SAN FRANCISCO — Every night, Aaron Melocik, a software developer, follows a precise food routine. He blends together half a gallon of water, three and a half tablespoons of macadamia nut oil and a 16-ounce bag of powder called Schmoylent. Then he pours the beige beverage into jars and chills them before bringing the containers to work the next day at Metrodigi, an education technology start-up.
At the office, Mr. Melocik stashes one Schmoylent jar in the refrigerator and takes the other to his desk. From 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., he sips from the first jar for breakfast, and the second for lunch. He consumes about 14 fluid ounces of Schmoylent each day so he can focus on coding instead of grabbing a bite to eat.
“It just removes food completely from my morning equation up until about 7 p.m.,” said Mr. Melocik, 34, who has been following his techie diet since February.
Boom times in Silicon Valley call for hard work, and hard work — at least in technology land — means that coders, engineers and venture capitalists are turning to liquid meals with names like Schmoylent, Soylent, Schmilk and People Chow. The protein-packed products that come in powder form are inexpensive and quick and easy to make — just shake with water, or in the case of Schmilk, milk. While athletes and dieters have been drinking their dinner for years, Silicon Valley’s workers are now increasingly chugging their meals, too, so they can more quickly get back to their computer work.
Demand for some of the powdered drinks, which typically mix nutrients like magnesium, zinc and vitamins, is so high that some engineers report being put on waiting lists of one to six months to receive their first orders. And the drinks are taking off across techie social circles. Venture capitalists have also poured money into the companies that offer the meal replacements, and investors including Alexis Ohanian, a founder of Reddit, count themselves as fans of the drinks.
“My dream in an ideal scenario would be if I could just pick up some at the airport, pre-made in the refrigerator section,” said Mr. Ohanian, who invested in Soylent and treats the drink as a fallback meal. The entrepreneur, who frequently flies between New York and San Francisco for work, says he will whip up a batch of Soylent and sip it throughout the day when he is too lazy to make something to eat.
In March, the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz served Soylent-inis and Soylent Whites at a cocktail event at the South by Southwest conference in Austin. Some members of the firm, which has invested in Soylent, have even gone on a Soylent cleanse, drinking only the liquid for several days, said Chris Dixon, an Andreessen Horowitz partner. He said he was not a participant.
Other coders are customizing the meal replacements to social occasions. On a recent Saturday evening in his Ikea-furnished apartment in San Francisco’s Haight neighborhood, Pulak “Potluck” Mittal, a 23-year-old software engineer, hosted a dinner party for half a dozen techie friends. On the menu were pad thai noodles and a side dish of Soylent.
One attendee, Dan Carroll, founder of the education tech start-up Clever, complimented Mr. Mittal for mixing peanut butter into the oatmeal-colored drink to accompany the pad thai. “That was very thoughtful, that you really tailored the Soylent experience to the food,” Mr. Carroll said.
The rise of the meal replacements mirrors Silicon Valley’s start-up froth — and includes a dose of confidence. The makers of the new drinks said their products were better than the commercial powders that had been on the market for years, because those tended to have lots of sugar and overemphasized the use of protein. In contrast, Soylent and Schmoylent are both blends of nutrients that would allow one to drink only those meals and live a healthy life, they said.
Rob Rhinehart, a software engineer, said he came up with the idea for Soylent in 2013 while working long hours at a wireless communications company and realizing he was eating poorly. He said he wanted to create something that could be “universally applicable” for hard-working people like himself. So he founded Soylent, based in Los Angeles, that year and gained more than $3 million in funding from the crowdsourcing site Tilt.
Orders took off quickly. The company said it had shipped more than the equivalent of six million “meals” across the United States. Mr. Rhinehart declined to share financial details but said his company was shipping “at the kiloton scale” each quarter and had attracted $24.5 million in financing. While Soylent has a diverse customer base, tech workers in particular have the “early-adopter personality” that makes them open to trying the powder, Mr. Rhinehart said.
Soylent’s success has created opportunity for imitators, who are mixing and marketing their own powders. Alex C. Snyder, known on Internet forums as “Axcho,” quit his job at the software company Linden Lab last August to sell his own variants of Soylent, like Schmoylent and Schmilk. Many of his repeat customers in the San Francisco Bay Area work in technology.
Mr. Snyder said he was sometimes puzzled by the sales of the products that were in plastic bags and labeled with a sharpie, which made them look “sketchy.”
“I was like, why are people even buying?” Mr. Snyder said, reflecting back about a year to the time when orders started pouring in. “It was really weird.”
With the demand, he said his company — which he plans to call Super Body Fuel — would move its production operation to a large warehouse in June, upgrading from a co-working space in San Francisco’s Mission District.
Soylent, Schmilk and some others typically taste like bland, gritty pancake batter. But never mind that, since the meal replacements save techies money and time. While a meal generally costs upward of $50 at Silicon Valley-area restaurants, a week’s worth of Soylent or Schmoylent totals $85.
