FDA to order Juul e-cigarettes off U.S. market
Important to remember that combustible cigarettes are <i>terrible</i> and e-cigarettes are a slightly less terrible alternative to those. In a world where cigarettes are  <i>so</i> terrible however, e-cigarettes end up saving billions in health care dollars and quality of life.<p>Of all the e-cig players, Juul (which is now majority owned by Altria) <i>is</i> the most reputable one — by far - they have by far the best technology, quality controls, compliance and regulation teams, etc.<p>Unfortunately before Altria acquired Juul it was a <i>terribly</i> ran company. People spend a lot of time discussing the chronic youth issues but the reality is that Juul never wanted to sell to youths or anything of the sort — they were just _so_ incompetent at operations that they couldn&#x27;t do <i>anything</i>.<p>They set fire to hundreds of millions of dollars on totally ridiculous projects plainly stupid ideas:<p>* A modular supply chain project with the idea that they could use manufacturing as a carrot for regulatory laws — this team was 50-100 people and had tens of millions of dollars in budget. Never did anything.<p>* All manner of vanity innovation projects: new battery technology, next and next and next generation projects, dozens of flavours, absurd marketing campaigns, rebrands, a $250k custom typeface, the list goes on.<p>* Hired McKinsey and Bain because the executive team (who were all ex-management consultants) wanted the company to move fast ....<p>* My personal favourite Juul story (ok I have a bunch) was that the company was so incompetent they didn&#x27;t do headcount planning — You could just hire as many people as you wanted if your random (often incompetent) VP was okay with it. Juul had 50-100 VPs so it was sheer chaos.<p>It got so bad that Altria had to step in and install their own CEO and axe <i>all</i> of the existing executive team (and lay off thousands of random employees) to try and right the ship. Altria are a very legit operational business — you may not like them but they know how to work with the FDA within strict regulation guidelines. If Juul is removed from the market despite Altria taking over they&#x27;re truly fucked.<p>In my time at Juul I have never worked with so many incompetent people. 
It was quite impressive but also incredibly depressing as someone that joined because the idea of creating a connected device vaping product to help switch Americans off combustible cigarettes was very compelling.