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Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

wsj.com

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Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#11

Post by inetknght »

palakchokshi wrote: post #4

This explains to some extent why investors might have given the company that valuation of 9 billion. If the company faked demos and portrayed results obtained on non Theranos tech as Theranos tech results, most investors can't be blamed for believing the tech worked and it was only a matter of time before all tests could be performed by the tech. What is baffling to me is unless the data was doctored why didn't any o…

> why didn't any one of the medical consultants or partners bring this up sooner?

Outside of direct "I physically see this patient", people can forget they work in medicine where their answers can mean life or death decisions.

In that situation people end up not wanting to bite the hand that feeds.

When you have automated stuff that has high throughput with little or no human interaction, you seriously limit the opportunity for humans to raise questions.

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#12

Post by dpiers »

JBReefer wrote: post #2

Is this the first total collapse of a "unicorn" this time around? I can't think of any recent, high profile disintegrations of this order of magnitude.

Gilt Groupe and Fab both sold at significantly lower values than they had previously raised at, not sure if that counts as a "total collapse".

I predict the next one will be Hampton Creek, given the criminal probe into their fraudulent buy-back scheme.

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#13

Post by antisthenes »

chromagnon wrote: post #8

I bet there are many other boardrooms around Silicon Valley who are panicking over this. There's so much pressure to be immediately profitable and show predictable year over year growth. How many have faked user trials or cooked the books in ways that would make Enron blush?

All the more credit to the show Silicon Valley. They illustrated the fake user scenario quite well.

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#15

Post by inetknght »

JBReefer wrote: post #2

Is this the first total collapse of a "unicorn" this time around? I can't think of any recent, high profile disintegrations of this order of magnitude.

You must have missed the Zenefits stuff. You clearly are missing out on Uber's continuing implosion, too.

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#16

Post by Mz »

mankash666 wrote: post #14

How is it always WSJ busting Theranos? is a competitor funding their "investigative journalism"? Not to say the article is untrue, just the super hard-on WSJ has for Theranos is mysterious.

My guess:

"If it bleeds, it leads." True life drama and gossip (for lack of a better word) has always sold papers.

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#17

Post by burkaman »

mankash666 wrote: post #14

How is it always WSJ busting Theranos? is a competitor funding their "investigative journalism"? Not to say the article is untrue, just the super hard-on WSJ has for Theranos is mysterious.

An investigative reporter at WSJ was the first to break the story about issues at Theranos, and he and other reporters have been assigned to keep investigating and keep reporting on it. I think this is pretty standard investigative reporting, similar to how it was always the Washington Post breaking news on Watergate.

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#18

Post by grzm »

mankash666 wrote: post #14

How is it always WSJ busting Theranos? is a competitor funding their "investigative journalism"? Not to say the article is untrue, just the super hard-on WSJ has for Theranos is mysterious.

Let's take a step back. How many news organizations are well-known for investigative journalism? I'd say the number is relatively small, so you're already working with a small set. Journalism is also a function of the individual editors and journalists who are actually doing the work. What interests them? What are they good at? Looking at the situation from just these, it's not all that surprising that a single news organization tends to be responsible for a majority—if not all—of the investigations with respect to a particular topic without the necessity of competition funding.

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#19

Post by mattmanser »

mankash666 wrote: post #14

How is it always WSJ busting Theranos? is a competitor funding their "investigative journalism"? Not to say the article is untrue, just the super hard-on WSJ has for Theranos is mysterious.

They broke the original story in the first place. Makes sense for them to keep following it up.

Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings

#20

Post by oddity »

mankash666 wrote: post #14

How is it always WSJ busting Theranos? is a competitor funding their "investigative journalism"? Not to say the article is untrue, just the super hard-on WSJ has for Theranos is mysterious.

There are honest reasons why a news outlet might take a strong interest in a group of stories.

A journalist might have become interested in a story early, and his immediate collegues then followed once it started picking up steam, for example. It's a bit like why a university might develop expertise in a new field faster than others.

It's possible that that initial interest came from outside influence of a competitor, but it's also reasonable to suspect that it was an honest skepticism from a journalist. After all, it's not hard to be skeptical of the many startups popping up these days.

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