True. I wish I thought of this when I was in my 20's. No risk, no reward. Everyone knows the stakes and the risks. Meredith got caught up in a wind-storm of excitement on the prospects of this project, encouraged by VC money and the positive media attention (at least initially). She was not going to say no. Obviously the VC's are banking on a big payout so they are willing to risk investing in it. Now that several years have passed and progress has slowed or completely stopped, she has to face the piper. But like all of these projects, they usually fade quietly away. Meredith is only the "face" of uBeam and naive and obviously unsure of the scientific merits of whether the technology is possible, but she paid these engineers who gladly took a salary to try and see if they could make it happen.... I wouldn't say she did any of this with mal-intent.
Except for those pesky things like "ethics" and "integrity" that I'm sure are holding you back. People like Meredith don't get "caught up" in this kind of excitement, they intentionally try to create it so they can ride the wave high without ever bothering to really think ahead about if they'll be able to actually fulfill the promise. They stoke the flames, and won't take responsibility when it flares up and burns them.
You might try and excuse her by saying she was making claims that she did not know were impossible, but I have a different view. She was being incredibly irresponsible by making grandiose claims about things that she had no idea about whether they were possible or not.
I have no medical experience at all, so I why don't I try to pitch the development of a new drug to some VCs, one that will cure all known diseases! After all, life (and therefore disease) is just chemistry, so it should be possible to design a chemical that has any pharmacological effect that I desire. The laws of physics do not prohibit such a drug from existing, so it must be possible. Invest now! Don't mind the fact that I can't tell my ethanols from my methanols, I have vision, determination, and the chutzpah to tell people far more skilled than me that
I'm your boss, and don't you dare forget it. That's all an innovator really needs.
I hope that anyone here would be informed enough to know why such a pitch is stupid. Even if the person is well-intentioned and is not a cynical schemer, such careless (some would say reckless) optimism does not deserve to be treated favorably. It supports the person's unrealistic views about the world and leads to wasted effort like this whole mess.
Wireless charging through ultrasound just happens to be a tough nut to crack and a bottomless pit of investment is going to be needed to make it happen.
It's not just that it's a "tough nut to crack", it's a pointless and dumb nut to crack. Any place like a restaurant that wanted to make it convenient for customers to charge their phones would be better off building inductive chargers into the tables and marking where they are, or building micro USB or USB-C cables into the tables. An idea like uBeam isn't dumb just because it's hard, it's dumb because there are better ways of achieving the same goal.