The anecdotal evidence is absolutely overwhelming at this point: Theranos simply doesn't work. Books will be written about this company...
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Safeway, Theranos Split After $350M Deal Fizzles
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Re: Safeway, Theranos Split After $350M Deal Fizzles
#32>Safeway Inc. spent about $350 million to build clinics in more than 800 of its supermarkets to offer blood tests by startup Theranos Inc. >The $350 million price tag was equivalent to more than half of Safeway’s net income of $596.5 million in 2012. Safeway had revenue of $44.21 billion. Safeway also invested more than $10 million in Theranos, one former Safeway executive said. >Two of the former Safeway executives…
Well, Holmes _did_ reassure Burd. We cannot rule out the possibility that she is an exceptionally deft reassurer.
In seriousness, Safeway gets durable capital improvements to their stores for their $350mm, still useful without Project T-Rex.
Re: Safeway, Theranos Split After $350M Deal Fizzles
#33to anyone that doesn't have a wsj subscription, use the link from the google results: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...
Or just click the web link stories have now under their title.
Re: Safeway, Theranos Split After $350M Deal Fizzles
#34It's now been two weeks since Theranos said they were going to release clinical data.
Sam I think we can safely say at this stage that there is no favorable clinical data.
Re: Safeway, Theranos Split After $350M Deal Fizzles
#35>Safeway Inc. spent about $350 million to build clinics in more than 800 of its supermarkets to offer blood tests by startup Theranos Inc. >The $350 million price tag was equivalent to more than half of Safeway’s net income of $596.5 million in 2012. Safeway had revenue of $44.21 billion. Safeway also invested more than $10 million in Theranos, one former Safeway executive said. >Two of the former Safeway executives…
It certainly will be interesting how he justifies this in front of the shareholder plaintiff lawyers.
But but but Rumsfeld and Kissinger told me it was a sure thing!
Re: Safeway, Theranos Split After $350M Deal Fizzles
#36What options are there for founders to liquidate shares in the process of fundraising but before going public? Are founders typically able to liquidate some amount of shares in funding rounds in order to take home cash, or do investors disallow that entirely until a company is sold or goes public? Theranos is 12 years old at this point, and raised $400 million at a $4.5 billion valuation. Would a founder of a company…
People sometimes do liquidate privately. There are even markets just for this. I don't like Quora, but these are some good explanations: https://www.quora.com/Why-cant-startup-founders-sell-some-of...
Re: Safeway, Theranos Split After $350M Deal Fizzles
#37What options are there for founders to liquidate shares in the process of fundraising but before going public? Are founders typically able to liquidate some amount of shares in funding rounds in order to take home cash, or do investors disallow that entirely until a company is sold or goes public? Theranos is 12 years old at this point, and raised $400 million at a $4.5 billion valuation. Would a founder of a company…
Not having been in that situation directly, I believe that it is fairly common for founder(s) to take some cash in exchange for their shares at the later stages, if only so that they don't feel the immediate need to cash out. It sucks to be cash poor while being worth $X billion on paper, so I believe investors would rather the founder turn some stock into $10m and not worry about money than to have a fidgety CEO.
Thank you. That makes sense. I suppose it happens with "hot" companies that have some negotiating leverage.
I'm curious because if Holmes has been able to convert even 0.1% - 1% of her shares' current value along the way, that's a life-changing amount of money ($4.5m - $45 million).
I'm very curious what the experience is like to be worth billions on paper via a private company. Can you get a mortgage? Can you borrow against stock in a private company? (Do banks recognize the valuation of a company as legitimate for that purpose?) It does make sense that investors would want founders to take something home so that they can live and buy a house, etc.
Re: Safeway, Theranos Split After $350M Deal Fizzles
#38It's now been two weeks since Theranos said they were going to release clinical data.
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Re: Safeway, Theranos Split After $350M Deal Fizzles
#39Some important points from that article: > Current and former Safeway executives said Theranos missed deadlines for the blood-testing rollout. They also said several Safeway executives questioned the accuracy of results Theranos gave to Safeway employees tested at a clinic in the supermarket chain’s headquarters in Pleasanton, Calif. > Theranos often drew the same employee’s blood twice, first with blood from a finge…
One of the most irritating things about Theranos's defenders is their argument about how Theranos should be given lesser scrutiny because of how important and noble its mission is...that's the exact opposite of how it should be, IMO. Using Facebook as the archetypical unjustifiably-rich-startup (not my opinion, just well-repeated), in which the goal is to lower friction between friend-network-contacts...even if FB's…
Never underestimate the collective self-delusion that can emerge in a situation like this. You have a wunderkind founder, the resident genius, who is telling everyone to believe and robotically dismissing critics--who is going to question her? You have insiders and investors who want to believe--keep your mouth shut! You have ex-employees who expressed doubt vilified. Mass willful suspension of disbelief seems much more likely.
To do something like secretly changing the procedure for the Safeway execs would require someone to openly address the elephant in the room in a culture where the elephant isn't to be discussed.
When are the insider stories about the culture going to start emerging?
Re: Safeway, Theranos Split After $350M Deal Fizzles
#40Some important points from that article: > Current and former Safeway executives said Theranos missed deadlines for the blood-testing rollout. They also said several Safeway executives questioned the accuracy of results Theranos gave to Safeway employees tested at a clinic in the supermarket chain’s headquarters in Pleasanton, Calif. > Theranos often drew the same employee’s blood twice, first with blood from a finge…
The positive predictive value for the prostate-specific antigen test for prostate cancer is only 30%. This means that only 30% of people who test positive for elevated levels of prostate-specific antigen actually have prostate cancer. This is an intrinsic problem with testing for prostate-specific antigen not with Theranos' testing.