The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

A weekly show about the trends in the electronic industry.

You are here: Home / Guest Appearance / #394 – Jeri Ellsworth and the demise of CastAR

Comments

  1. Finally! Why did you wait for so long?

    Anyway, still waiting for Clive Mitchell (bigclivedotcom).

  2. Excellent show! Thanks Jeri – I’ve always wondered what happened to castAR and now I know 🙂

    Good luck with the new endeavour. I’m now intrigued to find out which part of the rocket you worked on…

    Keep up the good work guys

  3. very nice interview. Thanks a lot for all those details and insights.

    Just wanted to state some of my thoughts on some points, with no intetion to hurt anyones feelings.

    The thing to work on the mechanical design over 2 weeks on ones own time, that is certainly pretty interesting, I as a worker for a company and not working for my own business would never think of spending my time during holidays for anything work related without beeing paid. I guess this is the big point behind every ones motivation.

    First everyone is excited and keen on working for a bigger purpose, thenafter a couple of years in the business you simply realize there is only money and free time to get out of it( maybe a different story would be the cure of cancer or world peace 🙂 ) so desperation sets in, its very hard to motivate oneself (especially if you see your company led by wrong decisions and wrong goals all the time, which of course is not true all of the time ). Then the next step probably is family maybe some big depth, buiying a car, house etc, so maybe the motivation to pay the depth is high again or simply to get away from the family keeps you working for over hours 🙂 ( hopefully not )

    I would love some discussion about this point, since all engineers sit in the same boat, even Bob Widlar quit his job early, cause he did not make enough money, if i remember right 🙂

    And another big thing I tend to see everywhere, Jerri seems to be a really good engineer, the go to woman, when problems drop in, every company only needs one of those, two would mean excessive loan costs, as everyone could understand, but maye two good engineers could find better solutions than one good engineer with 10 crappy ones around them.

    I think one former guest, the one who did sales he mentioned that as well, very interessting stuff, as I said, in all my expirience its the same all companys do have this one force of nature engineer, probably way underpayed 🙂 who simply knows everything ( in a good way, not in a what was the term wheelchair engineer, I liked that one )

    Sorry for the excessive comment, thanks for reading, and maybe i will be happy soon with some more discussions about how the 10 billions of people will get to work for money or vegetables in the future 🙂

  4. Great to have her back in the game. There is no substitute for authenticity . When I was little I read Ayn Rands Atlas Shrugged which provided a great insight into the producers and the looters. For any venture both personal and business alignment of goals , timelines and comitment to stay the course is essential. Providers of finance usually understand thier world of moving cash rapidly where it will generate the fastest risk adjusted return and don’t give a toss about the underlying business or people. Like Jeri I have learnt that you don’t want anyone on your team who does not have scars on thier back . Super smart MBA’ s need to get heavily burnt a few times before they are listened to and contractors ie consultants should have skin in the game in the form of deferred payment determined by measurable outcomes after 1 year of completion of thier contract – 80 % fee retention.

    Thanks Jeri for candid sharing which is invaluable advice like “ letters from the trenches “

  5. I think she has a reputation of not finishing any project she leads. From video series to CastAR.

    • It is remarkable how many people have negative comments – she took on something large , put in the sweat equity , was faced with normal VC and business issues and I am sure , did not set out to not complete with so much on the line . Perhaps naysayers should start out by listing their remarkable achievements so we can understand their point of departure.

      I suggest listening slowly to the podcast and making notes so you can draw a timeline of what happened and what went wrong which provides touchstones for us all – Thanks Jeri.

      I used to work in big corporates where you are so protected and full of pride with your VP title , PA and span of control and then attend sycophantic meeting after meeting – 30 years ago I broke the shackles and started my own business which really tests ones resolve and character

      As the old Chinese saying goes ” walk 1000 days in someone’s shoes before you pass judgement ” and from the Devils dictionary – Advice (n) – The smallest of currencies.

  6. Very much enjoyed the insights and attitude to Silicon Valley startup branding and naming.

    It doesn’t have to be like that though. Based in Asia I’ve named and branded many companies and products with little drama and great results.

    The approach here is much less precious than the US.

    Maybe that’s why we’ve been getting work recently from SV companies.

    I actually find engineers much easier to work with, than say accountants or lawyers. But then again before I was in branding I was in programming and before that I was in mechanical engineering so maybe I take a more logical approach to it all.

    Branding and naming is about engineering people’s thinking. It can add real value. So yes be skeptical but don’t dismiss it entirely because it can be very effective.

    Cheers

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