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Elizabeth Holmes urged employees to hide Theranos’ lab equipment from inspectors

arstechnica.com

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Re: Elizabeth Holmes urged employees to hide Theranos’ lab equipment from inspectors

#51

Post by darkr »

MattGaiser wrote: post #45
photochemsyn wrote: post #29

The crazy thing about Theranos is that so many people with experience in microfluidics (developed mainly for DNA sequencing although there are other uses) knew that their claims were impossible, technologically speaking. Working with such small volumes to obtain quantitive estimates of blood chemistry is so implausible, as you are introducing uncontrollable variability - micro-evaporation, even tissue localization is…

The problem is that successful startups often start out claiming that which is impossible. Uber was impossible, because it was illegal. Amazon was impossible, as you couldn't pack and ship stuff that cheaply. Personal computers were at one point considered ludicrous.

These examples are all "impossible" due to regulatory or commercial constraints, rather than scientific - which is a category of obstacle somewhat more difficult to overcome.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes urged employees to hide Theranos’ lab equipment from inspectors

#52

Post by misiti3780 »

jbay808 wrote: post #47
misiti3780 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too thought about the counterfactual in which that if their technology actually worked, COVID testing could have been have been done at scale in the US.

Isn't COVID testing being done at scale in many countries right now? I'm in Canada and I can go to a free drive through test station without appointment and get about a 24-hour turnaround on results, and that's been the case for over a year.

yes, but it was not happening in March 2020 in the US for a variety of reasons.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes urged employees to hide Theranos’ lab equipment from inspectors

#53

Post by bdcravens »

MattGaiser wrote: post #45
photochemsyn wrote: post #29

The crazy thing about Theranos is that so many people with experience in microfluidics (developed mainly for DNA sequencing although there are other uses) knew that their claims were impossible, technologically speaking. Working with such small volumes to obtain quantitive estimates of blood chemistry is so implausible, as you are introducing uncontrollable variability - micro-evaporation, even tissue localization is…

The problem is that successful startups often start out claiming that which is impossible. Uber was impossible, because it was illegal. Amazon was impossible, as you couldn't pack and ship stuff that cheaply. Personal computers were at one point considered ludicrous.

This illuminates the problem: thinking that the startup model can be applied to everything. This leads to people either naively tackling problems (you listed successes, but for every success there's many, many, failures). At worst, you find have someone who can use the startup model to hide fraud and grifting.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes urged employees to hide Theranos’ lab equipment from inspectors

#54

Post by krageon »

photochemsyn wrote: post #29

The crazy thing about Theranos is that so many people with experience in microfluidics (developed mainly for DNA sequencing although there are other uses) knew that their claims were impossible, technologically speaking. Working with such small volumes to obtain quantitive estimates of blood chemistry is so implausible, as you are introducing uncontrollable variability - micro-evaporation, even tissue localization is…

> how they didn't do due diligence

"due diligence" processes are in practice a lot less stringent or rigorous than an outsider would expect them to be given the amount of money involved. Companies get bought based on glorified sales pitches and nobody looks too hard at what they're buying is the unfortunate truth of the matter. Investors are no better.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes urged employees to hide Theranos’ lab equipment from inspectors

#55

Post by nitrogen »

misiti3780 wrote: post #40
photochemsyn wrote: post #29

The crazy thing about Theranos is that so many people with experience in microfluidics (developed mainly for DNA sequencing although there are other uses) knew that their claims were impossible, technologically speaking. Working with such small volumes to obtain quantitive estimates of blood chemistry is so implausible, as you are introducing uncontrollable variability - micro-evaporation, even tissue localization is…

I too thought about the counterfactual in which that if their technology actually worked, COVID testing could have been have been done at scale in the US.

