We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud • Hacker News Board

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#111

Post by anoncoward111 » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:00 AM UTC

kumarvvr wrote: post #26

The most amazing thing about this whole situation is that there were experts in the field who were shouting out about the impossibility of Holmes' claims right from the beginning. The media, though, never paid enough attention (or was possibly subverted by Theranos itself) to the naysayers. These incidents ought to remind us the exponentially important role media plays in our lives and how important it is that we com…

The real problem is that Walgreens didn't do enough due dilligence before signing a contract with Theranos, and that people didn't investigate where their blood was being analyzed

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#112

Post by timavr » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:06 AM UTC

jl2718 wrote: post #102

kumarvvr wrote: post #26

The most amazing thing about this whole situation is that there were experts in the field who were shouting out about the impossibility of Holmes' claims right from the beginning. The media, though, never paid enough attention (or was possibly subverted by Theranos itself) to the naysayers. These incidents ought to remind us the exponentially important role media plays in our lives and how important it is that we com…

My question is: where is the due diligence from investors? Nobody even bothers anymore. I’ve begun to think they don’t even care, because they truly believe that money makes success, not people, and certainly not technology.

Investors rarely do a crazy DD, especially technical DD.

First, it is expensive and second which is most important, it takes time.

When a company is fundraising and investor likes a pitch they prefer to move fast in fear of missing out.

Generally, all the dead bodies are found during the first board meeting.

It is not that much different from just buying stock. No one actually has an idea if any of public companies are cooking books etc. You just wake one day and it is a huge write down.

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#113

Post by Torn » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:08 AM UTC

timoth3y wrote: post #65

It's not unique to Theranos. It's all part of the perverse incentives involved with well-funded tech companies. There is no real incentive to call out fraud. As an investor or a partner you might pass on a deal, but to go public with your concerns means risking a possible lawsuit, raising the ire of the people who are already on the bandwagon, being excluded from future deals, and being dismissed as someone who is ou…

I have a strong suspicion another example will be Magic Leap. Note: not as an intentionally-misleading or lying case, but just as another extremely well-funded startup whose launch is likely to fall short of the hype.

$2.3bn in funding adds an immense pressure for it to be successful and perceived as revolutionary.

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#114

Post by Kiro » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:15 AM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #106

starpilot wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most amazing thing about this whole situation is that there were experts in the field who were shouting out about the impossibility of Holmes' claims right from the beginning. Links? Wasn't Holmes incredibly secretive about everything? It's not like she was promising overunity or anything, just a "radically new approach" type thing.

The reason why experts knew it was fraud right from the start is not even god can do the assays Holmes was claiming from a single drop of blood - the information is just not present and the variability is too high.

Where can I read the statements of these expert? Can't find anything before 2015.

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#115

Post by Kiro » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:17 AM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #43

duxup wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"there were experts in the field who were shouting out about the impossibility of Holmes' claims right from the beginning" Were there? I'm not doubting your claim, just wondering if anyone really spoke up. Reading about the challenges they would have had to overcome to back up their claims, there were some serious fundamental problems, and those were challenges the industry had been wrangling with when it came to tha…

I remember there were immediately after the 2014 TED talk. Heck, I watched that talk and immediately thought it was a complete fraud. Turns out that's like 7 years into this company being around and a year after they'd been full-on defrauding investors. I can't recall of hearing of Theranos before then though, but I'm not in the valley.

A lot of "I remember" in this thread but where are the links?

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#116

Post by cepth » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:18 AM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #64

It works both ways though, a lot of people said Tesla was a fraud and they couldn't build a "real" electric car with a range of 300 miles. And to the credit of the critics they weren't wrong, there was some serious integration of battery technology that had never been done before that made it possible for the Model S to exist. Not that I'm defending Theranos, they should have come out and said "We're running into iss…

I think the differentiator vs. Tesla is that Theranos promised things that are/were physically impossible. Putting aside Tesla's long history of delays, I think it's fair to say that the company has delivered on some of its core technological promises. Battery pack cost per kWh is close to dipping below $100, Tesla has dramatically reduced their use of rare earth metals in their packs, they've helped alleviate concerns around thermal runaway in their packs, and various academic and anecdotal accounts have shown that Tesla batterypacks hold up well even after hundreds of thousands of miles of road use and thousands of recharge cycles. These are all meaningful advancements in basic science.

In the Carreyrou book, one clear example is the explanation of why Theranos couldn't possibly do "all blood tests" on a single drop of blood. On an individual test basis, finger pricked blood is different in chemical makeup from blood drawn from a vein. If you're testing for certain diseases, even assuming that you had equipment sensitive enough to find small concentrations of a target element or organism, the finger pricked blood may just not have those markers at all.

Secondly, blood testing is a destructive process. If a doctor orders an immunoassay and a pathogen test for a patient, it's close to physically impossible to run both tests on Theranos's much touted "single drop of blood". You would be using up portions of an already tiny sample to perform the reactions necessary for each test. The premise that you could do multiple tests on a single drop of blood was a false one from the start.

