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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

#231

Post by laughinghan »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #119
laughinghan wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But journalists aren't murdered in those other countries for inaccuracy, at least not as far as I understand, and not in any of the examples brought up by GP. They're murdered for reporting awful truths more accurately than someone powerful and evil wanted.

I don't see how that obviates the need for journalists to be properly incentivized to report accurately and with healthy skepticism.

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

#232

Post by laughinghan »

stult wrote: post #150
laughinghan wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>None of your examples are journalists being penalized for lack of due diligence or for being misleading Rolling Stone after the lacrosse rape case is one example. But more importantly, I think the point above is that journalism is in a vulnerable position where the carrot is more appropriate than the stick. Laws are crude tools for the most part, with lots of potential for collateral damage. It's like chemotherapy:…

What undeserved penalty did Rolling Stone suffer for the lacrosse rape case?

Great-grandparent didn't suggest that laws are the only possible option to penalize misleading journalism, you're jumping to conclusions. Elsewhere in this thread, I even suggest:

> [Disincentivizing misleading journalism] doesn’t necessarily require an oppressive Orwellian governmental body to dictate truth and punish journalists who veer from the party line. It could be as simple as, after the fact now that we know how fraudulent it was, naming prominent journalists and outlets and pointing out red flags that they should have but failed to highlight, and other similar ways they should have expressed a healthy skepticism but didn’t.

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

#233

Post by microtherion »

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).

> Jobs was not a criminal

The options backdating scandal arguably involved criminal behavior, and the anti-poaching collusion between Apple and other companies was arguably illegal as well.

Not saying that Jobs was primarily a criminal, but he was involved in a fair amount of unethical behavior over the years.

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

#234

Post by microtherion »

cepth wrote: post #25
tptacek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most of what went wrong with the FDA happened after Carreyrou's first WSJ article came out, didn't it? That WSJ article basically killed the company.

The timeline/impact is a bit murkier. Carreyou had two big revelations. One was that Theranos was not running blood tests on their proprietary machines, which were supposed to do finger prick draws. The other was that Theranos had submitted fraudulent validation data to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and state regulatory bodies. They did a couple brazenly unethical and illegal things. 1) CMS subc…

> When California lab inspectors visited Theranos, they physically blocked off the door leading to a floor that had the Siemens equipment, presumably to hide the fact that they were not conducting tests on their own proprietary machines.

No, it was the other way around: the inspectors only got to see the STANDARD equipment, not the proprietary machines.

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

#235

Post by jacquesm »

monkeypizza wrote: post #67
cowpig wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He gets credit for not doing something extremely unethical that would have been quite risky, probably stupidly so (because it would bring him into the controversy)?

If you don't give him credit for that, what would you give him credit for? If he stopped Carreyrou, you'd obviously blame him. Therefore in order for your judgement to be meaningful, you have to admit that him allowing Carreyrou to go ahead and topple the house of cards was a good action. Otherwise no matter what he does you judge him negatively - and in that case, your decision is predetermined and not of informatio…

You don't give people credit for what should be normal. You give them credit for doing something over and beyond normal.

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

#236

Post by jacquesm »

sametmax wrote: post #217
cdancette wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

has. And also people who are not his customers.

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

#237

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

Radim wrote: post #156
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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? "Real value" is a tricky concept. What is and isn't real? Clearly societies have evolved (and are still evolving) to incorporate "dreams, future potential and hype inertia" into the equation, so anecdotall…

I think you missed the point of the parent comment. It wasn’t to debate relative value in a philosophical sense.

I think it was trying to say that if someone like Holmes (& board members) get rich this way (and it takes such effort to catch what they’re doing and bring actual consequences), then it in turn greatly devalues software labor.

Think of it this way: if people think this is a good strategy because it does work for various start-ups and even in this extreme case Holmes made over a billion dollars and it’s yet unclear what punishment, if any, it will be — why would start-ups care about actually building something, actually having engineers who produce things. This company made vast sums of money while not doing any of that.

It basically encourages a template for trying to print money with secretive refusal to explain the methods, and engineering hype. Which in turn makes being good at engineering worth far less to these people.

The more this looks like a viable option, the less valuable engineering skill is.

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

#238

Post by wetpaws »

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?

>self driving hardware

You mean, computer?

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

#239

Post by buvanshak »

dpark wrote: post #220
buvanshak wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Given that no one has full self-driving, no one has an actual list of the necessary hardware.

Exactly what makes this false claim. Imagine someone gave you a drug and claim that it can cure cancer. It would be a false claim, even though it is possible that in future, it might turn out to be capable of curing cancer, by some specific method of application. The only problem is that that method is unknown today and no indication that such method might actually exist..

So just because in theory, you can strap on two forward facing cameras and call it full "self driving hardware" (because that is what humans have). Would you consider it legit?

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

#240

Post by Frondo »

specialist wrote: post #229
Frondo wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in Oregon, which has been 100% vote-by-mail for years, and fraud is non-existent there. This is FUD, to dust off an old chestnut, at least as far as Oregon is concerned. Check it: https://www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&q=oregon+vote+by+m... In the 2016 election, a potential 54 cases of voter fraud. Here's the breakdown of the kind of fraud (which amounts to .002% of ballots -- one in 38,000): "Richardson…

You’ve observed central count? You’ve attended the canvassing board meetings? You’ve audited an election? You vetted the certification of the hardware, software, rules, procedures used by your jurisdiction? You’ve collaborated with the nationwide network of admins, vendors, academics, and activists on these issues? Can you refute anything I’ve stated? Do you even know how your ballot is processed? Did I say anything…

This is such a ridiculous reply. "You've audited an election?"

It's on par with "you've inspected the rain clouds, you've watched the rain fall into the Bull run watershed, you've inspected the reservoirs, the pipes, done salinity and chlorination tests on your tap water?"

Voter fraud in Oregon is virtually non-existent, and all you can do is raise the spectre of I don't even know what. It'd be silly if it weren't so insulting, what you're suggesting.

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