It’s almost passé these days to mock tech companies for their hifalutin and un-self-aware ethos about saving the world with whatever shit they’re peddling. Like, by now, most discerning customers know everything that comes out of Silicon Valley is at least three-quarters of the way full of crap.
But, to the internet’s eternal delight, the people inside the industry don’t realize it. Which is why, when undeniable comeuppance comes, it is oh so sweet.
Because look at this shit.
Here’s a video from Juicero, a company that sells a $400 juicer to help you lead a “Healthier, Plant-Based Lifestyle at the Push of a Button.”
(There isn’t a wanking motion big enough in the world.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap0qbheibzM
It’s got a fucking rocket ship and a bicep and a lady chilling in a bikini, all in the name of juice, a concept first understood by people when they first bit into things.
But Juicero is the revolutionary company that knows to take, in their own words, the “4.5 billion year process” the Earth spent perfecting plants and deliver them to your doorstep. They send customers bags full of fruit and vegetables (formerly known as groceries, but hereto known as packs), which you can then insert into their $400 juicing machine and get … you guessed it.
Juice.
Apparently, in the previous 4.5 billion years of this planet, no one had done it like Juciero. Juicero, if you believed them, was the company to take us through the next 4.5 billion years.
It lasted a day. On Tuesday, the company expanded shipping of its packs to 17 states in the U.S. On Wednesday, it was discovered you could just squeeze the packs with your hand and juice would come out.
Despite Juicero founder Doug Evans’ claim that his machine could deliver enough force to lift two Teslas, his machine is entirely superfluous to the juicing process.
“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.”
In fact, as an added benefit, your hands are even better than the machine, because they don’t require electricity.
It didn’t take the internet 4.5 billion years to perfect its process of shitting on something this stupid.
https://twitter.com/darth/status/854724096411615232
juicero is proof that VCs just use dart boards. While drunk.
— Ken Goldsholl (@KenGoldsholl) April 19, 2017
https://twitter.com/_buupy/status/854739594557837312
https://twitter.com/samfbiddle/status/854712614269710337
Juicero should have seen this coming. I’ve been eating Keurig pods for a year.
— Sen. Lemon Gogurt ugarles.bsky.social (@Ugarles) April 19, 2017
My 3yo son Juicero asked me, with tears in his eyes, why the business press is so eager to discredit and destroy real innovators.
— David Roth (@david_j_roth) April 19, 2017
In case you are wondering if Juicero bought their own shit, check this bit from Bloomberg’s complete own of the comany.
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.”
In fundraising meetings, Evans promised a revolutionary machine capable of squeezing large chunks of fruits and vegetables, said two people who agreed to invest in the company.
The scanner is for scanning the packs to see if they’ve expired. Never mind that the packs already have an expiration date printed on them.
