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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

#191

Post by ClumsyPilot »

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…

Why using small amounts of blood important?

Are there some tests that need extremely large amounts of blood that the patient cannot provide? Or is the point to improve the patient's experience?

When I give blood for testing, there is no difference in my experience as a patient, however many vials are taken, it just takes a bit longer. What am I missing?

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

#192

Post by gonehome »

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 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.

I'd push back on this a bit - not because it's wrong in the case of Theranos, but because it's often wrong in the general case. A lot of the time 'industry experts' go on about how some new approach is impossible for X reason and they're often wrong.

Tesla is a good example of this (some people are still saying EVs can't work even today).

You really have to get in the weeds yourself to understand whether something is possible or not rather than deferring to others most of the time. I do agree though that her investors didn't do that.

She was also able to get famous people invested and on her board which I think compounded things.

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

#193

Post by hef19898 »

jacinabox wrote: post #185
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…

Why did Theranos insist on using 'a single drop of blood.' Why not be able to run a normal blood sample through an unprecedentedly compact form factor testing unit. Wouldn't that be good enough?

In industry terms? Absolutely. In terms of getting a billion dollar evaluation for being a disruptive start up? Probably not.

Also, the former seems to be a harder problem to solve than the latter.

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

#194

Post by random314 »

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…

Elizabeth Holmes went out of her way to find non expert investors. Infact, I don't think any silicon valley VCs made any significant investments in Theranos.

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

#195

Post by hef19898 »

Hermitian909 wrote: post #158
kube-system wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean, we can go the other way by looking at SpaceX. I spent years reading detailed reports from experts that everything SpaceX was doing was impossible. -A rocket made of steel -Landing a rocket anywhere -Landing a bigger rocket anywhere -Landing a rocket on solid ground -Landing a big rocket on the ground and a lot of smaller things in between. I read many plausible looking reports on the non-feasability of these…

For the risk of being a broken record, nobody claimed that reusable rockets were technically impossible. The argument was that they were rather financially unfeasible due to a limited number of LEO launches, so nobody tried (I lost the ESA study on this from the early 2000s unfortunately...).

I'd really love that myth of SpaceX doing the impossible with landing rockets to die. Also because they don't have to, they were the first to do so. That alone is really impressive. Whether or not it is profitable is impossible to tell until SpaceX is publishing audited financials.

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

#196

Post by junon »

supperburg wrote: post #164
ta1234567890 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber Explanation, since this is being downvoted. Uber might not have lied about their business, but it surely looks like investors never cared about the businesses viability and rather only cared about being able to turn a profit on their investment (which was the point being made by the gp). To this day, it is still not clear if Uber’s business model is viable. Also not to mention the original CEO/founder’s reputati…

The idea that Uber is not profitable is a myth isn’t it? I remember they posted some financial documents a while back that showed them in the red. But when I looked at the papers there were literal billions in advertising and expansion. Uber runs the app. People call an Uber and they pay money. Some of that money goes to the driver and some goes to Uber. You’re really saying that Uber can’t collect enough money to ru…

> The idea that Uber is not profitable is a myth isn’t it?

I worked on the long-term forecasting team while I was there. At least 5-6 years ago, Uber was very, very far from profitable. I can't imagine much has changed enough for it to make them profitable. Maybe with the new CEO things changed but I'm doubtful. That company had a slew of issues.

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

#197

Post by random314 »

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…

They failed on several fronts

1. The basic equipment they built simply didn't work at all

2. Their workaround trick of getting a finger prick blood draw, dilute it with water and run the test on a Qwest machine produced wrong results.

3. The fundamental approach itself was unviable. You can't get reliable results from a finger prick.

Theranos failed on all fronts except being able to attract investments from non experts.

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

#198

Post by FloayYerBoat »

danso wrote: post #36
louwrentius wrote: post #13

If you haven't read the book "Bad Blood" by John Carreyrou I think you should give it a try. I think it's really worth it.

Seconded. Besides being absolutely stock full of incredible/hilarious inside details about Theranos's rise and fall, it's one of the best books I've ever read about the investigative journalism process. Carreyrou goes out of his way to credit the obscure blog author who tipped him off to Theranos.

...and he details how the Wall Street Journal was pressured by very powerful people / organizations and they fully stood by their journalists. Very surprising and encouraging.

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

#199

Post by hart_russell »

tmpz22 wrote: post #33
hart_russell wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you could have just stopped at rich. Money helps anyone going through the US Justice system, regardless of color.

The data backs it up [1]. Sentencing disparities based on race in the United States are undeniable. [1]: https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/141027_iachr...

So based on your provided data, white people are incarcerated more than latino and “other”.

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

#200

Post by ufo »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #191
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…

Why using small amounts of blood important? Are there some tests that need extremely large amounts of blood that the patient cannot provide? Or is the point to improve the patient's experience? When I give blood for testing, there is no difference in my experience as a patient, however many vials are taken, it just takes a bit longer. What am I missing?

The argument Theranos gave is that it would allow collecting blood from a fingerprick (which would not require a trained professional, and because people are afraid of needles).
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