Juicero’s next squeeze

[Bloomberg] [Fully Charged]( From [Bloomberg](   [FOLLOW US [Facebook Share]]([Twitter Share]( [SUBSCRIBE [Subscribe]](  Hi everyone, it’s Olivia. I spent many of my idle moments last week mulling how Juicero could better respond to the haters who have gotten into a bit of a frenzy over my hand-squeezed juice exposé. Some background: I cover tech startups and spend most of my time reporting on innovations in travel and food. Last week my colleague Ellen Huet and I investigated Juicero’s claim that its machine exerts up to 8,000 pounds of force—“enough to lift two Teslas”—to squeeze packs of produce into juice. [What Ellen and I found](—along with at least a few of Juicero’s investors—is that the packs could easily be squeezed with our hands. In response, Juicero CEO Jeff Dunn [said]( the connected device is key to a multi-part process and that his company aims to use it to solve important problems like time management for frazzled dads and obesity. He also [offered every customer a refund](. Not only did our original piece and Dunn’s response go viral, but it also incited an outpouring of disdain for technology and the people who make it. [Fast Company]( called the Juicero “everything that is wrong with the world, or at least Silicon Valley.” [Deadspin]( called Juicero’s investors “trash parasites,” eager to take the “disposable income of credulous wellness-fad suckers.” Yes, the internet is very good at freaking out. Following the ruckus, many people have asked me the same question. Why did the Twitter-verse get so worked up about a device they’d probably never buy anyway? I can’t speak for the hundreds of people who tweeted angrily and sarcastically at Juicero. My sense is the masses feel frustrated—and amused—by Silicon Valley’s apparent urgency to solve first-world problems, even ones that may not exist in the first place. Also, who likes a place where a luxury car is a unit of measurement? If Juicero really wanted to solve a problem, like obesity, [some commenters wrote](, they wouldn’t start with a $400—formerly $700—Wi-Fi juice machine [marketed by Gwyneth Paltrow](. Instead, they’d focus on an efficient distribution network to ship affordable bags, or bottles, of preservative-free juice. And that’s what’s interesting here. Juicero could probably make a nice living selling juice bags without bothering with a fancy machine at all. And they could reach a lot of people. Not only do they have the venture backing (some $120 million worth), but [they have]( a sophisticated network of farms and refrigerated trucks to deliver preservative-free juice. Perhaps if they focused on that side of the business and left the fancy hardware out of it, they’d have a great product that people would love, not ridicule. But then they probably wouldn’t be a tech company. —[Olivia Zaleski](mailto:ozaleski@bloomberg.net?cmpid=BBD042317_TECH&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=170423&utm_campaign=tech)  And here’s what you need to know in global technology news Apple hired top Google satellite executives for a new hardware team. The company has also held talks about [investing in a Boeing satellite broadband project](.  Elon Musk laid out his plans for brain-connected computers. The billionaire futurist has taken on the CEO role at yet another company. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the startup, called [Nuralink](, and Musk expounded on the project in an interview contained within a [36,000-word blog post](.  Pinterest will start its first U.S. advertising campaign. The forgotten unicorn is expected to [launch the campaign]( this summer, potentially spending on billboards, websites, newspapers and magazines. Pinterest is the subject of the latest episode of our [Decrypted podcast](.  Snapchat paid $7.7 million for a geofilter patent. The patent was [held by Mobli](, a defunct Instagram rival founded by Israeli entrepreneur Moshe Hogeg, according to the blog GeekTime. Hogeg, for those who don’t know, is [quite a character](.   Sponsor Content by Insight and Microsoft Insight relies on 25+ years of experience and our 80 Microsoft Certified Professionals to help deliver Microsoft® solutions that meet your business needs and optimize your technology investments. Windows® 10 is designed to boost security, protecting enterprises against the latest cyberthreats. Its advanced features include Device Guard, OneDrive and more. [See the new features in Microsoft Windows 10.](   You received this message because you are subscribed to the Bloomberg Technology newsletter Fully Charged. You can tell your friends to [sign up here](.  [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022