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The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

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Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#51

Post by MBCook »

spaceflunky wrote: post #2

The media is 100% to blame here... I think in large part because of how they treat female entrepreneurs, with well-meaning, but harmful attitudes. IMO we live in a world where there are too few successful female entrepreneurs and at the same time people are very eager to see that world change. So as a result, if there is any inkling of a successful female entrepreneur, that story gets gobbled up by the press ad nause…

> Marissa Mayer was hailed a hero before crashing and burning

Did she? Or was she handed the reins to the Titanic and then vilified when it still sank?

Could anyone have saved Yahoo? Would they have taken that job?

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#52

Post by nedwin »

w1ntermute wrote: post #18
clorenzo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She was featured in this one: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/12/t-magazine/eli...

Although that article is (misleadingly) hosted on nytimes.com, it was not published in the New York Times , but in T: The New York Times Style Magazine . Also, it was written by Silicon Valley socialite Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, and not an NYT reporter.

And the author was slammed by the NYTimes editor for not disclosing conflict of interest throughout that piece (Marc Andreesen invested heavily in AirBNB through A16Z / Laura Arrillaga-Andreesen is his wife)

http://recode.net/2015/10/29/nyt-public-editor-blasts-arrill...

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#53

Post by jessaustin »

vox_mollis wrote: post #49
FussyZeus wrote: post #26

I do actually feel bad for Holmes. Her later interviews sounded extremely like someone who had gotten in massively over their head and had no idea how to get out. She'll be stained forever by this, her name and Theranos are practically interchangeable at this point.

When will this absurd apologism end? Many people have gone to federal prison for FAR lesser frauds than Theranos is.

Whether she goes to prison or not, I don't understand how people have such sympathy for a CEO who drove her top researcher to suicide. If that happened in a movie critics would complain about the unbelievable mustache-twirling caricature.

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#54

Post by duaneb »

w1ntermute wrote: post #47
mbesto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think w1ntermute's point is that ubeam, like theranos, if working as advertised has the potential to become an ultra successful company. It's not just about having another good company started by a woman...but more about a game changing technology company founded by a woman.

Yes, exactly.

I still don't see the tie to sex/gender. Yes, it's a compelling angle, but I don't see it dominating the offering as interesting. Theranos has been pitched as revolutionary without even mentioning the founder--I only learned about her long after the skepticism hit hard.

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#55

Post by marincounty »

exit wrote: post #23

it's hard to believe people still clock in at theranos these days, no?

I don't know if this technology works. If it doesn't--I don't care about rank and file workers just collecting a paycheck.

I would the integrity of an insider(a scientist who knows the tech doesn't work) staying on.

That said, I have found ethics are sorely missing in too many sectors of our ecomony. Personally, I've never been one of those guys who says, "Hay, it's legal!". I despise those people.

I'll take a non-violet sociopath, over a guy with a fancy degree/suit who is exploiting the poor, and uniformed, just because they can. (I don't want to get in an argument over semantics--you know what I mean? I went too far with the sociopath, but I just trying to convey my frustration. I'm trying to expose what I'm seeing people do daily. I'm don't like this lack of integrity/morals. It's actually my biggest gripe. I've had it since I walked out of a processional program. Maybe I still smarting from losing $20 grand over placebo?

Maybe I'm just getting older, and seeing just how far people will go on order to protect their economic future?

I used to think, I could judge a person's ethics by looking back at the Milgram experiment. Original researchers believed 2-3 out of a hundred would deliver the fatal shock. They did the experiment, and over 60% delivered the fatal shock.

I'm not just picking on Theranos' key researchers/scientists. I getting tired of doctors preforming unnecessary surgeries, or under treating the poor. I tired of lawyers going after people because they can. I'm tired of companies exploiting us because they can afford too, like VW. (I don't hate VW. There's a little part of me that understands what they did. I used VW because it was so recent, and I don't want to argue over Monsanto.)

I have found that when that time comes, that time where you need to raise your hand; if it is tied to a person financial future--most people sit there quietly.

And no--I don't expect the struggling student to buck the system, it's the one's who made it I'm looking at. I expecting them to set an example. Most don't. Or, maybe I'm looking at them in the wrong light? I'm too sick today to argue. I hope I'm wrong, and there are still people out there I can look up to?

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#56

Post by FussyZeus »

jessaustin wrote: post #53
vox_mollis wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When will this absurd apologism end? Many people have gone to federal prison for FAR lesser frauds than Theranos is.

Whether she goes to prison or not, I don't understand how people have such sympathy for a CEO who drove her top researcher to suicide. If that happened in a movie critics would complain about the unbelievable mustache-twirling caricature.

Wait what? Seriously, can I get a link on that one?

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#57

Post by jerryhuang100 »

zeemonkee3 wrote: post #21

> After two months of being stonewalled by the Theranos P.R. team, Carreyrou told me an entourage of lawyers arrived at the Journal’s Midtown Manhattan offices at one P.M. on June 23. Interesting how Theranos tried to threaten the Wall Street Journal. Threatening journalists, even through legalistic means, sounds like a particularly dumb move: if nothing else it proved they were on the right track.

it's ironic that a supposed evidence-based medtech company lawyer-ed up on evidence-based reporting, especially at wsj. their lawyers should know better it's nearly impossible to stop journalists once they smell sh*t. so one of the explanations is that they just want to find the sources and plug the leaks.

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#58

Post by jessaustin »

FussyZeus wrote: post #56
jessaustin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether she goes to prison or not, I don't understand how people have such sympathy for a CEO who drove her top researcher to suicide. If that happened in a movie critics would complain about the unbelievable mustache-twirling caricature.

Wait what? Seriously, can I get a link on that one?

Of course no one is going to come out and admit that Ian Gibbons's suicide was caused by anything other than the "health and other problems" insinuated by Theranos's PR flack. Also we have to treat every suicide as a tragic failure of mental healthcare availability, rather than (occasionally) a rational reaction to intolerable circumstances.

Gibbons was a top biochemist, hired away from academia with the copious combination of sunshine and VC cash that has long been Holmes's specialty. He staked a decade of his life and reputation on making the impossible real, because that's what she hired him to do. By his own words, he failed in that task. Then he committed suicide.

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#60

Post by pessimizer »

I don't think that the press can be blamed for the Theranos meltdown. All that's happened is that a bunch of investors are about to lose a bunch of money, and Walgreens got screwed. The investors and the guy at Walgreens were all people from Holmes' class (and people with personal connections to her and her family.) The tech press are also from that same class (or worshippers of that same class), and so they followed along in inflating the virtues of someone who neither they or the investors bothered to vet because white rich Stanford, fancy parents. Just because the tech press is terrible doesn't mean that its awful input had a meaningful effect on anything. If anything, the traditional business press at the WSJ registered the only significant effect; a positive one.

But it isn't like the tech press coverage drew in the suckers - it wasn't a public company. Of course, I haven't heard anything about institutional investors. Maybe the public ended up getting screwed in the end anyway.

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