If you have some actual knowledge about a thing and can explain why it's pointless and already existed then that's a great thing to post. That's very different from just assuming that something you have no knowledge about is pointless, though. We certainly see lots of pointless reinventing in tech, but if something appears to be a pointless reinvention of something you could find in 30 seconds with no prior knowledge, it nearly always isn't a pointless reinvention of that and you just don't know enough to understand what's different.

his wife is in a wheelchair, i think he did know wheelchairs exist before making a wheelchair company

It is possible, but one thoughtful takedown by somebody who actually knows the field is worth more than an infinite number of uninformed googled results.

> someone unknowingly spends a ton of money on reinventing something that already exists.

I think it’s worse than than. Amongst the people doing the work, someone usually knows that there is a product out there that already does the job, but the higher ups think they know better.

> Seems insane to assume that but we see it in tech all the time where someone unknowingly spends a ton of money on reinventing something that already exists.

There are a couple of reasons for that. The most obvious is that they did not do their research prior to embarking on the project. The less obvious is they did extensive research before embarking upon the project. Plenty of tech popped up in the 70's and 80's that flopped or only found a niche market, that later turned out to be quite popular. Sometimes the tech wasn't ready, other times it was just too expensive when it was introduced, yet other times he market simply wasn't ready for it.