Is it a genius or a mad scientist? The man who got tens of billions of yen and started five startups

Start up as startupIt is serious, but it is even harder to continue to grow the business. Mike Cheiky is Mike Cheiky who started five companies and gathered tens of billions of yen from investors in the midst of a number of start-ups being disappearing, but the start-up established for the purpose of developing biofuels While it is admired as "innovative", it is becoming a situation in which rumors flutter in part as "inchy". Is it true that "Cheiky is a genius? Is it a mad scientist? Is it innovative?"The VergeI am revealing what kind of person Cheiky is.

The inventor of everything | The Verge
http://www.theverge.com/2014/4/14/5561250/cool-planet

Startup launched to turn plants into fuel "Cool Planet"This is Mike Cheiky, the founder of the company.


"Cool Planet" founded by Mike Cheiky makes inexpensive fuel by decomposing plants and it is possible to produce environmentally friendly bio-carbon which is superior as fertilizer in the process of decomposition.

Cool Planet | Biochar CoolTerra ™ and Green Renewable Fuels
http://www.coolplanet.com/


Cheiky was born in 1975Ohio ScientificIt was a person who launched a PC company called "PC company" and has kept many things in various fields such as biofuel, touch screen, speech recognition technology, battery, etc. without staying at PC afterwards.

The fifth company Cool Planet, made by Cheiky, got an investment of 100 million dollars (about 10 billion yen) from many companies including Google Ventures, and Cool Planet, Zpower and Transonic, founded by Cheiky, It is said that combining the three companies has succeeded in obtaining at least 300 million dollars (about 30 billion yen) of investment.

Some things that Cool Planet is doing are strange because someone seems to be a realistic dreamlike story. Chemical engineer Robert Rapier said, "Cool Planet's claim is close to the opinion that water will change to wine by giving enough temperature and pressure," the former employee said about Cheiky " But either he is one of the most prodigious genius or mad. "

But it is certain that Cheiky is trying to collect money from investors.

When Alex Drysdale of The Verge visited Cheiky's private lab, inside the building there were luxury cars, a computer called Ohio Scientific Challenger II, a touch screen displaying icons like a tile, in 1993 She said that she was overflowing with Cheiky's invention products, such as the device of interface that operates like voice like Siri that was developed. According to Cheiky, Apple's Steve Wozniak seems to use the technology of Ohio Scientific to make Apple II, Cheiky said pleasantly about these.


In Silicon Valley the "founder's dilemma" analogy is often used. This means "people who are good at building a company are not merely maturing the business". It is the venture capitalist's job to invest and investigate this "person who creates a company", that is, "people who are chasing the seemingly impossible idea and making it possible to excite people".

Mr. Cheiky is this typical type and Mike Rocke, Cheiky's right arm, said: "He's gone on something, slowly slowing down speed and getting bored when it enters a commercial stage It starts something of it. "

In 2002, when Rocke was working as a venture capitalist for Intel, I met Cheiky. He introduced the company Zpower, which was based mainly on batteries thirdly launched by Cheiky, to Intel, and immediately two of them launched a new company named Transonic to work together. The last two of the five companies Mr. Cheiky made are the ones that formed the tag with Rocke, but in the meantime Cheiky invented the invention and Rocke was collecting money from the investor That's right.


Rocke talks about Cheiky, comparing Cheiky to Thomas Edison, "One of his abilities is to measure how much the invention is, and bring the disjoint parts to the next stage in one There is no way anyone can do one different idea like him. "It seems that he was very eloquent to explain.

But the brilliant achievements and talents as entrepreneurs are not exactly what you see, Transonic's former employee "there is no room to question the fact that he is wonderful, there are about 150 IQs He is using his intelligence wickedly. "

Cheiky thinks himself as "a relentless inventor who enjoys making pure surveys and making companies, but soon after being exhausted", while Drysdale When I talked with former employees and current employees, another aspect has come to be seen.

In other words, Mr. Cheiky did not quit the company at his own choice, but the investor and the founding member made him realize that his research content was commercially unfeasible and stopped. AlsoZinc air batteryOne of the engineers who was working on the prototype at Zpower who was making an afternoon can show a new prototype that Cheiky made in his own laboratory. However, there is no official data on the test, and if I borrowed the engineer's expression, the company seems to have been a "gathering of deep-sea". "He sold" innovative new technology "that does not exist," he said.

The state of Cheiky who makes a presentation with "Solve for X" is as follows.

Solve for X: Mike Cheiky on negative carbon liquid fuels - YouTube


Besides this, while knowing that it is dangerous during the experiment, I want the result but want to do inappropriate operation, or an employee seems to be thinking "I do not understand what you are doing at all" Employees were able to hear Cheiky and the pretty gray aspects of the company.

That does not mean that Mr. Cheiky was incompetent, it is not so, "It's the ability to recruit talented people, find opportunities in the market, design technology and timely suggest" revolutionary invention " There is also opinion that it was delicious. Engineers praised the ideas of Cool Planet and Transonic, but when the situation goes wrong, Cheiky denies that fact.

Cool Planet is trying to convert plants into fuel, the premise is that "plants can be broken down as byproducts of charcoal that can make good soil for liquid fuel, water, biochar, agricultural products". "Biochar adds carbon to the ground, improves moisture holding, does not release CO2 into the air, it helps global warming, it will be a magical fuel that gives good effect to agricultural products and is cheap .Cool Planet is the most important job I've ever done, "Cheiky says.


