largely a rent-seeking scheme designed to enrich parasitical, unethical behavior at the expense of the nation as a whole.”
Investors Accuse Theranos of Forcing Their Hand
If Elizabeth Holmes is going down, will she take her investors with her?
On Monday, Theranos settled with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, paying $30,000 and agreeing not to operate any clinical labs for two years. On Tuesday, the company agreed to pay out more than $4 million to Arizona customers in another settlement, plus $200,000 in civil penalties and $25,000 in attorney fees.
Now, Theranos is allegedly making a desperate move to staunch the bleeding. According to Bloomberg, investors are accusing Theranos of threatening to declare bankruptcy if they don’t promise not to sue the company. The alleged offer, revealed in a court filing unsealed Tuesday in Delaware Chancery Court, presented a sort of suicide pact to Partner Investments L.P. and two other funds. Officials for Partner Investments say a Theranos lawyer suggested the company would seek Chapter 11 protection if the funds didn’t drop the suit and instead accept more equity in the company.
According to Bloomberg, the share offer would have made it impossible for the funds to get anything back as part of the filing (Partner Investments invested more than $96 million in Theranos), forcing the funds to accept a “coercive” deal:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/investors-accuse-theranos-of-threatening-a-suicide-pact
i just think this is a good example of bubble group think insanity.
however, i think the rehabilitation of a criminally fraudulent scheme with military private public backing called theranos is actually much more alarming.
why isn’t elizabeth holmes in jail for financial and medical fraud?
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/18/theranos-reaches-agreement-with-us-health-regulator.html
who is protecting her?
the theranos story is why the u.s. is in trouble. we have a military cover up that disguizes publicly funded investment as private investment and too boot, it sucks in actual naive private investors and takes their money as well.
theranos story runs very deep just like the military roots of google.
what we are seeing is that a military directed thinly veiled private investment sector is going to have deep state coverups for ongoing failures.
the deep state is helping perpetuate ongoing malinvestment by protecting actual fraud operators by one way or another.
there are reasons these people are being protected but its going to come at great economic cost.
if private investment fraud is not public punished, and it is openly tolerated it encourages malinvestment and fraud at every level.
a society can suffer from bubbles and the maddness of crowds. it cannot survive long when systemic cover is provided to fraud, which supercharges the social rot of fraud penetrating every level of economic activity. a society collapses when genuinely and voluntarily desired products (ones that work as advertised) are crowded out by bribery and fraud backed products.
literrally this is the same relationship observed when you see fake formula made by parmallat killing african babies. if you encoruage parmallat they will crowd out all other genuine formula companies from the market and use their profits to chase out independent operators and ‘home’ cottage industries that attempt to walk away from the state sponsored parammalat fake formula cartel.
imagine this cycle occuring to all products and services on a systemic level. it is far more disabling to an entire social system than the cyclical and occasional zenithing investment madness of crowds.
i’ll juice to that.
More on military….
When Trump declared he passes the immediate decision making to JSOC generals, authorizes USArmy to make international invasions and strikes on its own discretion, many were saying Trump is nuts, Trump wants more war, etc.
My personal take was that that – while the outlined above interpretations definitely might be true – there was another possible option left out, that the “delegation” was not declaration before the fact, but a confirmation after the fact, that it merely was the only politically correct way left for POTUS to publicly say “i am not in control of US Army and thus bear no responsibility for their wars whatever they would be”. I do not say that is what it was, but it is what it could be too.
Here is another more detailed take on the same idea: http://thesaker.is/trump-has-lost-control-over-the-pentagon/
Trump recently said something that can be effected to “US president is not in immediate control of US Army”. It could be interpreted other ways too, like “strike decision delegation” or “Trump wants more war”, but it could be also the only possible way for Trump to cry out the state of affairs.
The Saker Vineyard recently published a more detailed article whether Trump is in control of US Army or not so much.
This is a perfect example of what happens when people are encouraged to uncritically embrace every possible ‘innovation’. The only solution is to encourage a sceptical approach, using these or similar criteria – is there a simpler alternative? what are the opportunity costs of adopting this approach? what are the possible social/environmental/political consequences? Jacques Ellul, Fritz Schumacher, Neil Postman, Ivan Illich and Lewis Mumford were all correct in arguing that, when it comes to technological innovations, for every benefit there is a commensurate cost. Their ideas deserve much more attention than they get.
As a techie, I can confirm that innovation has been way, way over-hyped. The truth is, real innovations, of the sort that really have life-changing consequences, are far between. Electricity, the car, the airplane, the television, the computer, the Internet. The vast majority of “innovations” are just the same as before, just a little faster, or a little bigger/smaller, or a little more convenient. And often that little doesn’t make much of a difference to most people.
Usually, just after some really big innovation, you get a lot of smaller innovations spawned from it. Silicon Valley enjoyed both the computer and the Internet (there are good reasons to think about them as separate life-changing innovations). So they enjoyed most of the smaller innovations that came from those two. The problem is, all the low-hanging fruit has gone by now. All the really useful things that computers and the Internet can do, have already been done. All that’s left are little crumbs of things that could be maybe a little more convenient, that’s all.
