If you prove that your tech won’t work, and you have a better idea, go back to your board. Because of the way venture investing works, they’d almost certainly rather bankroll you to pivot, than take their money back and shut you down.
In any case, the board usually has no control over how you operate the company. Their only choice, if they don’t like it, is to fire you - and a majority of them would have to agree to do so.
I see no evidence that the founder is somehow trapped inside her company, totally aware of her terrible idea and yet unable to pivot. All evidence points to the fact that she is still a believer. If anything, she’s now being pushed aside by her board, who are putting an adult in charge and looking for some kind of licensing deal or IP buy-out as a last-ditch exit.
And here is the control he said he exerted at the time (same link):
"It’s true the some VCs have started writing so many checks that they resemble stock pickers but the majority of us still have less than 10 board seats at any time and tend to go pretty deep so the result is that we care deeply about where we commit our time."
In my personal estimation, Perry saw the limitations of the technology years ago, but was not in any position to pivot her company single-handedly.
You can disagree with me if you want. But have you built a prototype that demonstrated functionality that got a VC to write you a check for $10 million?
You can go grovel to your board about a pivot they didn't sign up for. Or you can be Steve Jobs and lead, letting others follow or be left behind. The time to do that was three-four years ago (when Perry would have clearly seen the limitations of the technology at scale, and still had loads of money in the bank.)
If there were really some kind of new beamforming tech it could find use in sonar, defense, imaging etc. If it can do milliwatts in air without radiating painfully loud harmonics in every direction that's something too
If you prove that your tech won’t work, and you have a better idea, go back to your board. Because of the way venture investing works, they’d almost certainly rather bankroll you to pivot, than take their money back and shut you down.
In any case, the board usually has no control over how you operate the company. Their only choice, if they don’t like it, is to fire you - and a majority of them would have to agree to do so.
I see no evidence that the founder is somehow trapped inside her company, totally aware of her terrible idea and yet unable to pivot. All evidence points to the fact that she is still a believer. If anything, she’s now being pushed aside by her board, who are putting an adult in charge and looking for some kind of licensing deal or IP buy-out as a last-ditch exit.