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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

#141

Post by cactus2093 »

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…

As someone who knows very little about biology, I watched the HBO documentary about Theranos and am kind of still confused by some of the conflicting claims I hear.

In the documentary, they focused a lot on the engineering challenges of the machine they were making. The blood samples would spill, which would gum up the mechanical workings of the machine and make a huge mess and contaminate all the other samples. The documentary claimed that Theranos started doing demos where they would pretend to put the blood samples into the machine, but really take it to a lab bench and run the tests there, and then report the results back.

That implies to me that at least some of their tests were actually possible to do. I left the documentary thinking "someone should simply do this again, solve the mechanical/robotics problem, and not lie about it and this could still be a game changing technology". But then I've seen other sources (like your comment here) claiming that the basic science of what they were trying to do was impossible/fraudulent from the beginning.

Which is true?

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

#142

Post by danjac »

mrkramer wrote: post #123

She defrauded investors out of so much money, she deserves at least 10 years in prison imo.

Frankly don't care about the investors, they won't go hungry and they should have known better.

Endangering the lives of ordinary people though - 10 years isn't enough.

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

#143

Post by throwoutway »

the-dude wrote: post #18
throwoutway wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a second room where they led the inspectors with true lab eqpt while the other had the inaccurate machines (according to the book)

Are you sure it wasn't the other way around? Weren't they pretending to operate their own equipment while the real equipment was 'behind the curtain' ?

Maybe I forgot, but I think they were operating both.

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

#144

Post by RegnisGnaw »

smart_creature wrote: post #88
RegnisGnaw wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/28/1031961327/elizabeth-holmes-t... Basically: yes I did do this, but I was abused by Balwani and as a result I was in an impaired state of mind.

Those are not exactly the same thing. And it would undercut her current defense which is "I was just doing my best and we failed and business failure isn't a crime"

She doesn't have a current defense in the court. The defense in court is all that matters in the trial, not media. The prosecution is presenting the evidence right now, she will have her turn afterwards.

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

#145

Post by Radim »

cryptica wrote: post #126
munificent wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What just amazed me is how gullible all the investors were, and how they didn't do due diligence, hire outside experts, or anything. Weird. The thing is, the primary goal of an investor is not to invest in companies that are honest and actually do what they claim. The goal is to invest in a company that reaches a valuation high enough to let them recoup their investment at a profit. If that valuation happens throug…

This is spot on. Investors don't give a damn about the business. They just want a machine that they put money in and more money comes out. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of fast growing businesses these days are frauds. In such environment, the less they know, the better. Only frauds can succeed in a monetary system which is itself founded on fraud. So it makes no sense to do due diligence if you know that the comp…

You're not wrong but… it's pretty disheartening. Do you see a way out?

For businesses that want to minimize their reliance on the (trickle-down scraps of) the fraud money business.

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

#146

Post by short_sells_poo »

toss1 wrote: post #30
xqcgrek2 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western society is way too tolerant of certain kinds of mental illness, such as sociopathy/psychopathy, and intolerant of others (e.g. anxiety/depression).

Very succinct statement of the issue. Not only is Western society too tolerant of sociopathy, corporate structures tend to actively filter to top ranks those with such behaviors (just spend 5min reading Glassdoor or any employment-related NH topic...).

I have a pet theory on this that is entirely based on my own biased views: societies which are communal, whether around a family, village, tribe, etc..., tend to keep sociopathic tendencies in check. Either the sociopathic individual is exiled from the group, or at least identified and prevented from harming the collective. If the larger structure is still made up of smaller (at most 100s of individuals) communities, exiles risk becoming pariahs and without any societal support, it becomes next to impossible to strive (or even survive).

In highly individualistic societies, a lot of the most personal checks and balances are removed. You no longer have a tight-knit family that imposes some moral framework and behavior on it's members (good or bad).

Having said that, I'm not sure whether there are any truly communal societies left in the modern world. I suppose some isolated, rural communities could qualify, but pretty much all modern countries are now individualistic. Family values are slightly more pronounced in the East/far-East, but not to a degree that matters. Being successful still often trumps being a decent human being.

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

#147

Post by hef19898 »

pessimizer wrote: post #104
robertlagrant wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What just amazed me is how gullible all the investors were, and how they didn't do due diligence, hire outside experts, or anything. Weird. When you're sat on stage next to Bill Clinton people assume someone somewhere has done some due diligence already. Turns out there are a lot more jobs out there to do with marketing, hype, and event planning than there are doing fact checking.

What is Bill Clinton but a hype man, though? The board of Theranos was filled with names evocative of gravitas to baby boomers, but whose input on anything would be worthless.

Clinton? For all his faults, a two term president. And one that left with a federal budget running in the black. That requires some skills, even if I have no idea which exactly.

Edit: Come to think of it, Clinton was also a president that didn't start or prolong a pointless war, on the scale of the war on terror, Vietnam or Korea.

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

#148

Post by sumtechguy »

adventured wrote: post #120
AlbertCory wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the sort of pseudo-tech BS that she fed everyone. She had Jobs envy and thought his approach would work everywhere. All those examples (and all of yours) are from computers. Blood tests are different from computers. You cannot assume that, just because great things happened with computers, the same things can happen in all walks of life.

The Jobs presentation thing did work - much of the audience bought into it early on - combined with the hefty bonus points of her being a woman in Silicon Valley that the media was desperate to elevate as a path blazing icon (so desperate they entirely drank the kool-aid and acted as a valuable reinforcement pillar for the fraud, and largely failed to investigate if Theranos was legitimate). Jobs had follow-through,…

The voice pitch thing she was doing was a nice touch too.

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

#149

Post by gitfan86 »

cactus2093 wrote: post #141
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…

As someone who knows very little about biology, I watched the HBO documentary about Theranos and am kind of still confused by some of the conflicting claims I hear. In the documentary, they focused a lot on the engineering challenges of the machine they were making. The blood samples would spill, which would gum up the mechanical workings of the machine and make a huge mess and contaminate all the other samples. The…

There is room for improvement in testing technology and processes.

But not to the extent of "One drop of blood from your finger can provide accurate tests on 26 different types of tests" Especially when some of those tests are only accurate with a large sample of blood

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

#150

Post by thehappypm »

chollida1 wrote: post #35
thehappypm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda disagree. Sure, she was not honest to investors. But who cares? these investors are billionaires trying to make a quick buck. The faulty equipment in actual pharmacies is problematic, but I can actually see how prototypes out in the wild is a good thing.

Well there are stories of people who made actual medical decisions from the faulty machines she produced. I'm guessing everyone who made medical decisions based on her faulty machines cares a great deal. How can you have so little empathy for the everyday people caught up in this

The faulty equipment in actual pharmacies is problematic, but I can actually see how prototypes out in the wild is a good thing.
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