Girl is wacko. Looks like HBO is making a documentary of this. Will watch.
https://apple.news/AMoE5TrI3TMe5vz_4S4HgZQ
https://apple.news/AMoE5TrI3TMe5vz_4S4HgZQ
New article on sociopath Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos)
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Last: 1 yr ago by P.H. Dexippus
Check out the Sunny Balwani guy she was romantically involved with...bald, 54 yr old, Pakistani...and a sip.
Can you link it through something other than Apple News?
Try this:Spaceship said:
Can you link it through something other than Apple News?
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/02/inside-elizabeth-holmess-final-months-at-theranos
After sorting through all the regulatory gobbled goop and stuff that only investors and business majors care about... Does the technology work or not?
94chem said:
After sorting through all the regulatory gobbled goop and stuff that only investors and business majors care about... Does the technology work or not?
No, it never worked. The company was built on a series of lies that just kept getting more and more bold and elaborate. Holmes and Balwani knew it didn't work and still took almost $1 billion from investors and entered into a partnership with Walgreens. Hence the fraud charges.
Thanks - sociopath is correct. What a crazy rise and fall.
I believe she was a graduate of St. John's School in Houston.
The whole altering her voice to sound more manly is some of the most bizarre ****
Wait. That isn't her voice?
Here's a video about her fake voice:
Like I've said in all of the other threads, I don't get how she was able to go so far when what she was promising was literally biologically and physically impossible. Not really hard to do with today's technology but literally impossible due to how many test she was promising and how little blood she said was required.
I wondered the same thing, back when the company and EH became media "darlings" and no one was questioning the technology.
I was working for a biofuels start up as a lab director, and we were having a heck of a time getting reliable and repeatable results on certain samples that had been diluted - and we were working with volumes orders of magnitude larger than a drop of blood.
I also couldn't stand the image she cultivated for herself. If you've truly got technology that transformative, you don't need the gimmicks to sell it. Although, that's clearly how she swindled some very successful business people out of $1 billion - they completely fell for her ridiculous and over the top caricature of Steve Jobs.
I also hated how lavishly the company spent money on non-essentials. As I said, I was working at a start-up at the time, and to think the company was using investor money to pay for her to fly around in private jets and live in a mansion makes me sick.
However, all you have to do is look at some of the biofuels start-ups that have imploded over the past few years (KiOR, anyone) to see that the old adage "a fool and his money" is all too true. Many of those debacles had Vinod Khosla's fingers in them.
But I do think EH/Theranos will go down as the longest con in modern scientific history. Like you, I am speechless that no one questioned it sooner.
I was working for a biofuels start up as a lab director, and we were having a heck of a time getting reliable and repeatable results on certain samples that had been diluted - and we were working with volumes orders of magnitude larger than a drop of blood.
I also couldn't stand the image she cultivated for herself. If you've truly got technology that transformative, you don't need the gimmicks to sell it. Although, that's clearly how she swindled some very successful business people out of $1 billion - they completely fell for her ridiculous and over the top caricature of Steve Jobs.
I also hated how lavishly the company spent money on non-essentials. As I said, I was working at a start-up at the time, and to think the company was using investor money to pay for her to fly around in private jets and live in a mansion makes me sick.
However, all you have to do is look at some of the biofuels start-ups that have imploded over the past few years (KiOR, anyone) to see that the old adage "a fool and his money" is all too true. Many of those debacles had Vinod Khosla's fingers in them.
But I do think EH/Theranos will go down as the longest con in modern scientific history. Like you, I am speechless that no one questioned it sooner.
She is.chilimuybueno said:
I believe she was a graduate of St. John's School in Houston.
Easy. They wanted to reward a "female genius" company. Like any other fraud...she was giving them what they wanted.Duncan Idaho said:
Like I've said in all of the other threads, I don't get how she was able to go so far when what she was promising was literally biologically and physically impossible. Not really hard to do with today's technology but literally impossible due to how many test she was promising and how little blood she said was required.