It’s possible that the next big innovation will come from Silicon Valley. After all, electricity spawned the radio, transistors and electronics, and from electronics spawned the computer. From the last big innovation you sometimes get the next one. But then, sometimes it’s something entirely different. The next big innovation might be the product of genetic engineering, that technically needed computers to happen, but the sort of people that discover it are very likely not to be Silicon Valley geeks. Or it could come from a new material discovered by, let’s say, people involved in mining at great depths. Or many other ways.
Let’s work backwards from $120M. Why was that much “invested” in a company that is a complete scam? KPCB has a huge fund vehicle that needs to put money somewhere. Writing a $500,000 check doesn’t get them any closer to raising the next fund. Hence, massive investments in something as dumb as Juicero, the $700 (now $400)…. what?
I completely agree about rent seeking in many/most instances of the VC model, i.e. 2/20, emphasis on the 2. What happened to the multiple investment stages to uncover info asymmetry? Instead, it’s all about deploying capital so you can raise capital. Obviously the SV VCs have been shown to be wearing no clothes. But who is really scammed in the end? The LPs who will fight over getting into the next fund.
Here is KPCB’s podcast about this company: http://www.kpcb.com/blog/the-roadmap-to-pitching-a-venture-capital-firm. Bet it doesn’t stay up much longer. From the podcast, “Randy’s favorite all-time pitch came from Juicero founder Doug Evans”. So freaking funny.
Money Laundering? It’s possible. Throw millions or billions in it and “we lost it–we’re bankrupt”–In todays kleptocracy it’s a distinct possibility. We are ruled by thieves–that is very clear.
Here is what you are driving at … I think…all the systems that depend on honesty are breaking or are broken …fiat $$$ is the core of the fraud problem… for if there is no honesty or integrity in your currency /no value … you first act is a fraud.
To me fraud is stealing by lying … it is near impossible to have integrity in a system of made up value ..to infinite $$$. so fiat like a cancer attacks the weak organs … first but eventually will get to all the organs and death will follow…that is what we are witnessing with our economy the cancer and slow death of an economic system based on fraud and debt.
Forgive me picking up on an issue that is slightly off-topic in terms of this post, albeit a crucial one. Those who focus all their venom on the supposed evils of fiat currency are showing a profound misunderstanding of the history and function of money. Contrary to the common misconception, money has rarely been or even functioned best when treated as a commodity, but is at root a symbol of the collective productivity of a community. Believing that, for example, gold is inherently valuable is a mere fetishism that obscures the deeper origins of another collective agreement – gold only has value because social custom decrees it, and because it therefore also comes to symbolise a claim on the collective wealth of society. There have been societies that did not prize it at all. Even gold starts to become corrupting when it is monopolised by a few as has always happened. This means that what is really wrong with our monetary system is not the use of fiat currencies per se, but their monopolization and domination by corrupt groups within society. Democratised and liberalised money systems that provide a genuine and transparent link between productive activity and reward are the only antidote. There is a place for gold, but as past experience shows us relying on commodities that are fixed in supply and dominated by elites is not a recipe for social harmony. The best solution would be to have a mixture of currencies – gold and silver, yes, but also digital currencies in various forms, using block chain methodologies. Resilience and flexibility are best served by multiple democratically controlled currencies rooted firmly in social production, not the centralised, monopoly systems we have at the moment. Chucking the fiat money baby out with the bathwater misses the point entirely.
Gold is treated as absolute money, exactly for being a good commodity.
Being noble metal, it does not rot and decay.
Being soft metal, it is easy to be shaped into coins or jewelry arts, and then it is easy to be cut or even broken into pieces if needs come.
You wrote: “It seems to be that Silicon Valley is rapidly running out of ideas…”
That`s quite right. Not only Silicon Valley is running out of ideas – its the whole world.
This is the real reason why the global economy is in stagnation since more than 10 years.
Mr. Ellsworth, the first Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office stated 150 years before: “The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end”. Nowadays, everyone laughs about it.
But – Mr. Ellsworth`s statement was right! He only was 150 years to early…
Read my website:
http://www.sensortime.com/serious_thoughts.html
(20 years old, but it remains correctly (the next 1000 years)….
There only seems to be stagnation in fundamental sciences.
Without those, the applied sciences invent all the ways to apply the fundamental breakthroughs and hibernate, waiting for new fundamental discoveries.
Which would not come, because true fundamental sciences give no ROI and can only be used for political games (like, climate statistic games -> Kyoto Protocols -> suppression of non-USA rival economies), thus are and would be left out in the cold.
The problem with Silicon Valley is corporate thinking. It is impossible to innovate if you not in tune with the reality of life and what really needs to be done to serve it better. Those who innovate in the Valley simply want to make money and this is exactly what kills real innovation.