Author of new book on Better Place crash to speak at launch in Jerusalem

Better Place, the billion-dollar electric car startup headed by Israeli wunderkind Shai Agassi, promised a new world of clean automotive travel but quickly descended into a catastrophic train wreck.

When Better Place formally launched in 2007, Wired magazine hailed it as the fifth-largest startup in history.

“Some five-and-a-half years later, when it declared bankruptcy, Better Place held the unenviable distinction of being perhaps the most spectacularly failed technology startup of the 21st century,” writes Brian Blum in his new book “Totaled: The billion-dollar crash of the startup that took on big auto, big oil and the world.”

Its collapse in 2013 left nearly 1,000 Israelis who’d had the vision to buy a zero-emission all-electric Renault Fluence-ZE with a beautiful car whose batteries were fast deteriorating and could no longer be swapped. It left dozens of people out of work. It left a network of million-dollar space-age battery switching stations useless and rotting in obscure parts of Israel.

And it left investors with a billion-dollar hole in their pockets.

In the meantime, Agassi and his dream had been adopted as Israel’s flagship tech product by president Shimon Peres, attracted $130 million from Idan Ofer and the Israel Corporation, and starred in the bible of Israel’s tech revolution, “Startup Nation.”

Then it all came crashing down. How?

Blum, a Jerusalem tech reporter and podcast host, has a tragic, brilliant story to tell and he does it with flair. With the striking exception of Agassi himself, who refused to participate, Blum interviewed most of the key players in the Better Place universe, including senior executives, Agassi’s key colleagues, investors and Better Place car owners, which included Blum himself.

For those still wondering how anyone can spend a billion dollars in five years and have nothing left to show for it, Blum’s book is an enlightening investigation into the folly of personality-driven business. Among the many shocking revelations are Agassi’s cavalier relationship to spending: he underestimated the cost of each battery-switch station by about a million dollars but the company’s cost spreadsheets were never amended.

“Better Place grew so fast that, even before it had had a single product ready for sale, it could no longer be described as agile. And agility is the key element that gives up-and-comers a competitive advantage over the entrenched players they hope to disrupt. Better Place’s sky-high burn rate, runaway staffing and expansive worldwide operations cost it the easy ability to recalibrate,” says Blum.

Blum also painstakingly documents, using internal company memos and emails, the reality that Better Place wasn’t really a car company at all but a vast electric power provider. Blum suggests that most of its leaders were probably in the wrong business.

“Better Place was at its core a hardware company: It built switch stations, charge spots and a smart grid with physical cables and connectors, and it sold two-ton electric cars that required all those components. But the company’s top management all came from software,” he writes.

Perhaps the most striking lesson for other tech startups is how the brilliance, self-belief and powers of persuasion that Agassi wielded so effectively to raise the massive finance and launch the company became fatal flaws once it required prudent management skills. As the company’s problems multiplied, crucial relationships with Renault and other partners deteriorated.

“Better Place had imagined a healthy working relationship with its only car-manufacturing partner. Instead, the two companies barely talked. Suspicion and paranoia ruled the day, and the poor luck of a spy scandal removed Better Place’s few advocates at Renault,” Blum reveals.

Times of Israel readers are invited to attend the launch of “Totaled” on Thursday, October 19 at 7:30 p.m. at AACI in Jerusalem, where Brian Blum will be discussing his new book with Matthew Kalman and signing copies.
Free entrance. Register HERE