Piling on further, how far down the rabbit hole did Walgreens go? I presume people were giving blood at their clinics, and this blood was being sent off for analysis? Didn't these clinics notice that they had to draw the same amount of blood? Didn't they realize they were just investing in Quest Diagnostics? I mean, there was never even a functioning prototype, right?
DallasAggie0 said:
The whole altering her voice to sound more manly is some of the most bizarre ****
This is a thing apparently.
I just finished a Scott Adams book recently and he covers a few different persuasion and influence techniques and one of them is voice and tone, he refers to research on it. Adams says he also used an artificial voice for a time.
This woman was a straight con.
There is this funny thing about people, when you tell them what they want to hear, they often don't ask questions.
94chem said:
Piling on further, how far down the rabbit hole did Walgreens go? I presume people were giving blood at their clinics, and this blood was being sent off for analysis? Didn't these clinics notice that they had to draw the same amount of blood? Didn't they realize they were just investing in Quest Diagnostics? I mean, there was never even a functioning prototype, right?
Yes, Walgreens invested millions to retrofit their clinics to have these blood-draw stations - mostly in Arizona and California, IIRC. Patients noticed how much blood was being drawn and complained, but EH always had some excuse.
What started the downfall was patients getting erroneous results that indicated they had some sort of life-threatening condition. They would end up in the ER, but the results of whatever test would be completely different, showing nothing was wrong at all. That's when people started asking more questions, but it took some her closest investors quite some time to come around and realize she was a fraud.
Her Board was a who's who as well. But none of them knew anything about the medicine. She built quite a facade that was very easy to buy into.
Duncan Idaho said:
Like I've said in all of the other threads, I don't get how she was able to go so far when what she was promising was literally biologically and physically impossible. Not really hard to do with today's technology but literally impossible due to how many test she was promising and how little blood she said was required.
It's easy to con people who think they are smarter than everyone else.
Silicon Valley is full of those people and she found a bunch who thought that medical science was just like making apps, but that all the pharma people were too dumb to see it.
Lesson as always, science is hard *****es
"The Dropout" podcast about EH and Theranos has been really good. Check it out if you haven't already. Last episode drops tomorrow I believe.
Sadly, this kind of stuff happens in the start-up world all the time. I've witnessed it first hand having worked for a start-up led by a "visionary." I think a lot of people / founders start out with a vision and good intentions, but get caught up in a snowball.
The whole process goes something like this:
1. Founder(s) have a vision but have no ability to or previous experience delivering a product, managing a team, handling finances, etc. (Not that anything previously mentioned is necessary but it helps)
2. Founder(s) put together a slick pitch deck with a compelling messaging, large market opportunities, etc. Founder(s) raise $X seed capital from a VC.
3. Soon after taking seed funds to hire an engineering team, founder(s) learn that their invention 1.) violates the laws of physics, 2.) involves an R&D problem that will take orders of magnitude more capital than what was initially raised, or worse... 3.) they have a prototype that "works" 1 time out of 10, thinking they are close to a commercially viable solution when the reality is actually more like option 2... but haven't realized it yet.
Rather than throw in the towel, the entrepreneurs push ahead.
4. Check in a few months later... R&D is burning through cash like a drunken sailor with still no solution in sight. The runway is getting shorter and shorter so the entrepreneurs dust off their slick pitch deck, goosing the addressable market sizes, adding a few hockey stick growth charts, and name dropping all of the fortune 100 companies they have letters of intent/memorandums of understanding with. Oh yeah and now they product has TONS of new features. Founders provide a tech demo (getting lucky that it works 1 out of 10 times).. gullible investors see a "working" demo and are convinced that El Dorado is just around the corner! The delusional/desperate founder convinced that success is around the corners starts building strategic partnerships, distribution channels, etc.
Founders raise ANOTHER round with an eye watering valuation and still no actual product. The hype snowballs.