Alexandros Kostibas, a founder of Habit Monster, a San Francisco software start-up that nearly went bankrupt recently because of high costs, said he paid himself less than he paid his employees, and he guzzled Soylent partly because it was more economical than eating out. He said a frozen dinner was already a shortcut, but Soylent was a healthier, quicker alternative.
“I think engineers are ready to throw in the towel on the illusion that we’re having this family dinner,” he said. “Let’s do away with all the marketing facade and get the calories as quickly as we can.”
The time wasted by eating is, in Silicon Valley parlance, a “pain point” even for the highest echelon of techie. Elon Musk, Tesla’s founder, once said, “If there was a way that I couldn’t eat so I could work more, I would not eat. I wish there was a way to get nutrients without sitting down for a meal,” according to a new book on the entrepreneur, written by Ashlee Vance. Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment about whether he had tried Schmilk or Soylent.
When Mr. Mittal started working at Clever this year, the company declared in an email introducing him to colleagues that he was an avid Soylent user. Soon after, Mr. Mittal said, some co-workers approached him to ask if they could try some.
“I’ve been a little bit of a Soylent dealer to a number of my co-workers,” Mr. Mittal said.
But Soylent, Schmilk and Schmoylent are acquired tastes. Mr. Mittal said many of his colleagues did not end up getting hooked on Soylent. The few who were still drinking it weren’t too enthusiastic.
“I am getting sick of the taste,” Dan Sparks, an engineer for Clever, recently told Mr. Mittal. “I am thinking I’ll have to start flavoring it.”
舊金山——天天晚上，軟件開辟者埃倫·梅洛西克(Aaron Melocik)都邑遵照一套嚴厲的飲食流程。他會把0.5加侖(約合2.275升)水、3.5湯勺澳洲堅果油和一袋16盎司(約合453克)的Schmoylent粉末混雜在一路。然後，他把這類米黃色的飲品裝進罐子，冷藏起來，次日再把它們帶去上班。他在教導科技始創公司Metrodigi事情。
到辦公室今後，梅洛西克把一罐Schmoylent放進冰箱，然後把另外一罐放到辦公桌上。從淩晨6點半到下晝3點半，他會把第一罐當早飯，第二罐當午飯。天天，他都要喝掉約莫14液盎司的Schmoylent，如許他就能夠把留意力放在編程上面，而不是去找器械吃。
“如斯一來，從淩晨直到約莫晚上7點，我都不消斟酌吃的題目了，”34歲的梅洛西克說。自2月以來，他一向在依照本身的這套技巧宅食譜進食。
處在繁華時代的矽谷須要人們盡力事情，而盡力事情——最少在科技範疇——象征著法式員、工程師和風投本錢家要轉而食用Schmoylent、Soylent、Schmilk和People Chow等液態食品。這些富含卵白質的粉末狀產物價錢不高，制造起來也便利快捷——加水攪拌便可;大概像Schmilk如許加牛奶攪拌。活動員和節食者多年前就已在食用液態晚飯，如今愈來愈多矽谷員工也開端用喝這類器械取代用飯，以便能以更快的速率回到電腦前事情。
個中一些粉末飲品——這些粉末平日含有鎂、鋅和維生素等養分物——的需求量異常大，有些工程師乃至說，他們須要期待一至六個月能力收到第一批定貨。這類飲品在技巧職員的交際圈內異常火爆。風投本錢家也在向供給這類代餐品的公司註資，Reddit結合開創人阿萊克西斯·歐海尼安(Alexis Ohanian)等投資者都表現本身是此類飲品的粉絲。