While continuing the interview, Mr. Drysdale talked to a former employee that "Investors stepped on saying that commercialization is impossible and stopped Cheiky-san", the former employees put their arms around like this talked. "If someone enters the company to become the president, you will think about taking over. People are willing to own it, and those who come in and have no meaning to do so In other words, this means that the criticism of Cheiky and his start-up startup employees and former employees is only one opinion at a time .

Drysdale who finished the interview asked three experts including quantum mechanics and zeolite catalyst researchers to comment that Cheiky's invention is a bit irrational and exaggeratingly conveys things He told me that. However, Professor William Banholzer of Chemical Engineer says "I am using Cool Planet as an example of" a claim not to ignore common sense "in education". He literallySolve for XWe made a presentation of Cheiky using the presentation by Mr. Cheiky and made a summary of the fact that there are no plants that can extract enough energy to make Cool Planet's claim or even if biochar made from plants does not work well .


This is the material.


Professor BanholzerThe Dow Chemical CompanyHe works as a CTO and advises him as a venture capital's right arm and has a unique technology that allows us to find out the startup's stagger. Since hundreds of venture companies have been able to distinguish between facts and fiction from seeing amazing technologies, we now teach students the skills.

In addition, all three executives of Zpower, Transonic, Cool Planet said that "Mr. Cheiky has left us changing his skills, which is the core of the company, in a good direction," furthermore, officers of Transonic and Cool Planet are Cheiky He claims that he does not rely on his 'invention' now. When asked about Mr. Banholzer's claim, Howard Janzen, CEO of Cool Planet, said, "Such a claim was in the very beginning of the company, but since I came here it is very cautious and accurate I am trying to publish the document to the public. "

Buildings of Transonic and Cool Planet are built "next to" private lab which is Cheiky 's small "kingdom" because the officers are distant from Cheiky. And Drysdale. However, even though "Cool Planet is departing from Cheiky's technology," claims, slides, patents etc. on the company website are still due to Cheiky.


Even Rocke, who was Cheiky's right arm and praised his talent, talked on the phone after the interview, "When I talked about it, frankly, I admire Mike and respect it is an early idea with respect to Mike It is about innovation. " "I've seen plenty of companies that have not commercialized or have been fighting commercialization since I am a mechanical engineer and I know that there is a problem with what he makes, but the first idea he creates ...... Science itself, I like ideas that can be thought of as "how to solve problems". Sometimes it does not work. Sometimes it fails, sometimes it is not science, sometimes impossible science. In other words, it is so difficult for a company that can survive.

Later Drysdale cites "bad science" and sends an e-mail to Cheiky, he received it as a compliment, and a reply came to acknowledge that "I am so," admitting the content. "I do not consider this to be" bad science. "It's simply an incredibly screwy management method to advance the company at a high speed with limited resources."

So, was it really that he was forced to quit at least two companies, when investing in a new company did not any investigators ring the alarm bell?

One of the answers is that venture capital tends to target investment as "a self-confident house with an impressive background". Even if it is impossible to imagine and talk too much, and even if it has not been decades old, venture capital is built on the so-called "betting" so it is not a problem . And Cheiky and Rocke of the right arm have been doing it for 12 years.

If Cheiky could not fulfill its purpose, venture capital will waste tens of billions of yen. About Cheiky's investors Investors did not tell The Verge anything, but some investors said, "Unlike many people who start up in a row, Cheiky says that the same investor has made money I will not give out, "he talked about his negative impression.


In the interview at the private laboratory, Cheiky and Rocke proudly said that when talking about the investment amount, "How much did you say that 10 billion yen is great?" "A lot of small companies have a small amount of 10 billion yen It is the amount of money that is more than publicly available. " I said, "I guess they have succeeded thanks to the shares they got as the founder of the company," he said, "I lost it" I answered, "I do not want to benefit from the company I've made so far "Because I am a researcher, money is secondary" I replied to the question "Is it?" "He will not attach much money," Rocke added.

When Drysdale spent two hours with Cheiky, Cheiky seemed to enjoy the role of "a researcher interested only in great science without interest in money", but on the other hand, cars, yachts, private It was also a fact that I was having fun talking about Jet and Mansion. While explaining Mercedes E 63s of 92,000 dollars (about 9.2 million yen) as having no space to park in the private laboratory, when asking for details about property, I moved the theme to a pure passion for research, I am trying what everyone does not do, I will do my best for humanity, "he told with intonation.


Cheiky's next project aimed to solve the energy problem called "V-Grid". Details can be checked from the following movies.

Vgrid - Powering The Cloud - MikeCheiky SVIS 13 - YouTube


Cheiky explained, "Since the Cool Planet was collateralized to launch the V-Grid, investors in Cool Planet are essentially the same as investors in V-Grid," explained Drysdale Confirmed the facts to the investors, every investor decided absolutely. But Cheiky has already drawn a new dream using Cool Planet and is selling to investors.


Cheiky, a variety of rumors flutter, but of course it can be said that the truth of a series of events is that "Cheiky is a pure scientist, just the surrounding people are gone about his science". When I talk about his innovative idea, it is expressed in the United States that the problem comes out when considering the details in detail, "The devil lives in details", but when he talked to his innovative idea, "Because the devil lives in details It is said that he said.