Steps 3 and 4 run in a loop until there are no more greater fools to doll out cash and it all comes crashing down. The marketing hype (read: lies) incrementally grows bolder and bolder out of desperation to keep the funds coming in.
The whole process goes something like this:
1. Founder(s) have a vision but have no ability to or previous experience delivering a product, managing a team, handling finances, etc. (Not that anything previously mentioned is necessary but it helps)
2. Founder(s) put together a slick pitch deck with a compelling messaging, large market opportunities, etc. Founder(s) raise $X seed capital from a VC.
3. Soon after taking seed funds to hire an engineering team, founder(s) learn that their invention 1.) violates the laws of physics, 2.) involves an R&D problem that will take orders of magnitude more capital than what was initially raised, or worse... 3.) they have a prototype that "works" 1 time out of 10, thinking they are close to a commercially viable solution when the reality is actually more like option 2... but haven't realized it yet.
Rather than throw in the towel, the entrepreneurs push ahead.
4. Check in a few months later... R&D is burning through cash like a drunken sailor with still no solution in sight. The runway is getting shorter and shorter so the entrepreneurs dust off their slick pitch deck, goosing the addressable market sizes, adding a few hockey stick growth charts, and name dropping all of the fortune 100 companies they have letters of intent/memorandums of understanding with. Oh yeah and now they product has TONS of new features. Founders provide a tech demo (getting lucky that it works 1 out of 10 times).. gullible investors see a "working" demo and are convinced that El Dorado is just around the corner! The delusional/desperate founder convinced that success is around the corners starts building strategic partnerships, distribution channels, etc.
Founders raise ANOTHER round with an eye watering valuation and still no actual product. The hype snowballs.
Steps 3 and 4 run in a loop until there are no more greater fools to doll out cash and it all comes crashing down. The marketing hype (read: lies) incrementally grows bolder and bolder out of desperation to keep the funds coming in.
What's the name of the book?
Still my favorite silicon valley bandwagon story has to be juicero.
https://www.cnet.com/news/juicero-is-still-the-greatest-example-of-silicon-valley-stupidity/
https://www.cnet.com/news/juicero-is-still-the-greatest-example-of-silicon-valley-stupidity/
Bad BloodSeor Chang said:
What's the name of the book?
Anyone watch the 20/20 on theranos that aired friday?
Just watched the documentary and thought it was ok. I am a little surprised it took so long for people to figure out what was happening, as the technology was never functioning in any capacity. And in the end, only two people thought to try and say something? I get the intimidation tactics but christ, a lot of people were given faulty medical data and could have and likely were put in danger from the bogus lab results.
Anybody else see that her father was a VP at Enron??
When I first heard about Theranos I thought the makeup of the board was extremely odd, but I was like 21 and just figured that's how boards like that work. Kissinger was on it. She played just about every con card exactly right. I haven't read any of the books yet, but I believe some VC's saw through the act and wouldn't invest. The rest got caught up in the hype. She nailed her political moves too.Gig-Em2003 said:
Her Board was a who's who as well. But none of them knew anything about the medicine. She built quite a facade that was very easy to buy into.
Gig-Em2003 said:
Her Board was a who's who as well. But none of them knew anything about the medicine. She built quite a facade that was very easy to buy into.
She had an MD on the board for a time - Bill Frist. And they added a medical advisory board in 2016, but by then it was probably too late.
I'm currently on chapter 5. There were a lot of scumbags involved with Theranos from very early.
Being a senator sucked out all medical knowledge from Bill Frist. Politics tends to do that to people.TXTransplant said:Gig-Em2003 said:
Her Board was a who's who as well. But none of them knew anything about the medicine. She built quite a facade that was very easy to buy into.
She had an MD on the board for a time - Bill Frist. And they added a medical advisory board in 2016, but by then it was probably too late.
I started reading Bad Blood a few days ago. After the first few chapters I'm shocked that it took so long for the company to fall apart.
I'm on chapter 14, and I have continuously had that thought.