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The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

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Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#61

Post by danieltillett »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #13
wpietri wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also love to see a survey of the journalism on this. We see now that Theranos's stuff never worked. But tech press is famously uncritical. It seems like there's an opportunity for all of us to learn something here about how we were so easily misled.

Many people were skeptical, even right here on HN. Sometimes, their voices are drowned out by those that like to accuse the skeptical of being pessimistic. Optimism can be inherently unscientific--it can often be a manifestation of what we want rather than what is scientifically likely . To me, the battle has always been between optimism and realism.

The reason Theranos was always a fraud is it is well known (as in for decades) that you can’t get reliable sampling from a finger prick sample even with a perfect detector.

The reason why is that the blood from a finger prick is a random mixture of veinous and arterial blood with a variable amount of cell debris and contamination from what is on the skin. Not even Kissinger (sorry I mean Lucifer) could give you an accurate diagnosis based on finger prick.

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#62

Post by danieltillett »

danso wrote: post #17
wpietri wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also love to see a survey of the journalism on this. We see now that Theranos's stuff never worked. But tech press is famously uncritical. It seems like there's an opportunity for all of us to learn something here about how we were so easily misled.

Theranos is an interesting case. Benedict Evans tweeted something interesting the other week [0], how Theranos, unlike virtually every other Silicon Valley startups, was very East Coast in style. Particularly with its board full of old, famous politicians and DC figures like Kissinger and General Mattis. I didn't really hear much about it until the WSJ blowup, but my perception was that Theranos wasn't in whatever sc…

The suggestion someone here made is that it was not an attempt to make an actual product, but a scam to defraud the US military. The idea was to get the military to buy the technology for a multi-billion dollar price and later bury that it didn’t work. My memory is some lowly lieutenant refused to sign off on the deal ordered by a four star general and the whole thing fell apart.

This scam was the reason for the board structure and the rather interesting way Theranos went about developing their “technology”.

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#63

Post by seehafer »

danieltillett wrote: post #62
danso wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theranos is an interesting case. Benedict Evans tweeted something interesting the other week [0], how Theranos, unlike virtually every other Silicon Valley startups, was very East Coast in style. Particularly with its board full of old, famous politicians and DC figures like Kissinger and General Mattis. I didn't really hear much about it until the WSJ blowup, but my perception was that Theranos wasn't in whatever sc…

The suggestion someone here made is that it was not an attempt to make an actual product, but a scam to defraud the US military. The idea was to get the military to buy the technology for a multi-billion dollar price and later bury that it didn’t work. My memory is some lowly lieutenant refused to sign off on the deal ordered by a four star general and the whole thing fell apart. This scam was the reason for the boar…

Theranos tried to get their tech bought by the military and used now SecDef, then Gen. Jim Mattis, then a Theranos board member, to shepherd the product through the military procurement process.

They were stopped because DoD regulations state that medical products used by the military have to be cleared/approved by FDA (or in the process of a clinical trial). And Theranos was not on FDA’s “good” list at the time, having only sent one product through the clearance process out of the dozens they were selling.

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#64

Post by perl4ever »

misiti3780 wrote: post #32

I have an honest question, what is the end game for Theranos employees. My understanding is the company is a complete fraud but yet if I go on linkedin they still have 200+ employees working there: https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/?facetCurrent... are all of these people going to be fired in the coming months or do investors think this is still a good idea but Holmes isnt going to be apart of it ?

It seems like a long time ago it was publicized they were a complete fraud and I was bewildered as to why they weren't being shut down and/or having people arrested. So I have no idea what's going on except that things may go slower than one expects.

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#65

Post by jamesrcole »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #13
wpietri wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also love to see a survey of the journalism on this. We see now that Theranos's stuff never worked. But tech press is famously uncritical. It seems like there's an opportunity for all of us to learn something here about how we were so easily misled.

Many people were skeptical, even right here on HN. Sometimes, their voices are drowned out by those that like to accuse the skeptical of being pessimistic. Optimism can be inherently unscientific--it can often be a manifestation of what we want rather than what is scientifically likely . To me, the battle has always been between optimism and realism.

I don't think it's primarily about optimism vs realism.

Those are attitudes, and I think the matter is more epistemological - about what valid conclusions we can draw based on the known details.

For example, if we have incomplete information and we can't draw clear conclusions from it, rather than thinking of what sort of attitude we should take towards it (or optimistic vs cynical) -- what we think is likely the case -- our first step should be to admit the incomplete information and be agnostic about what's actually the truth of the matter.

