"Juicero Does to its Staff What Your Hands Can Do to its Overpriced Juice Sacks"

From The Register:

Pulp-squeezing startup to drop a quarter of its workers

Internet-tethered juicer maker Juicero is axing 25 per cent of its staff as the startup tries to shake off its status as a Silicon Valley punchline.

Employees were told this morning that the San Francisco startup would not only shed staff, but also try to cut the price of its internet-connected juice-extractor in order to go beyond the niche market of early-adopter techies and into the wider world of people who can't fork over a quarter of their paycheck for juice.

In the letter, CEO Jeff Dunn tells Juicero workers that "the current prices of $399 for the Press and $5 to $7 for produce Packs are not a realistic way for us to fulfill our mission at the scale to which we aspire."

"We are not alone in this journey. Many innovative products, from the Keurig and Nespresso coffee makers to even the microwave oven, started out expensive," Dunn wrote. "Over time, scale delivered manufacturing efficiencies that lowered the costs, and we expect Juicero to follow a similar trajectory."...MORE

Of all the takes on Juicero my favorite was "What Do Germans Think of the Juicero?".

While the reaction from the tipper of "The Mad King of Juice: Inside the Dysfunctional Origins of Juicero" was a bit over the top:

HT: A.V. Club whose sense of betrayal comes through in their headline:
Read This: Juicero wasn’t just stupid, it was a lie