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A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos

nytimes.com

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Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos

#71

Post by coev »

ryandrake wrote: post #59
JamilD wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And don't forget to drop out after a year of college! You've made all the connections, so what else is there to learn? There are some exceptions to this pattern though, like Jan Koum and Andy Grove. We desperately need more of them in today's tech environment.

Maybe it's just me seeing the past through rose-colored glasses, but it seems that the "Work hard and know technology" founders were more common in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, in contrast to today's "Party hard and know rich people" founders.

In the late 90s there were a lot of hucksters trying to get in on the new Internet trend, there were lots of bad companies then too.

Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos

#72

Post by bronson »

a3n wrote: post #27

I have to wonder why the board of directors didn't, you know, direct. In an ideal world this would damage their reputation as directors with future companies. But not today.

Have you seen who's on their board? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos#Governance

It's almost as if they intentionally stacked it with senators, govenrnment, and military guys. This is not a typical board, especially for a medical company.

Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos

#73

Post by smaili »

tldr:

Walgreens appears to have taken a cautious approach toward terminating the relationship, perhaps preferring to wait until federal regulators impose penalties or the criminal investigation yields formal charges, either of which would strengthen Walgreens’s hand.

Essentially, Walgreens is playing the wait-and-see game before making their decision.

Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos

#74

Post by ethbro »

ryandrake wrote: post #59
JamilD wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And don't forget to drop out after a year of college! You've made all the connections, so what else is there to learn? There are some exceptions to this pattern though, like Jan Koum and Andy Grove. We desperately need more of them in today's tech environment.

Maybe it's just me seeing the past through rose-colored glasses, but it seems that the "Work hard and know technology" founders were more common in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, in contrast to today's "Party hard and know rich people" founders.

I think the "work hard and know technology founders" have always been around. But honestly, isn't this somewhat of a self-selection bias and something that remarks on the monotony of modern university?

If you're a highly driven and entrepreneurial individual, are you going to stick around for 4+ years of enforced pace higher education?

Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos

#75

Post by semi-extrinsic »

oldmanjay wrote: post #67
softawre wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[offtopic] - And this is why I love HN. Maturity. Imagine this thread on reddit.

this story just isn't very interesting for the meme-and-reference-humor-loving HN crowd. I assure you, they are around, working hard to destroy what relevance we strive to maintain.

I believe GP was rather pointing out the large and (dare I say) untapped potential for double entendres in the posts above.

Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos

#77

Post by ryandrake »

metaphorm wrote: post #33
1024core wrote: post #11

A part of me feels sad for Theranos. I wanted them and Elizabeth to succeed; more the latter, actually. If she had succeeded (I still hold out hope), she would have been a terrific role model for young women everywhere.

in what way would she have been a role model? some evidence that being a young woman from an ultra-privileged background where high level patronage by deep state power brokers is your path to success? yeah, sure, she really "beat the odds" on that one. in fact I think that the current pending implosion of Theranos is making a good role model of her in a way she probably never intended or desired. she is a role model…

She'll likely personally emerge mostly unscathed, still ultra-privileged, still a celebrity, and all ready to go deploy her insider connections on another endeavor, so not sure how much of a cautionary tale this would be.

Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos

#78

Post by nickpsecurity »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #75
oldmanjay wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this story just isn't very interesting for the meme-and-reference-humor-loving HN crowd. I assure you, they are around, working hard to destroy what relevance we strive to maintain.

I believe GP was rather pointing out the large and (dare I say) untapped potential for double entendres in the posts above.

Exactly. I do memes, cultural references, academic references, and everything else here to liven up dry discussions. Yet, I had no intention of twisting those specific lines into something else because the thread would just get retarded. Like it does elsewhere.

We're here and reading but just like HN quality level to stay where it is. :)

Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos

#79

Post by nickpsecurity »

pessimizer wrote: post #68
forgetsusername wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> very unfortunate anti role models recently I think there's a huge difference between the two. Sure, Ms. Meyer floundered running a big (struggling) company, especially when so much was made about "Female CEO!" But really, her "failure" is pretty average when it comes to corporate executive misadventure; nothing she did makes her unworthy of being a role-model. Ms. Holmes, on the other hand, may have overseen a mass…

Yeah, Marissa Meyer was hired to save a dinosaur from the tarpit, and has done a mediocre job at it. She isn't even that bad - she's no Carly Fiorina - and I've never seen her ethics challenged. I'd go as far as to say that if Meyer at least manages to unwind Yahoo gracefully, she may move on to greater success in the future in a similar position.

"Yeah, Marissa Meyer was hired to save a dinosaur from the tarpit, and has done a mediocre job at it. She isn't even that bad - she's no Carly Fiorina - and I've never seen her ethics challenged."

That's how I look at it. I'm still a fan of Meyer due to the great work she did at Google. That's where she showed her talents. Yahoo was a terrible situation... aimed at the ground calling for "Ludicrous Speed!"... and she failed on an attempt to turn it into a winner. Maybe wasn't greedy enough for shareholders or something. They'll make less money than they wanted to. (shrugs)

Honestly, of the various failures, that's the kind that bothers me the least. People tried to do something good for all parties but screwed up. Least they tried and didn't just suck wealth out of the company while setting it up to fail. Like recent IBM CEO did and similarly left mess in hands of a woman who will take fall if she can't 180 it. Actually, I haven't even looked at that story in a while so I don't know if she's even still there haha.

Anyway, I'll judge Meyer on her next play as Yahoo is an outlier.

Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos

#80

Post by shas3 »

lingben wrote: post #44

thoroughly disappointed in the Shriver interview, didn't ask any hard questions, didn't redirect after her answers, didn't really seem like she was at all fully informed about Theranos now if John Carreyrou had been conducting the interview, that would be another thing but I get the feeling that he would never be granted an interview simply because he is much more qualified in terms of competency in Theranos and its…

It makes one suspicious, to the say the least, to see someone from a politically well-connected family like Shriver interview someone similarly well-connected like Holmes. The odds are high that they know each other and have reasons to scratch each others' backs.
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