back to article Soylent adds coffee

Food-as-drink startup Soylent has created a new substance called “Coffiest”. It's Soylent's usual story: why bother preparing food when you can just drink glop that has all the nutrients you need? Coffiest adds coffee to the mix, so that those who like to start the day with a jolt can get it in a bottle that also contains 20 …

  1. MrDamage Silver badge

    Soylent Brown

    Will probably taste like it looks.

  2. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Mushroom

    How is this company still going? Either they mugged some VCs or California has more members of the solutionist cult than is healthy.

    Maybe I'm just jealous because I didn't get any funding for something equally inane!

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Jesus, funding of $ 22.3 million in four rounds!. So, will the investors really be out of pocket? Or will they able to offset the loss against tax.

      No wonder Trump is popular in large parts of America if this shit™ counts as innovation.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How is this company still going? Either they mugged some VCs or California has more members of the solutionist cult than is healthy.

      How they're still going is by being profitable, and actually selling goods that people want to buy.

      But in SV terms, just $22M in investment is a failure. A company has to be grossly unprofitable and lacking any kind of business plan to make the $billion unicorn club.

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        How they're still going is by being profitable, and actually selling goods that people want to buy.

        ooh, a member of the cult chimes in. If they're profitable, and I've yet to any indication that this is the case, then they don't need funding.

        Let's face it: this is just another Herbal Life.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          If they're profitable, and I've yet to any indication that this is the case

          A simple Google search is all it takes. How about a Business Insider article about the $20M they got last year:

          "Soylent is currently profitable, so it will use its additional fund to invest in long-term research and development."

          they don't need funding.

          Have you never heard of a business taking on a loan or additional investors, so that they can grow their business more quickly than profits alone allow?

          Let's face it: this is just another Herbal Life.

          In terms of product, maybe. In terms of business, Soylent is certainly no multi-level marketing scheme.

  3. twelvebore

    Soylent Bean?

  4. Unep Eurobats
    FAIL

    You still have to put it in your mouth?

    Who has time for that? Just fix me up to the drip, nurse.

    1. Richard 81

      Re: You still have to put it in your mouth?

      How about a handy suppository. Pop one in after your morning ablutions and you're away.

  5. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Windows

    That will never be enough coffee for me

    1. Alistair
      Windows

      /agree DAM!

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Legal position is interesting

    "Coffiest" is a product in the dystopic novel The Space Merchants by Pohl and Kornbluth. It's addictive, but the cost is just low enough that you decide not to pay to be cured of the addiction.

    This leads to interesting speculation:

    1. Are Soylent aware of this and are taking the piss (given their dystopic fiction inspired name, surely yes.)

    2. Can they trademark this name, given that it is a similar product in a book which has been in print for over 50 years?

    Edit - The Space Merchants must be one of the most prophetic books ever written. If you haven't already done so, read it.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: Legal position is interesting

      The German title is

      "Eine Handvoll Venus und ehrbare Kaufleute"

      (A fistful of Venus and honorable merchants)

      which made me laugh.

      On a tangent, HAVE YOU BOUGHT YOUR FECKLE FREEZER YET? You know who owns an Ajax Freezer? Fairies own Ajax Freezers! You know who owns a Triplecold Freezer? Commies own Triplecold Freezers! Every freezer but a brand-new Feckle Freezer stinks! I'm warning you! Get out and buy a Feckle Freezer right away! Hurry up! Hurry for Feckle! Hurry for Feckle! Hurry, hurry, hurry, Feckle, Feckle, Feckle, Feckle, Feckle, Feckle...

    2. Notional Semidestructor
      Mushroom

      Re: Legal position is interesting - is Chicken Little next?

      Found the quote...

      "...here's what makes this campaign great in my estimation - each sample of Coffiest contains three milligrams of a simple alkaloid. Nothing harmful. But definitely habit-forming. After ten weeks the customer is hooked for life. It would cost him at least five thousand dollars for a cure, so it's simpler for him to go right on drinking Coffiest - three cups with every meal and a pot beside his bed at night, just as it says on the jar."

      Quotation from "The Space Merchants" by Frederik Pohl with C M Kornbluth, pub 1952

      Have the blockheads at Soylent read this?

      Are they indeed incorporating a suitable addictive alkaloid?

      If not, why not? They are required to maximise stockholder value, are they not?

      (pant) (pant)

      The same novel allegedly coined the word "soyaburger", and "Chicken Little" was vat-grown meat.

      Yum!

    3. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Re: Legal position is interesting

      Well, it's the same with the name "Soylent". They will just have to pay the author or the author's estate to license the name. While this might be expensive, it may be the least of their worries.

      I've just been doing numbers and they need an army of believers to buy this crap in order keep going. $ 60 per solutionist fool per month including to cover development, manufacturing and shipping doesn't leave much to actually pay anyone.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Alkaloid, you say?

    > (pant) (pant)

    It's the ciggie....

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