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A Twisted Clean-Tech Tale: How A123 Wound Up In Bankruptcy
curtwoodward writes "Advanced battery maker A123 Systems was supposed to be one of the marquee names of the U.S. cleantech manufacturing scene — it won hundreds of millions in federal grants, had operations around the globe, and supplied the luxury Fisker electric car. In 2009, as the economy sputtered, A123 registered the country's biggest IPO. Today, it's in bankruptcy court, with possible buyers submitting bids for its parts and pieces. How'd A123 fall so far, so fast? As losses mounted, its reliance on just two big customers came back to haunt the company — and a series of screwups at a Michigan plant delivered the final blow."
A123's 'success' was built on DOE funded research dollars that went to MIT. This money was used to develop key patents that were then 'auctioned off' to A123. A123 just happened to be a company set up by the head researcher whose name appears on the MIT patents. Of course, he was only a minority shareholder as it was the cigar-smokers who get to be the majority shareholders. None of these cronies know anything about actually running a company, but they can certainly sell shares, which is what they did. I tried to find out how to get in on these patent auctions and the process is so guarded that an outsider can't even find out how it goes down. When I tried to inquire about it, I was immediately sent to an MIT public relations officer who would only give me long sermons about all these studies that have demonstrated that since Congress passed the laws to create patents and grant exclusive licenses on technologies developed with public monies it's been nothing but unicorns and rainbows. I finally had to hang up on the guy when he wouldn't even respond to any question I tried to ask him. He just kept spewing his propaganda like a fucking robot.