Third, the purported form factor of Theranos testing machines, a small Apple-esque box, created physics problems from the start. Proteins and cells in blood are hyper-sensitive to temperature. One of Elizabeth Holmes's subordinates literally repurposed a glue robot to perform the basic blood testing tasks that would normally be done by a human. Imagine trying to have a tiny robotic arm trying to pick up tubes of blood from a tray, and perform chemical reactions, all within a shoebox-sized machine. Trying to leave enough room for the robot to physically swing its arm, and maintaining an acceptable level of heat dissipation so as to not destroy the samples was a challenge that Theranos never solved. At a certain point, you're running up against basic laws of physics and the literal limitations of space.

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#117

Post by Kiro » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:19 AM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #52

duxup wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"there were experts in the field who were shouting out about the impossibility of Holmes' claims right from the beginning" Were there? I'm not doubting your claim, just wondering if anyone really spoke up. Reading about the challenges they would have had to overcome to back up their claims, there were some serious fundamental problems, and those were challenges the industry had been wrangling with when it came to tha…

The Wall Street Journal was running investigative pieces seriously questioning Theranos' capabilities in 2015. Concerns and questions had been bubbling for a while before that. Theranos' response included an all-company meeting where they chanted "Fuck you, Carreyrou"[1] (John Carreyrou, the WSJ reporter who wrote the critical articles), and developeing a video game for employees that involved shooting him[2]. Notice…

Yeah, obviously since the article of this very comment thread is an interview with Carreyrou. People are asking for links about fraud claim before 2015.

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#118

Post by usrusr » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:24 AM UTC

Gatsky wrote: post #41

Something went wrong with the personal development of Elizabeth Holmes. How she could have such an astounding deficit of basic integrity is baffling. There must be some mental illness there. She’s a fascinating character, a biotech Wizard of Oz, who thought that if she wore turtlenecks and gave TED talks, the rest of it would fall into place. Cargo Cult Entrepreneurship fails miserably it would seem.

"...when his livelihood depends on not understanding" apparently applies to startup founders as much as to everybody else, if not more. Very few people would have the willpower to actively pull the plug when it would be much easier to keep the charade running for another year or two by making the existing pile of lies just a little bit higher.

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#119

Post by lifeisstillgood » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:24 AM UTC

laughinghan wrote: post #109

donbright wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Wall Street Journal is the only reason the company was outed. This same journal was also one of her early boosters. We already have a framework that preserves independence of the media, the First Amendment. All of the NDAs and Boies style intimidation and legal abuse and harrasment of the whistleblowers and journalists was only stopped by the First Amendment. We already have a framework that punishes journalists…

I am under the impression that it is rare for journalists in America to be murdered for their stories, is that not the case? None of your examples are journalists being penalized for lack of due diligence or for being misleading. I think your instinct to protect journalists given their importance and the threats they face is a healthy and important one, and I share it, but I don’t think they’re above reproach. Ensuri…

Imagine if the phrase was "Software developers are not murdered for missing estimates in this country". I am pretty sure I would hit my estimates even in London.

Yes Journalists need high standards of professional integrity and the legal air cover to maintain that.

But really the ultimate defence is us - to reject the mountains of crap out there and seek out and subscribe to the worthwhile news sources.

As ever, it's down to us.

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#120

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Thu, Jun 07, 2018, 7:29 AM UTC

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #74

phs318u wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s a technology narcissism problem. BINGO! What a great term. I've never heard it called that before (which now seems hard to believe), but have definitely seen it SO many times before (specifically in massive corporate IT programs - the domain I work in as an enterprise architect). Did you coin this phrase? I'm so using this! Thank you.

I doubt I am the first to call it that, but I haven’t seen it elsewhere that I am presently aware of. Having a taxonomy of this bad behavior, with useful names, does seem important, to make identifying it and discussing it more widespread. I imagine young founders not wishing to be like Holmes could benefit from a rubric of sorts that helps classify this behavior. And for bad-faith founders who do want to behave like…

Corey Pein’s recent book is a good take down of SV’s narcissistic mythology, and shows how it has some surprising and disturbing roots.

There was also a thread here recently about how business culture values those who operate politically far more than it values those who are practical creators - how if you’re skilled at politics you can appear to achieve almost anything, even if you have no true useful skills.

Holmes was a kooky idiot scientifically, but a combination of huckster hubris, nrcissistic self-absorption, and political genius - greased by a comfortable upper class background - created a lucrative illusion of Cool Stuff In Progress.

She crashed and burned because there was absolutely no substance there. But if there had been some substance - not much, but just enough - she’d still be riding the PR wave and raking in the investor cash.

If someone like Holmes can become a billionaire by peddling nothing except lies and hope, what’s the real value of the software and tech industries if you take away the hype and money machines that surround them?