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We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

nautil.us

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

#211

Post by naravara »

supreme_sublime wrote: post #207
naravara wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad any random billionaire with cash to throw around gets to make these decisions for us.

Strange that you view it this way. I'm not extremely familiar with the case, but how I remember it is Gawker published a sex tape of Hulk Hogan and refused to take it down. While at the same time lampooning "society" about "the fappening". Hulk Hogan sued Gawker, which brings it to a court. Peter Thiel had a personal grudge against Gawker and used that case to take them down. Either way, it was still up to a court an…

>I'd characterize it as, "journalists" using their platform to go after specific people they don't like. Thiel helping one of their victims who couldn't afford to mount a case without running the risk of ruining themselves if they lost. Seems to me like a really noble thing to do.

And yet Breitbart is still up. So this idea that it's just about enforcing the law rings a bit hollow.

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

#212

Post by buvanshak »

dpark wrote: post #195
buvanshak wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You can buy a Tesla car today, strip it down, and confirm it works and isn’t a giant Potemkin village? What about "Full self driving hardware"? I am pretty sure you are not going to find it there. And people have bought them thinking that it (full self driving functionality) is just one update away...

In fairness, Tesla has promised that at some point in the future . They have not claimed that they have full self driving currently. Theranos claimed to have their system working.

The claim is full self driving hardware right now, right?

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

#213

Post by GFischer »

Bartweiss wrote: post #185
Torn wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Magic Leap could certainly fail , but I don't understand how they could be another Theranos. Theranos had contracts-signed, money-spent deadlines for things they couldn't provide (the Walgreens deal), and was selling further investors by lying about having their product already in use by the government. At least publicly, Magic Leap has promised virtually nothing. They said in December they'd ship something this year…

Agreed. Somebody else mentioned it's more similar to Segway than to Theranos - overhyped to hell, but not a scam.

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

#214

Post by inetknght »

edanm wrote: post #188
inetknght wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who cares what the public thought about Theranos - the public didn't lose money here. I beg to differ. Straight from the article: > Some patients were rushed to a hospital on the basis of erroneous readings, only to be sent home when their blood was properly analyzed by the hospital. Even worse, Theranos was using brutal intimidation tactics against its own employees to stop the truth from coming out. I don't know…

You're right - I stand corrected. I wasn't aware they'd gotten quite that far in actually deploying their product and (supposedly) testing people.

That's rather the whole point of the Theranos drama. They had faked tests on real people. That repercussions for third parties (CVS/Walgreens comes to mind, you can easily search for the fallout from that), and all sorts of very not-fun stuff.

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

#215

Post by oliveshell »

nojvek wrote: post #186
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Can anyone give me a list of respectable independent media that I should be subscribing to? The economist comes to mind. Any others HN recommends?

For general news, I find NPR.org [1] to be pretty good. I can tell they make an effort to avoid bias and sensationalism. It’s not perfect, but I have yet to find another online source that I prefer.

I also listen to my local station (WUNC) and if you’re in a decently populated area of the U.S., your local NPR affiliate is also likely high quality (plus it’s easy to listen online if you’re not into terrestrial radio.)

[1]: https://npr.org

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

#216

Post by dlhavema »

paidleaf wrote: post #209
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…

> The Wall Street Journal is the only reason the company was outed. No. The company was outed by people long before the wsj. The wsjalong with the rest of the media was the one that built theranos up because they wanted to push the feminism agenda. The wsj stepped in and took the credit after the exposure/pressure on social media was going to break the story wide open. It's similar to the nytimes taking credit and ge…

I know what you mean. Often enough any minority is criticized at all it is initially brushed off as simple X-ism..

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

#217

Post by sametmax »

cdancette wrote: post #168
sametmax wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She probably believed in her project. You can't know if you are going to succeed when you try to achieve a revolutionary feat. But you have to act like you are sure you will. Imagine Jobs in an alternate universe, trying to get out the iPhone, but after years of failures and billions wasted, the world realize the product vision was unrealistic. Basically him being the same asshole, but hitting a wall many predicted.…

The difference is that Jobs wasn't putting people's life in danger as theranos did by releasing malfunctionning blood testing machines

Elon, with self driving car, high capacity batteries and powerful rockets had the ability to put people's life in danger.

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

#218

Post by sametmax »

cleong wrote: post #187
sametmax wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She probably believed in her project. You can't know if you are going to succeed when you try to achieve a revolutionary feat. But you have to act like you are sure you will. Imagine Jobs in an alternate universe, trying to get out the iPhone, but after years of failures and billions wasted, the world realize the product vision was unrealistic. Basically him being the same asshole, but hitting a wall many predicted.…

But in that alternate universe Apple would still have been a huge success, and the iPhone would have been another failed product like the Windows Phone. In addition to this pattern to success, Jobs was not a criminal. Theranos made VERY negligent statements such as the military using Theranos products(they did not).

> But in that alternate universe Apple would still have been a huge success

Replace iPhone with iPod and Apple never reaches this sky it's currently at. It the product that put it back on the map, open the itune cash valve and paved the road for the iphone flag ship product.

The situation is never _exactly_ the same. But you can see a pattern. And history is written by the victors.

> Theranos made VERY negligent statements such as the military using Theranos products(they did not).

Musk, Jobs and the rests lied as well, just on a different scale.

The scale does make it worse, but the mechanism is the same. If Theranos had delivered, nobody would recall this lie.

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

#219

Post by Rapzid »

bangonkeyboard wrote: post #79
Rapzid wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of the doomed OnLive. Anyone who knew anything about the internet and latency was speaking out about the impossibility of it ever being a suitable experience from a latency perspective. Concerns were just treated as alternative facts at the time.

What was impossible about OnLive? Using the app was an impressively responsive remote desktop experience, and cloud gaming is very much a viable reality as shown by PlayStation Now and GeForce NOW.

Getting a comparable user experience. The technology is impressive but the video quality, FPS, and latency are not. Most people are just surprised it even works as well as it does, but once the honeymoon period is over the issues start to become apparent.

This is why you mostly hear stories like "Oh, I tried [service] out once and it was actually pretty good"; it's a novelty for most and not worth paying for.

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

#220

Post by dpark »

buvanshak wrote: post #212
dpark wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fairness, Tesla has promised that at some point in the future . They have not claimed that they have full self driving currently. Theranos claimed to have their system working.

The claim is full self driving hardware right now, right?

Shrug. Maybe they do have everything they need for self-driving in terms of hardware. Given that no one has full self-driving, no one has an actual list of the necessary hardware.

I still see a claim about future functionality as a far different thing (even if they are wrong) than a false claim about existing functionality.

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