“我心目中的幻想情況是可以在機場的冷藏區買到事前調制好的這類飲品，”投資了Soylent的歐海尼安說。他以為這類飲品是一種備用食品。由於事情，這位創業家常常在紐約和舊金山之間飛來飛去。他說，當他懶得做器械吃的時刻，他就會調制一些Soylent，然後喝一成天。
3月，風投公司安德森-霍洛維茨(Andreessen Horowitz) 在奧斯汀“西南偏南”(South by Southwest，簡稱SXSW)大會的一次雞尾酒運動上，為來賓預備了Soylent天尼(Soylent-inis)和Soylent白(Soylent Whites)。安德森-霍洛維茨合股人克裏斯·迪克森(Chris Dixon)說，作為Soylent的投資人，這家公司的一些人乃至舉行了一次“Soylent排毒食療”，持續幾天只喝這類液體。他說本身並未介入個中。
一些法式員還對這類代餐食物加以改革，把它用在了交際場所上。比來一個周六的夜晚，在處於舊金山海特(Haight)街區的一所全是宜家(Ikea)家具的公寓裏，23 歲的軟件工程師“波特拉克”普拉克·米塔爾(Pulak “Potluck” Mittal，Potluck是一種每人各出一道菜的會餐會。——譯註)為六個技巧圈的同夥舉行了一次晚宴。菜單上是金邊粉和用Soylent做的佐餐。
教導科技始創公司Clever的開創人丹·卡羅爾(Dan Carroll)也加入了此次運動，他對米塔爾在這類燕麥色的飲品中參加花生醬來搭配金邊粉的做法表現了贊賞。“異常有設法主意，你真的把Soylent的感受跟食品搭配起來了，”卡羅爾說。
這類代餐食物的鼓起反應了矽谷的創業狂熱——個中還帶有一絲自負。這類新式飲品的制作者稱，他們的產物比多年來市場上發賣的那些量產粉末更好，由於那些粉末每每含糖量很高，並且過火誇大卵白質的應用。他們表現，比擬之下，Soylent和Schmoylent都由養分物混雜而成，人們只需喝這類飲品就可以堅持康健。
軟件工程師羅伯·萊恩哈特(Rob Rhinehart)說，他是在2013年發生做Soylent的設法主意的。其時他在一家無線通信公司的事情時光很長，並意想到本身吃得很糟。他說，他想為像本身同樣辛勞事情的人制作一種“廣泛實用”的器械。以是他昔時在洛杉磯創建了Soylent，而且從眾包網站Tilt上得到了跨越300萬美元(約合1860萬元國民幣)的資金。
定單增長得異常快。公司稱，他們今朝已把跨越相稱於600萬頓“飯”的產物運到了美國各地。萊恩哈特謝絕泄漏更多的財政細節，然則說他的公司每一個季度的出貨量可“以千噸盤算”，而且已吸引了2450萬美元的投資。萊恩哈特說，只管Soylent的客戶群多種多樣，但科技業者因為具備“愛嘗鮮的品德”，以是樂意試下這類粉末。
Soylent的勝利給模擬者發明了機遇，這些模擬者也在調制和發賣本身的粉末。客歲8月，亞歷克斯·C·斯奈德(Alex C. Snyder)——在收集論壇上名叫Axcho——辭去軟件公司林登試驗室(Linden Lab)的事情，開端售賣本身臨盆的類Soylent產物，好比Schmoylent和Schmilk。他在舊金山灣區的很多轉頭客都在科技範疇事情。
斯奈德說，他偶然會為產物的發賣覺得很迷惑，這些產物被裝在塑料袋裏，上面用暗號筆劃上標簽，以是看上去有點“糙”。
“我其時就想，人們為何要買呢?” 斯奈德回憶起約莫一年前定單開端猛增的時刻說。“真是奇異。”
跟著需求增長，他說他的公司——他盤算給公司起名叫“超等身材燃料” (Super Body Fuel)——6月將把臨盆關鍵轉移到一個大堆棧，分開如今這個舊金山教會區的同享式事情空間。
Soylent、Schmilk和其他一些產物一樣平常吃起來都像是味道寡淡的煎餅面糊。但這並沒關系，由於這類代餐食物為技巧職員節儉了款項和時光。一樣平常而言，在矽谷區的餐館吃一頓飯最少要花50美元以上，而吃一周Soylent或Schmoylent的總花消只須要85美元。
習氣怪物(Habit Monster)是舊金山的一家軟件始創公司，因為本錢過高，該公司比來險些瀕臨停業。其開創人亞歷山德羅斯·科斯提巴斯(Alexandros Kostibas)稱，他付給員工的人為都比他付給本身的多，他之以是大批食用Soylent，部門緣故原由是它比在表面吃更實惠。他說，吃冷凍餐點已很省事了，但Soylent是一種更康健、更便捷的選取。
“我以為，工程師已對享用家庭晚飯不抱任何理想了，”他說。“咱們也別管甚麽營銷包裝，便是盡量快地獲得卡路裏。”
用矽谷的話說，縱然對付級別最高的技巧職員，用飯所花的時光也是一個“痛點”。依據阿什莉·萬斯(Ashlee Vance)撰寫的一本關於特斯拉(Tesla)開創人埃隆·馬斯克(Elon Musk)的新書，馬斯克曾表現，“假如有甚麽辦法可以不用飯，從而做更多事情，那我情願不用飯。我願望有方法可讓我不坐下來用飯就可以得到養分。”對因而否試下過Schmilk或Soylent的題目 ，馬斯克沒有回應。
當米塔爾本年開端在Clever上班時，公司在把他先容給其他同事的郵件中說，他對Soylent異常入神。米塔爾說，不久就有一些同事來找他，問是不是可以試下一下。
米塔爾說：“對付很多同事，我已有點像是Soylent商人了。”
然則， Soylent、Schmilk和Schmoylent的味道都須要順應。米塔爾說，他的很多同事末了都沒有養成食用Soylent的習氣。唯一的幾個仍舊在喝它們的人也不是很熱中。
“我已煩死這類味道了，”Clever的工程師 丹·斯帕克斯(Dan Sparks)比來對米塔爾說，“我在想，我得開端給它加點味道才行。”
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