[KevinEldon]

I think your point is that this is marketed as a "nutritional" product and yet no member of the team has a credentialed background in nutritional science so the marketing claims may be dubious.

If that's what you mean I think "so what?". Don't buy it. The marketing claims, like so many marketing claims, may be wrong. If the product does not help people then people will stop buying it or it will be like any number of other bogus "nutritional" products that survive on marketing and placebo effect alone.

Being skeptical of a product based on the team that created is valid, but doesn't mean the product isn't valuable. The product should stand on its own. I think that is the nature of a start-up, you create something get it into the hands of customers and experiment. Soylent just happens to use food ingredients instead of node.js.

[princess3000]

You'd probably expect a car company with the motto "Engineering future cars" to have at least one mechanical engineer on their payroll. Expecting a company whose tagline is "Engineering future foods" to have at least one person with a background in nutrition isn't unreasonable.

Ship it and then iterate works when your product is software, not so much when it's marketed as the only food the human body needs to ingest for long periods of time. If node.js breaks then maybe some websites go down. If Soylent breaks then people could die (though hopefully they'd stop taking it before that point).

[KevinEldon]

I don't really care about who car companies employ; I do care about the performance of the car I buy. If the car is unproven I don't buy it. If the car is proven to be defective or unsafe I don't buy it.

Soylent is not a car. The first buy is bordering on an impulse buy. If it doesn't work for someone then they're likely to stop using it. If you're skeptical about it then don't buy it... wait for the reviews, wait for the early adopters to give some feedback.

Marketing is mostly bullshit... Soylent is mostly marketing right now. If the marketing bothers you then you're probably not an early adopter so just hang back and tell the early adopters how stupid they were in a year.

[quinnchr]

So you're saying it's the early adopters who hold the responsibility for ensuring the product is safe? They should possibly risk their lives so they can give reviews to future potential customers so that they can make an informed decision on the safety of the product?

Since Soylent falls under the food category we don't get the benefit of the FDA testing it's safety for us, unlike cars which have the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to set standards for safety testing. So really the only safety information you can glean is the track record/capabilities of those making Soylent, and without a nutritional scientist on board, that seems like a dubious idea.

[KevinEldon]

If you're interested in Soylent then buy some. Try it for a meal or three. Read a few reviews of other people who have tried it. If it works for you maybe try it a few more meals... take care of yourself. If you're concerned about the safety of the product then don't buy it.

Bottom line, as a consumer, manage your own risk vs. reward. This is a product you can buy cheaply and experiment with to find out if it's right for your needs.

[quinnchr]

You're still saying it's the early adopters responsibility to determine the safety of the product, which seems fairly ludicrous to me...

[enraged_camel]

No, he is saying the early adopters can take on that responsibility if they wish. There's a slight but important difference in connotation.

I ordered a week's worth last month. I didn't do it to "determine the safety of the product." I did it because the idea intrigues me and I'm willing to give it a try. It's made of well-known ingredients, so what's the absolute worst that can happen?

[KevinEldon]

Soylent has been consumed safely and is sourced from known safe ingredients. Early adopters validate the use cases for a product. They are willing to take risks to receive some benefit.

[chadwickthebold]

Good point. We can argue all day about whether startups like Airbnb should be regulated, but it seems pretty clear to me that the government has a public health interest in regulating a pile of powder and its associated health claims.