Here's a television parody I wrote about Theranos that ends right where this story begins... http://pricks.com
Uh, this is shockingly good.
Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S
191–200 of 226 posts
Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S
#192Always fun to go back in time and look at what people were saying about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, like 2 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7951019 or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8181339 I find it insightful to see who was "right" and who was "wrong". There were a surprising number of people from the medical field expressing doubts about the technology.
> There were a surprising number of people from the medical field expressing doubts about the technology.
And were dismissed because their industry was being "disrupted".
Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
FWIW, I had never heard of Theranos until they came up in the news with all these issues (and I read HN every day).
June of 2014 there was a massive press roll out for Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. You couldn't go anywhere, or look at a magazine rack, without seeing her face. http://fortune.com/2014/06/12/theranos-blood-holmes/
It's appeared on HN that far back (and further), as well.
September 2013, 211 points 113 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349349
June 2014, 202 points 97 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7951019
August 2014, 180 points 76 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8181339
There's even a "Theranos" user account on HN that has been posting in "who's hiring" threads as far back as May 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Theranos&next=868287...
Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S
#194I think the reason we (maybe secretly) take so much satisfaction / schadenfreude at this story is that someone who was so hyped and the darling of Silicon Valley got so much funding and attention. While others who toil away on good ideas, without nearly so many connections and silver spoons, struggle to even get 1 minute of air time with the kind of funders and backers that she got. That, plus seeing the cluelessness…
FWIW, I had never heard of Theranos until they came up in the news with all these issues (and I read HN every day).
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Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S
#195I think the reason we (maybe secretly) take so much satisfaction / schadenfreude at this story is that someone who was so hyped and the darling of Silicon Valley got so much funding and attention. While others who toil away on good ideas, without nearly so many connections and silver spoons, struggle to even get 1 minute of air time with the kind of funders and backers that she got. That, plus seeing the cluelessness…
It was concept we would have loved to have worked out- super efficient blood testing. Alas, it was too good to be true, or ahead of its time. Now the serious question is why the founder or board abandon the approach when it did not succeed. That whey the company became shady.
What if it actually does work?
All of the accusations I've read revolve around everything but the the actual science, e.g. not classifying their containers as Class II, instead of Class I.
Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For example, in the field of oncology there's very little money put into cheap accurate early screening. And an almost obsessive pour of money into trying to understand mid-to-late stage cancers. Even James Watson has criticized this. I'm in no way an expert, but isn't part of that related to increasing evidence that early detection of a tumor isn't necessarily a benefit? I recall reading many tumors stop or grow s…
It depends on the type of cancer. For instance, a surprisingly large portion of the population likely has thyroid cancer and doesn't know it, and many have it and it isn't treated. It's a very slow-growing cancer usually, and just not worth bothering with until the tumor gets large enough to cause real problems due to its size (then they usually just cut out part of your thyroid, leaving the other part to continue wo…
Just last week, thyroid tumors were reclassified and are no longer considered cancer. [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/15/health/thyroid-tumor-cance...]
From the article 'Instead of calling it “encapsulated follicular variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma,” they now call it “noninvasive follicular thyroid neoplasm with papillary-like nuclear features,” or NIFTP. The word “carcinoma” is gone.'.
Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't speak German, but I don't know if it ceases being schadenfreude just because you feel that the bad thing that happens is justified. Indeed, the Wikipedia page on the word freely mixes those kinds of examples in their page. I'm not trying to be confrontational here, but recently I've been having a fairly negative reaction to the happy feelings that occur when justice is served. Sometimes I think this fuels a s…
It might interest you to check out Better Angels of Our Nature, a book by Steven Pinker about the history of violence. He argues that it's typical for humans to fall into cycles of retributive/vengeful violence against one another, or even "Hobbesian trap" patterns of preemptive violence. This leads to astronomically high rates of homicide. The development of governments that have a monopoly on the use of violence he…
In this sense, it's actually a blessing that we're inclined to feel so satisfied seeing justice done by a third party.
Maybe, but the schadenfreude is going to boil over if we ever get to see Holmes being perp-walked in her black turtleneck.
Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Someone out there needs to attack healthcare. All the attacking that needs to be done is political/social, not technical. Want to attack healthcare? Strip middlemen out so that the money flows to providers and researchers (Single payer + pouring additional money into the NIH/NSF, with the results being public domain). All of these YC startups I see "hacking" healthcare (Dr Chrono, HealthSherpa, etc) are just bandai…
> If you want to "hack" healthcare and fix the problem, get involved in government and get single payer done. So we can turn what health technology gets developed into even more of a political game? Building a board of government insiders as opposed to scientists and clinical experts is exactly the kind of move that would work especially well in a single payer system. You want to know what healthcare would look like…
fee-for-service payment structure leading to perverse incentives
Wouldn't a single payer system make this easier to change? I guess there is a high chance that a single payer law might codify the payment structure and do it in a bad way, but at least then there is a clear path to improving the structure. Legislation modifying the single payer system to work better would probably be less controversial than legislation modifying our current system.
I'd like to see the tax advantages around employer health benefits disappear so that people have to take a nice clear look at just how much they are spending on health care, rather than just handing money to providers.
I'd also like to see providers that benefit from regulation be required to provide up front information about the prices of low risk services.
Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S
#199I think the reason we (maybe secretly) take so much satisfaction / schadenfreude at this story is that someone who was so hyped and the darling of Silicon Valley got so much funding and attention. While others who toil away on good ideas, without nearly so many connections and silver spoons, struggle to even get 1 minute of air time with the kind of funders and backers that she got. That, plus seeing the cluelessness…
I'm not making a secret out of it
Re: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S
#200When I first read this headline I was thinking "Uh oh, Theranos must have very badly handled its interactions with FDA". But this is apparently the SEC investigating the company. Does anyone know how often the SEC investigates a private company with a product that's still essentially in beta testing?
The cynical point of view is that some wealthy investors feel like they were mislead and that is the only reason the SEC gives a hoot.
Nah, no way. If anything the SEC spends too much time chasing down small time crooks scamming grandpa.