[btown]

To be fair, we don't know what goes on behind the scenes. Yo has simply proven that its creators are audacious enough, and good enough at marketing, to make something go viral. Perhaps they have other ideas, other business plans that are currently in stealth, and they're getting funding for them under the Yo umbrella. These are smart people investing in them, and Occam's Razor would seem to indicate that it's highly unlikely that the investors all got collective amnesia from head injuries and changed their vetting/due diligence strategies overnight.

[downandout]

The recurring excuse for the investment is "look at the engagement". Toilets have incredible engagement as well - billions of people use them multiple times per day - but we don't put millions of investment dollars into them. Well, maybe the people investing in Yo do, but most people don't.

[chasing]

The toilet is probably a bad comparison. Smart people are putting millions of dollars into improving them.

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/media-center/press-releases/2...

[argonaut]

Yes, and if you showed me impressive engagement and virality metrics for a toilet that had network effects and a plausible recurring revenue stream (ads), then I would definitely invest (of course no such toilet product exists - toilets don't have strong network effects and don't have a plausible recurring revenue stream in the form of ads).

[btown]

> virality metrics for a toilet

Toilets: the only technology sector where there's a direct correlation between "input sanitization" and "virality metrics..."