There are companies (at least one anyway) that make rapid testing panels that include COVID, plus a dozen plus other respiratory diseases, in a single test that is profitable at $200 and costs $20 in consumables. I heard that they disabled all the other tests so they could get approved as a COVID test sooner, or something like that. The problem is you can't ask for such a test as a patient, hospital billing departments make the news for charging insurance $$$$ for each individual pathogen on the test, and doctors come out of the woodwork to say how negligent and irresponsible it is to test for so many things at once, as if it's literally impossible to take base rates into account when you do more than one test.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes urged employees to hide Theranos’ lab equipment from inspectors

#56

Post by bcrosby95 »

krageon wrote: post #54
photochemsyn wrote: post #29

The crazy thing about Theranos is that so many people with experience in microfluidics (developed mainly for DNA sequencing although there are other uses) knew that their claims were impossible, technologically speaking. Working with such small volumes to obtain quantitive estimates of blood chemistry is so implausible, as you are introducing uncontrollable variability - micro-evaporation, even tissue localization is…

> how they didn't do due diligence "due diligence" processes are in practice a lot less stringent or rigorous than an outsider would expect them to be given the amount of money involved. Companies get bought based on glorified sales pitches and nobody looks too hard at what they're buying is the unfortunate truth of the matter. Investors are no better.

I think it probably depends. When we sold our company they spent months digging into numbers. And they kept asking for new types of metrics that we had to figure out ways to derive from data that wasn't necessarily designed to measure those metrics.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes urged employees to hide Theranos’ lab equipment from inspectors

#57

Post by AlbertCory »

A free way [1] to track the trial, at least some of it. I'm hoping to go to at least one day of it.

I'm sure the actual court reporter trial transcripts will be public at some point (does anyone know?), but they're not in [1].

If you are drawing comparisons between her and the rest of Silicon Valley, you are missing one rather important fact: hard sciences are hard. We have it easy in computers.

There are government agencies involved in testing what she did, and people's health is at stake. Just imagine that some bureaucrat was reading every line of code you wrote.

[1] https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7185174/united-states-v...

Re: Elizabeth Holmes urged employees to hide Theranos’ lab equipment from inspectors

#58

Post by krageon »

capableweb wrote: post #27
SkipperCat wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, does this case get so much publicity because it touches upon all the tropes of Silicon Valley? 'Fake it till you make it', 'move fast and break things', 'disrupt the markets', etc. IMHO, this business model is fine when the only things at risk are venture capital and you're trying to sell more widgets, but when it comes to life and safety - bad news.

> IMHO, this business model is fine when the only things at risk are venture capital [...] Isn't there always more risk than just "venture capital" to this "move fast and break things" model? Take Uber for an example, sure, they've burned so much cash trying to circumvent laws, but not only have they burned cash, they have also changed economies around the world by burning this cash and trying to disrupt things. Many…

Yes, organised crime (because that is what you are describing) has big knock-on effects on the rest of society. That is why we treat organised crime the way we normally do. The fact that these corporations were allowed abroad and left to do what they did highlights that the legal system (meant in the first place to protect citizens) has been broken. That that doesn't get looked at harder and seen for what it is is truly tragic.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes urged employees to hide Theranos’ lab equipment from inspectors

#59

Post by LanceH »

kube-system wrote: post #48
MattGaiser wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that successful startups often start out claiming that which is impossible. Uber was impossible, because it was illegal. Amazon was impossible, as you couldn't pack and ship stuff that cheaply. Personal computers were at one point considered ludicrous.

This is the SV “fake it ‘till you make it” culture. Right now Tesla is delivering “full self driving” cars that require a human driver at all times. Experts have said that it’s not possible using cameras alone, without LiDAR. Oversell and underdeliver. Fraud works great until it doesn’t.

Isn't the self-driving just a feature on top of the car? They're faking one feature that a customer might opt into -- and none that I know have.

Tesla has delivered a performant EV that is nice to drive in and is comparable to other luxury vehicles. It's not exactly faking for quite some time.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes urged employees to hide Theranos’ lab equipment from inspectors

#60

Post by pron »

MattGaiser wrote: post #45
photochemsyn wrote: post #29

The crazy thing about Theranos is that so many people with experience in microfluidics (developed mainly for DNA sequencing although there are other uses) knew that their claims were impossible, technologically speaking. Working with such small volumes to obtain quantitive estimates of blood chemistry is so implausible, as you are introducing uncontrollable variability - micro-evaporation, even tissue localization is…

The problem is that successful startups often start out claiming that which is impossible. Uber was impossible, because it was illegal. Amazon was impossible, as you couldn't pack and ship stuff that cheaply. Personal computers were at one point considered ludicrous.

AFAIK, the most likely projection at this point is that Uber will not have made a single dollar from the day it was created until the day it shuts down, and might well face similar scrutiny as Theranos someday (although, not being health related, consequences might not be as severe).
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