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U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

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Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

#161

Post by elgenie »

api wrote: post #143
atombender wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This interview with John Carreyrou [1], the Wall Street Journal journalist who is largely responsible for exposing Theranos, goes into a lot of detail. It's long, so if you want a shorter answer, jump to the question "What technology did Theranos actually develop?": Basically there were three iterations of the technology. The first one used microfluidics, which are basically the repurposing of the micro-fabrication t…

> The short answer is her Jobs-like "reality distortion field" -- she was exceedingly good at convincing ... Considering this and the lack of substance behind her claims, I would personally bet money that she is a clinical psychopath. The most disturbing thing I have ever observed about human beings is our tendency to follow psychopaths. Psychopaths seem to have this gravity around them and people just fall into line…

A lot of communication is non-verbal. A person evaluating a statement in context and expecting to find some physical and culturally-instilled signs of self-doubt in their interlocutor may unconsciously be strongly pushed to conclude that the person is telling the truth when not finding those signs, even if the reason that those aspects of communication are absent is because the person is incapable of producing them.

Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

#162

Post by konschubert »

meowface wrote: post #158
atombender wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did start with legitimate attempts at implementing th technology needed to microfluidics (though apparently Holmes knew nothing about the field and didn't even know anything about existing players such as Abaxis, who actually had working machines). However, they could not get the technology to work and abandoned several development paths in favour of a less ambitious approach that, among other things, involved d…

>They knew it didn't work, but kept selling it anyway, which is where it went from just faking it to outright fraud. I'm playing Devil's advocate and not justifying or defending their fraud and the physical harm they caused, but if we were to look at Holmes' intentions, I'm suspecting it was something like "we just need to do this for a few months/years until our technology works", rather than "let's just run this sc…

No, it's just that annoying mentality of "fake it till you make it".

Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

#163

Post by notlob »

sveme wrote: post #46
minimaxir wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For reference, here's the very first HN submission about Theranos in 2013: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349349

Interesting. Skinming through the comments, very little criticism, everyone in awe. Only way down there is someone stating how hard it is to get regulatory approval. I guess that‘s HN still in full fanboy mode, before all those startups started to display their dark sides.

Theranos was tight lipped on the tech. An alternative interpretation is that there was insufficient information on the tech at that moment for knowledgeable people to weigh in on, other than to observe that this is a difficult problem and a “red ocean” in a regulated industry, and it is hardly worth stating something so obvious.

Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

#164

Post by puzzle »

maxxxxx wrote: post #87
dboreham wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been involved with many vc funded startups and have never encountered a situation where nobody knows how to achieve the core product vision. Nobody knows how to achieve profitability...sure.

The only one that comes to mind is Magic Leap. They could blow up like Theranos.

As a data point, GV decided twice not to invest in Theranos, due to lack of transparency, a peculiar board mix and a sketchy experience in the field. They actually sent someone to a Walgreens.

Later they happily poured lots of millions into Magic Leap.

Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

#165

Post by rz2k »

sveme wrote: post #46
minimaxir wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For reference, here's the very first HN submission about Theranos in 2013: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349349

Interesting. Skinming through the comments, very little criticism, everyone in awe. Only way down there is someone stating how hard it is to get regulatory approval. I guess that‘s HN still in full fanboy mode, before all those startups started to display their dark sides.

Check out the top comment to April 2015: Scientists skeptical about Theranos blood test (businessinsider.com): [1]

> What stops the skeptics from doing their own tests by walking into a service center and having their blood analyzed for all tests possible and doing the same with their blood for conventional tests? Or an even large scale test?

> If their concern is genuine (rather than a way to get a look under the hood of a competitor for the current sellers of such services) there are multiple ways in which they could get their verification without inside information on how Theranos does its thing.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440595

Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

#166

Post by dreamcompiler »

api wrote: post #143
atombender wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This interview with John Carreyrou [1], the Wall Street Journal journalist who is largely responsible for exposing Theranos, goes into a lot of detail. It's long, so if you want a shorter answer, jump to the question "What technology did Theranos actually develop?": Basically there were three iterations of the technology. The first one used microfluidics, which are basically the repurposing of the micro-fabrication t…

> The short answer is her Jobs-like "reality distortion field" -- she was exceedingly good at convincing ... Considering this and the lack of substance behind her claims, I would personally bet money that she is a clinical psychopath. The most disturbing thing I have ever observed about human beings is our tendency to follow psychopaths. Psychopaths seem to have this gravity around them and people just fall into line…

I don't know about Holmes (other than having read Carreyrou's book) but I've been around pathological, charismatic narcissists enough to be as fascinated as you at their ability to lie to the face of very accomplished people and be completely believed. It's almost like executives need a training course in spotting and dealing with them.

Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

#167

Post by elgenie »

seibelj wrote: post #15

I wonder how Tim Draper will argue this is a conspiracy to take down "another great icon"[0] [0] http://fortune.com/2018/05/11/tim-draper-theranos-elizabeth-...

He's probably too busy now trying to split up California into pieces.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-california-split-t...

Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

#169

Post by paradroid »

minimaxir wrote: post #23
zitterbewegung wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the company launched professionals in the medical testing said it was impossible. I believe it was even posted to HN. They stated it was impossible to get the results they would get from the amount of blood given.

For reference, here's the very first HN submission about Theranos in 2013: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349349

"It's odd how little information is provided about the actual new technologies behind this." - @aheilbut

Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

#170

Post by Kluny »

api wrote: post #143
atombender wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This interview with John Carreyrou [1], the Wall Street Journal journalist who is largely responsible for exposing Theranos, goes into a lot of detail. It's long, so if you want a shorter answer, jump to the question "What technology did Theranos actually develop?": Basically there were three iterations of the technology. The first one used microfluidics, which are basically the repurposing of the micro-fabrication t…

> The short answer is her Jobs-like "reality distortion field" -- she was exceedingly good at convincing ... Considering this and the lack of substance behind her claims, I would personally bet money that she is a clinical psychopath. The most disturbing thing I have ever observed about human beings is our tendency to follow psychopaths. Psychopaths seem to have this gravity around them and people just fall into line…

Psychopaths are parasites - one could make the argument that most of human culture, including our marriage traditions, religions, moral codes of conduct, sense of humor, and even fashion, are evolutionary attempts to thwart them.
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