Understood. But do you think they will be able to cover their production costs while shipping all the requested units?
Can you link that wired article?
It think your estimates are a bit off in the original post:
The marginal cost of each chip is probably ~$1-5. They PCB boards, assembled, are probably $20-30. Enclosures, $10-20. Power supply, fans = $10-20. Box = $1-5.
So a Jally cost around $60 to make (marginal cost, probably throw some assembly labor on that as well). They are selling for $274. Their profit margin might be around 400-500% per jally. The cost of making the little single/single is only slightly more (orders of 10s to 200 dollars but they charge 1000 more) - so you can see close to 1000% profit margins. That's what they can use the recoup their initial investment