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Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

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Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#161

Post by Nanite »

epmaybe wrote: post #119
_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree, not sure why they've killed your karma. Between taking a pay cheque and whistle blowing, the large majority of people will always not rock the boat and take the money.

I think you're referring to the people working for theranos itself. However, investors generally try and do their due diligence before investing. Did none of the investors seek an expert to verify the claims made by Theranos prior to investing?

Yes, and this is why you won't find any reputable biotech VC on the investor list of Theranos ( Mostly a mix of private equity, family funds and informals) . Biotech VC's have domain experts in house or in their network who won't take the narrative at face value and do ask the hard questions.

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#162

Post by lutusp »

Mz wrote: post #10

Wow. Okay, this takes it from "Shit happens and people can be totally deluded" to actual, genuine fraud. Edit: Also, how can people be that stupid? You have to know the truth will eventually come out? Right? Or, no? I don't get it.

> Also, how can people be that stupid? You have to know the truth will eventually come out?

In an equities market defined by quarterly profit statements, "eventually" is far enough away to be irrelevant. The reason this sort of thing happens again and again is because it works -- as the company disintegrates in a blizzard of accusations, the principals safely descend on golden parachutes.

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#163

Post by Applejinx »

jacquesm wrote: post #71
Brockenstein wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because things worked out and they were ultimately able to deliver before everything imploded. It can be a fine line. Theranos didn't know where that line was.

It is a fine line. From practical experience: there is a class of inventors who have genuinely convinced themselves that their broken tech will work if only they get the bugs worked out, and this is always just over the horizon. They probably see themselves as doing you a favor by lying to you because you will reap the benefits after all, once the pay-day arrives. I've seen lots of misery because of this, both with t…

It depends on who the onlooker is, though. I'm always fascinated with flying car stories because I understand them: I can look at the Ilium story and know immediately things about it, for instance that it will not glide with weight distribution and wings as shown.

But if I looked at Theranos, I wouldn't have any idea what I'm looking at. We all have our own brain structures that set up our respective abilities to call BS: part of this is understanding the psychology, as you (jacquesm) do. This gives the background to not take claims at face value.

The other part of BS-calling is that structure of experience telling us things like 'center of mass for the object will be here' or 'adding 20 more people to this dev team will have this effect on their ability to coordinate development'. These are heuristics that might be more difficult to explain than to be directed by, but in practice they'll tend to function like iron laws: if an exception is ever found it's a huge deal. The trick is getting people to accept the iron law without the structure of experience to support it.

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#164

Post by Applejinx »

lutusp wrote: post #162
Mz wrote: post #10

Wow. Okay, this takes it from "Shit happens and people can be totally deluded" to actual, genuine fraud. Edit: Also, how can people be that stupid? You have to know the truth will eventually come out? Right? Or, no? I don't get it.

> Also, how can people be that stupid? You have to know the truth will eventually come out? In an equities market defined by quarterly profit statements, "eventually" is far enough away to be irrelevant. The reason this sort of thing happens again and again is because it works -- as the company disintegrates in a blizzard of accusations, the principals safely descend on golden parachutes.

In which case the danger becomes this: is that behavior sufficiently optimized that it's impractical to do anything else? There comes a point where the system compels everybody in it to pursue this strategy, or automatically be forced out.

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#166

Post by hieronymoustosh »

palakchokshi wrote: post #4

This explains to some extent why investors might have given the company that valuation of 9 billion. If the company faked demos and portrayed results obtained on non Theranos tech as Theranos tech results, most investors can't be blamed for believing the tech worked and it was only a matter of time before all tests could be performed by the tech. What is baffling to me is unless the data was doctored why didn't any o…

my god you are naive

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#167

Post by return0 »

palakchokshi wrote: post #4

This explains to some extent why investors might have given the company that valuation of 9 billion. If the company faked demos and portrayed results obtained on non Theranos tech as Theranos tech results, most investors can't be blamed for believing the tech worked and it was only a matter of time before all tests could be performed by the tech. What is baffling to me is unless the data was doctored why didn't any o…

> most investors can't be blamed for believing the tech worked

in medicine, you need to be reviewed and mostly provide proof of your methods and results etc, just to publish a single paper.

Are you saying that investors are willing to not only be fooled, but give millions to the one who is fooling them without even checking if their claims are real? Sounds less like investors and more like gamblers tbh.

I don't understand why investors should be absolved from responsibility.

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#168

Post by hieronymoustosh »

verulito wrote: post #155
stanfordkid wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to Stanford (hence the screen name) ... Stanford students are generally sheep that know one thing for certain: That they are smart enough to get into Stanford and that they now have pretty much zero excuse to not be successful. They assume that other things (vision, relentless lifelong obsession) are means to ends. It is a fertile breeding ground for what Trungpa Rinpoche most accurately describes a "Spiritual…

We should also remember that she graduated like 15 years ago, about the same time I did. The world was VERY different back then. Her style of management reflects the generation she was created from. Unlike her peers, she was unlucky enough to have had access to enough funding to last this long. As a result, the damage done is larger than was typical even back then but also ending at a time when it would stand out. Co…

white people commit massive fraud stealing millions: 'unlucky'

minorities sell 5 oz of weed: '25 years in prison'

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#169

Post by jstanley »

ncallaway wrote: post #132
bspn wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic: he's 95 years old?! I don't care how well connected he is, who thought it would be a good idea to have a nonagenarian on the board of a (supposedly) cutting edge health-tech company?!

And what evidence, besides your random agism, do you have to argue that a 95 year old person shouldn't be on the board of a company?

If nothing else, he'll almost certainly be dead soon.

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#170

Post by inetknght »

Nanite wrote: post #161
epmaybe wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're referring to the people working for theranos itself. However, investors generally try and do their due diligence before investing. Did none of the investors seek an expert to verify the claims made by Theranos prior to investing?

Yes, and this is why you won't find any reputable biotech VC on the investor list of Theranos ( Mostly a mix of private equity, family funds and informals) . Biotech VC's have domain experts in house or in their network who won't take the narrative at face value and do ask the hard questions.

I write software which analyzes DNA. It's pretty interesting to hear the varied responses from lab staff when questions are asked. Many times, however, questions (or sometimes answers) end up being overridden by business needs (aka deadlines). Being a business, that's rather expected to happen now and then.

But it bothers me that many of the questions that end up being unanswered are typically some of the more fundamental questions I ask.

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