Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 280 posts

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#161

Post by miraj »

miraj wrote: post #158
nashashmi wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious. I have not heard a single thing about Theranos's downfall outside of the comments here on HN. Since you mention "press who broke ... stories", are there any articles out there that would also make me join the "Theranos is a fraud" crowd?

wow thats some bubble you live in! here: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=theranos&sort=byPopularity&pre...

p.s. this one was particularly insightful, as it was a scientific clinical review. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11727529

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#162

Post by atroyn »

drjesusphd wrote: post #88
kumarski wrote: post #62

I've talked to over 100 hematologists. This business, didn't pass a basic litmus test of objective criticism from people who work in the space. There seems to be this bravado among founders who believe they're sticking it to all the people who say something's amiss. I think if there's an elephant in the room though, it probably should be assassinated with a huge body of transparent evidence.

One sees the the same thing in nuclear fusion. All these companies popping up that aren't bothering to consult experts and will have to learn lessons the hard way.

Most of the fusion companies I've seen founded lately are led by people who have been scientists in this field for decades.

To which companies of you refer?

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#163

Post by jonknee »

rcarrigan87 wrote: post #159
bane wrote: post #142

I hope that Holmes' bizarre behavior as the issues went public keep her from ever running anything even remotely close to things that matter for people's lives and well being. Even as the questions were building and the noose was tightening, she would announce a public talk to reveal and openly share information on the company's tech, then mysteriously cancel a short while later -- she did this over and over. I'm sti…

Not sure if scam is the right word. Everyone is capable of deluding themselves into believing their current, morally questionable actions will be seen as justified in the future (when everything works, out of course). I'm sure even Bernie Madoff believed at some point he would win it all back and no one would ever know or be harmed.

Yes, but the internal justifications of a scam artists are just that. It's still a scam to everyone else!

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#164

Post by FreeFull »

sangnoir wrote: post #154
mdpopescu wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At those sizes there is no such thing as "completely non-elastic" (aka "rigid").

How about observing a quantum-entangled particle 1AU away from its partner? Can the speed of information surpass the speed of light? I'm a physics noob so I wouldn't know about research in the field.

As far as we can tell, the effect of measuring an entangled particle is at least 10000 faster than the speed of light. According to theory, it's instant. You can't use it to transfer any information, though.

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#165

Post by pyre »

jonknee wrote: post #163
rcarrigan87 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if scam is the right word. Everyone is capable of deluding themselves into believing their current, morally questionable actions will be seen as justified in the future (when everything works, out of course). I'm sure even Bernie Madoff believed at some point he would win it all back and no one would ever know or be harmed.

Yes, but the internal justifications of a scam artists are just that. It's still a scam to everyone else!

I think that parent is classifying a "true" scam as one where the scammer knows that they are scamming and just doesn't care. 419 scammers take money away from people and have no intention to ever "make things right." They may have internal justifications that "rich Westerners" can afford it, but that's slightly different than justifying that your tech will work out (or that our pyramid scheme will work out) in the end.

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#166

Post by flamedoge »

brbsix wrote: post #108
kumarski wrote: post #62

I've talked to over 100 hematologists. This business, didn't pass a basic litmus test of objective criticism from people who work in the space. There seems to be this bravado among founders who believe they're sticking it to all the people who say something's amiss. I think if there's an elephant in the room though, it probably should be assassinated with a huge body of transparent evidence.

There appear to be two different sorts of "disruption": 1) There's disruption that's seen as impractical or insanely difficult (e.g. Tesla, SpaceX). Or technically feasible but with significant social or legal obstables (e.g. AirBnB, Uber). 2) Then there's another category, disruption that defies laws of physics. Kickstarter is replete with examples. This includes things like pocket-size underwater rebreaters, self-f…

Solar panel roadways for latter

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#167

Post by dekhn »

dcgudeman wrote: post #16
fnbr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the one hand, hopefully not long, as she can't provide any effective leadership with this in place. However, my understanding is that Theranos has an unusual corporate structure that gives Holmes control of most of the votes, so if she doesn't want to leave, I don't know if anyone can force her.

Seems like an odd arrangement for investors to agree to, one I am sure they are currently regretting...

Ms Holmes is a close personal family friend of Venture Capitalist Tim Draper, who continues to support her and say that everybody else in the world is a big meanie who is out to get her. He hasn't repented and I don't expect him to.

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#168

Post by dekhn »

aabajian wrote: post #109

The trajectory of this company is just terrible. They surmounted the most difficult obstacle in healthcare - breaking into existing strongholds (e.g. Walgreens). At that point if there was any doubt that their technology worked they should've used existing tools to run their lab tests. Yes they would've lost money, but they could have used the time to build out their rapid technology or pivoted to a different busines…

They did switch to using existing tools to run their lab tests. That's exactly what they did. That's why they started doing venous draws instead of just nanoliter draws from pinpricks. This was documented repeatedly in the media.

They also invalidated all their Edison (their specific nano device) results for two years, and it turns out they weren't even running other people's devices correctly and had to invalidate results for that too!

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#169

Post by ceejayoz »

keymone wrote: post #153
ceejayoz wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do you know of an event where autopilot deliberately chose to drive into a tree and killed the passengers? There are videos of the Autopilot feature attempting to swerve into oncoming traffic. It does have the potential to kill people, it likely will in wide usage just by raw statistics, and it's likely to eventually fall under regulation of some sort. That doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad feature, but pushing s…

people swerve all the time because coffee and phones falling out of their hands, because their "cpu" is bug-ridden and decides to show them fiction instead of reality at will. so the connotation that goes with the phrase "playing with people's lives" is completely dishonest when faced with the fact that statistically autopilot is safer than human.

> statistically autopilot is safer than human

This is not born out by the currently available facts.

Tesla quoted deaths-per-autopilot-mile versus overall deaths-per-mile for all cars on the road. This is very misleading information, for a number of reasons.

1. Teslas are high-end luxury cars and thus have better safety features than the lower end of the market.

2. Teslas are likely to be newer and better maintained than the average car on the road. The average age of a car on the road is 11.4 years (https://www.google.com/search?q=average+age+of+cars+on+the+r...) - there are ZERO Tesla cars that old.

3. Autopilot is disabled on residential streets and those with no center divider (http://www.newsmax.com/TheWire/tesla-autopilot-videos-restri...), which means it's driving in more predictable situations than average. You're also unlikely to have it on when there are things like icy/snowy conditions.

4. Autopilot will hand over control when it can't handle something. If it does this suddenly, the subsequent crash may not count in Musk's "autopilot miles" statistic.

Re: U.S. Bans Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes from Operating Labs for Two Years

#170

Post by jcadam »

deftnerd wrote: post #96

Sometimes company leaders have severe problems with ethics. As mentioned in other comments, even YC has had companies that have bundled adware/malware with software, practiced dark patterns, hidden news of security breaches, etc. I tend to see YC as being more "evolved" than other VC's, but I also think that these problems are more ingrained into the human condition. YC could consider making funding contingent on all…

In large defense contracting firms it works like this:

A high-level executive gets caught bribing government officials (cash, jobs for relatives, etc.) in exchange for favorable treatment/contracts.

Company gets sanctioned, and ALL employees get to have regular ethics and conflict-of-interest training. Because obviously the rank-and-file employees are part of the problem. And I wouldn't be surprised if the executives don't actually receive/attend the training.

Post reply on HN