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Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

nytimes.com

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Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#21

Post by cant_kant »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #11
n0us wrote: post #7

The idea of rapid disruption in the healthcare industry makes me uncomfortable for some reason. I admire Holmes's ambition and in interviews I've watched she seems competent and well guided but something just doesn't seem to add up. How was a college dropout able to get a break in the healthcare sector? Becoming a doctor requires years of education and training and along comes this young woman who just decides "I'm g…

She comes from a very, very privileged family with the kind of connections most of us can only dream about. Alas that still counts for a lot, even amongst the VCs (especially amongst?) in PAMPA.

ie: Family friends of one of the Kleiner Perkins founders.

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#22

Post by cant_kant »

wavefunction wrote: post #18
xkcd-sucks wrote: post #9

Why are all these articles about Holmes' personality?

What else does a chief-executive have? Number crunching is left to the CFO. Engineering strategy to the CFO. Domain knowledge to the CMO. Operating strategy to the COO. Did I leave anyone out?

CIO ?

My mistake.. ..that role has been outsourced to Bangalore.

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#24

Post by w1ntermute »

cant_kant wrote: post #22
wavefunction wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What else does a chief-executive have? Number crunching is left to the CFO. Engineering strategy to the CFO. Domain knowledge to the CMO. Operating strategy to the COO. Did I leave anyone out?

CIO ? My mistake.. ..that role has been outsourced to Bangalore.

The second CFO was supposed to be CTO/CIO.

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#25

Post by awl130 »

n0us wrote: post #7

The idea of rapid disruption in the healthcare industry makes me uncomfortable for some reason. I admire Holmes's ambition and in interviews I've watched she seems competent and well guided but something just doesn't seem to add up. How was a college dropout able to get a break in the healthcare sector? Becoming a doctor requires years of education and training and along comes this young woman who just decides "I'm g…

how can you not understand the convenience factor? do you mean, why would you buy a home pregnancy test at Walgreen when you can just schedule an appointment at a doctor? are you kidding me? because it saves time and money, that's why. how is that a difficult concept to understand. I would certainly choose a quick blood test from Walgreens rather than going through my HMO to schedule a blood test if i suspected something was wrong. if i received a positive result, then that would factor into my decision to see the doctor.

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#26

Post by daveguy »

dikdik wrote: post #17
n0us wrote: post #7

The idea of rapid disruption in the healthcare industry makes me uncomfortable for some reason. I admire Holmes's ambition and in interviews I've watched she seems competent and well guided but something just doesn't seem to add up. How was a college dropout able to get a break in the healthcare sector? Becoming a doctor requires years of education and training and along comes this young woman who just decides "I'm g…

If you look at CEO's and other higher ups of healthcare companies, a significant number have absolutely no science training.

Citation please. My experience is that there are a lot more MDs and PhDs in biotech than other tech fields. I would like to see where you got the information that a "significant number" have absolutely no science training. Also, when you say "significant number" do you mean less than other fields at a significant level or do you mean less than some number you are defining as significant. If the latter would that be only 5, 10, 15, 20, 49.9% without science training and is that less than average or other tech fields?

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#27

Post by danso »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #9

Why are all these articles about Holmes' personality?

Because she refuses to talk specifics about the technology. And the subtext is that Theranos has been able to attract such a high valuation based on her personality even when the technology isn't apparently there.

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#28

Post by RockyMcNuts »

An author of one of the gushing cover stories on how he feels he was misled - http://fortune.com/2015/12/17/how-theranos-misled-me-elizabe...

I know founders sometimes need to create a reality distortion field and sometimes act as if, but as a patient I would also expect transparency to understand exactly what the company is doing and if the tests are accurate.

Puffery and misdirection in a business whose key selling point is accuracy is a bit concerning.

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#29

Post by daveguy »

danso wrote: post #5

> Ms. Holmes said that she needed secrecy to keep others from stealing her ideas, but several former employees say that Ms. Holmes’s steely focus on her mission — an attribute deeply admired by outsiders — made it difficult for her to acknowledge any serious shortcomings in the company’s products. They say she would become angry and sometimes fire people who pointed out problems. She often spoke as though the company…

"It makes me wonder if she had spent at least a couple more years beefing up not just her engineering experience, but life experience, that some of the poor CEO decisions she's made would have been mitigated."

I think that is a very astute observation. When you are in the top 0.01% of CEOs you don't have a lot of scrutiny. Bill Gates says that he got lucky with his success and that graduating is a much more sure path to success (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/upshot/bill-gates-college-...). If you do make mistakes or have a failure and you dropped out then that (for better or worse) is a focus and probably makes it more difficult to bounce back. She hasn't failed yet, but the fact that she didn't spend the extra year or two finishing her degree will make it more difficult if she does fail. And lets be honest. We all fail at least once or twice.

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