If there are particular reasons for thinking one option (eg fraud) is likely then you can list first reasons and the facts that support them. Doing so doesn't and shouldn't have to involve an attitude like realism or cynicism.

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#66

Post by perl4ever »

ipsum2 wrote: post #14
zer0day wrote: post #8

I started to write a thoughtful and balanced analysis of this article...but then I stopped myself. The reason I stopped myself is that I thought about all the journalists like this lady who played the same game with Theranos and continue to play similar games with all of the rotten corporate and government entities in the county. Then I started getting genuinely pissed off! What. the. f*ck did I just read? She openly…

While I agree with you, there aren't any known case of people dying from Theranos: https://www.quora.com/Did-people-die-from-relying-on-Therano...

You just linked to someone who states (a) statistically, there must have been deaths from faulty tests, and (b) quotes a lawsuit over the negative health consequences of the tests.

It doesn't seem like your link jibes with your dismissive comment, not in spirit, nor in a strict technical sense.

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#67

Post by bbgm »

danso wrote: post #17
wpietri wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also love to see a survey of the journalism on this. We see now that Theranos's stuff never worked. But tech press is famously uncritical. It seems like there's an opportunity for all of us to learn something here about how we were so easily misled.

Theranos is an interesting case. Benedict Evans tweeted something interesting the other week [0], how Theranos, unlike virtually every other Silicon Valley startups, was very East Coast in style. Particularly with its board full of old, famous politicians and DC figures like Kissinger and General Mattis. I didn't really hear much about it until the WSJ blowup, but my perception was that Theranos wasn't in whatever sc…

That betrays Ben’s lack of understanding of life science startups. The reason pretty much everyone I know from that world was skeptical was because of the composition of the board and the lack of a credible scientific advisory board. I have not seen too many companies in this space without a good SAB.

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#68

Post by ajross »

pdonis wrote: post #26
zer0day wrote: post #8

I started to write a thoughtful and balanced analysis of this article...but then I stopped myself. The reason I stopped myself is that I thought about all the journalists like this lady who played the same game with Theranos and continue to play similar games with all of the rotten corporate and government entities in the county. Then I started getting genuinely pissed off! What. the. f*ck did I just read? She openly…

> This is everything wrong with American media in one article 100% agree. What she should have done was not cancel the feature, but write what actually happened--right after it happened, not now, when Theranos has already been outed as a fraud and she's just another one jumping on the bandwagon.

So... you want a media filled with negative results? Every time someone chases a lead that goes nowhere that it shows up as a (literal!) non-story that no one wants to read?

I mean, what was she supposed to have written. Obviously you want her to have written about Theranos being a fraud, but she didn't have that story. All she had was a fire alarm and an inability to find anyone getting finger prick tests.

She couldn't prove fraud. She just had a hunch that things were wrong. She had no leads on a fraud story, and she had to get articles out that her employer could actually publish.

You're asking too much here.

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#69

Post by fwgwgwgch »

danieltillett wrote: post #61
nathanaldensr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people were skeptical, even right here on HN. Sometimes, their voices are drowned out by those that like to accuse the skeptical of being pessimistic. Optimism can be inherently unscientific--it can often be a manifestation of what we want rather than what is scientifically likely . To me, the battle has always been between optimism and realism.

The reason Theranos was always a fraud is it is well known (as in for decades) that you can’t get reliable sampling from a finger prick sample even with a perfect detector. The reason why is that the blood from a finger prick is a random mixture of veinous and arterial blood with a variable amount of cell debris and contamination from what is on the skin. Not even Kissinger (sorry I mean Lucifer) could give you an ac…

Noble peace prize winner ;)

(I agree with your sentiment, just pointed out this to remind people that these prizes are not given by God)

Re: The Tale of Theranos and the Mysterious Fire Alarm

#70

Post by avs733 »

danso wrote: post #27
nathanaldensr wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people were skeptical, even right here on HN. Sometimes, their voices are drowned out by those that like to accuse the skeptical of being pessimistic. Optimism can be inherently unscientific--it can often be a manifestation of what we want rather than what is scientifically likely . To me, the battle has always been between optimism and realism.

The seems to be the oldest post on HN (Sept 8 2013, 211 upvotes, 113 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349349 It doesn't feel that much more skeptical than typical HN threads about new companies. And skepticism/confusion was going to be more prevalent given how few HN users (relatively speaking) are in the health field. Funny enough, if you scroll down far enough, you run into a comment that sounds like…

I'm not there comment you referene, but for around three or four years I have been using theranos' board as a teaching tool in undergraduate entrepreneurship courses.
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