I wonder, is this good or bad for other startups in the diagnostics space?
The diagnostics space is kind of screwed at the moment anyway by court rulings that have severely limited the patentability of diagnostics tests
A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos
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Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
A role model for young women with parents coming from old money, with both Beltway and VC connections? It'll be great to have another role model in tech for young women, but incidents like this do more harm than good…
This is a good point. Today's current tech role models, both male and female, are sending the unfortunate message: "Be born rich, have daddy pay for you to go to Stanford or Harvard, party a lot and make friends with rich future investors there, and you too can become a successful tech founder!"
And don't forget to drop out after a year of college! You've made all the connections, so what else is there to learn?
There are some exceptions to this pattern though, like Jan Koum and Andy Grove. We desperately need more of them in today's tech environment.
Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos
#43One would think Walgreens would have done some due diligence when partnering with anyone. Wouldn't they put someone providing healthcare diagnostics services through rigorous testing to see if they could deliver on promises? I'm hoping they don't take providers' word when they partner with providers. Or is Walgreens just trying to get from under the weight of theranos's bad publicity at this point?
Their CFO at the time has since gotten fired for among other things, getting Walgreens into this without doing a lick of due diligence. Evidently he bungled a number of other things, hence getting fired. That kind of laziness strangely exists even at large, deep-pocketed organizations where time and resources certainly aren't standing in the way of doing old fashioned work and analysis.
it's incredible that Walgreen, a public co., not doing DD for a non-proven, non-peer-reviewed medical diagnostic co, with a possibility of very bad PR. i would guess (simply speculation) there are some external factors, made Walgreen to skip that. that's probably the whole point for the politicians on Theranos' board, along with the DC connections (& Enron?) from EH's dad. and these 'external factors' also played same tricks for the other PE funding rounds. so here we go a criminal investigation is under going.
Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos
#44thoroughly disappointed in the Shriver interview, didn't ask any hard questions, didn't redirect after her answers, didn't really seem like she was at all fully informed about Theranos
now if John Carreyrou had been conducting the interview, that would be another thing but I get the feeling that he would never be granted an interview simply because he is much more qualified in terms of competency in Theranos and its history and science relative to Shriver that they would see him as a threat
Shriver on the other hand probably came across as a 'safe' interview to the company, which it was
real journalism is so hard to find these days, sigh
"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations." George Orwell
Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos
#45A part of me feels sad for Theranos. I wanted them and Elizabeth to succeed; more the latter, actually. If she had succeeded (I still hold out hope), she would have been a terrific role model for young women everywhere.
A role model for young women with parents coming from old money, with both Beltway and VC connections? It'll be great to have another role model in tech for young women, but incidents like this do more harm than good…
Exactly. You want a great tech role model for young women (and anyone else for that matter)? Look at Limor Fried (LadyAda of AdaFruit).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limor_Fried
She is a great tech role model that built a thriving maker business from scratch. She didn't have the connections to drop out of school so she finished her BS and MS at MIT.
There are plenty of phenomenal female role models out there. I had three women on my committee in grad school. One co-directing a major research center. One a successful entrepreneur and one a new upcoming research associate.
Anyone looking for strong female role models just needs to open their eyes.
Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos
#46I wonder, is this good or bad for other startups in the diagnostics space?
I would predict that it depends on where the money is coming from. For VC firms that are experienced in the biomedical space, Theranos changes nothing because they were already suspicious of Theranos. For firms that are inexperienced in the biomedical space, they have hopefully learned that growth cannot compensate for flaws in science or technology. If they continue to invest in biomedical, they will be much more ca…
I'd say that Theranos is so much of an outlier that it's failure won't really have a huge effect.
They weren't patenting nor licensing any exciting technology. They had no groundbreaking presentations of their technology. They had no experts in the field working at the company or on the board....
I mean, it's amazing they raised money to begin with
Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos
#47I wonder, is this good or bad for other startups in the diagnostics space?
I would predict that it depends on where the money is coming from. For VC firms that are experienced in the biomedical space, Theranos changes nothing because they were already suspicious of Theranos. For firms that are inexperienced in the biomedical space, they have hopefully learned that growth cannot compensate for flaws in science or technology. If they continue to invest in biomedical, they will be much more ca…
"For firms that are inexperienced in the biomedical space, they have hopefully learned that growth cannot compensate for flaws in science or technology. If they continue to invest in biomedical, they will be much more careful in their DD; or perhaps they lose their appetite for biomedical and leave entirely."
Exactly, which will result in essentially a return to the status quo. The investors who understand the complexities and models of the various biomedical industries will continue to invest as they always have. The carpetbaggers will fold up their tents and move on. The result is less likely to be systemic taint or damage to biotech startups as a whole -- though this may happen in the short term -- and more likely to be a reduction in fly-by-night or sketchy biotech startups for lack of funding.
"I don't think things have changed for biomedical startups that are based on good science and technology and have an experienced team."
Yes. To paraphrase Buffett, the tide will go out, and we'll see who's been swimming naked -- but the people who've been wearing swimsuits will be just fine.
"What would be wonderful is if the media learned a lesson from this mess. As I see it, they were a passenger in the Theranos hype machine."
The media hype surrounding Theranos was truly spectacular to behold. One day, nobody's ever heard of this company that's been stealthily chugging along for nearly a decade and raising heroic amounts of capital. The next day, Holmes is on the cover of every business magazine, in full Steve Jobs attire and disposition. (I'm pretty sure one or two breathless headlines actually called her "The next Steve Jobs.") Soon she's headlining the lecture circuit and racking up more puff pieces and cover stories.
It's as if nobody took a critical eye to any of this hype, other than the WSJ. No doubt a confluence of factors was at play here: A desire to fill the "Great Tech Visionary" vibe left vacant by Steve Jobs's death. A desire to find the next great female role model. A desire to cover "hard tech," and not just the Nth food-delivery app of the week. And then there's just good old-fashioned me-tooism, which routinely plagues the business press: "Everyone else is covering this, so it must be a Thing, and now that it's a Thing, we have to cover it!"
Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
She did make some progress for equality though - to show that not just men can be completely incompetent founders running an overhyped company that never had any connection with reality whatsoever.
Unfortunately, there's a segment of society that will extrapolate the high-profile failure of one woman to reaffirm their misguided belief that her gender was part of the reason for her failure.
Yeah, it's like the XKCD:
Enron -> wow, Ken Lay sucks.
Theranos -> wow, women founders suck.
Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Time, skill required and volume are all in favor of the finger prick method. And some people absolutely freak out about needles but would be ok with a finger prick.
> Time, skill required and volume are all in favor of the finger prick method. And some people absolutely freak out about needles but would be ok with a finger prick. Except the pain factor. Finger pricks are actually more painful, particularly when you have to draw more than a single drop of blood. Your fingers have more nerve endings than your upper arm. Also, you tend to use your fingers more than you apply pressu…
Not disagreeing with you, just saying the finger prick has a lot going for it. In particular the lower skill barrier to do it may make it cheaper or more convenient.
It certainly opens the possibility of self administration up a lot more than a needle.
Bit of a moot point until it comes along, though.
Re: A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
She did make some progress for equality though - to show that not just men can be completely incompetent founders running an overhyped company that never had any connection with reality whatsoever.
Unfortunately, there's a segment of society that will extrapolate the high-profile failure of one woman to reaffirm their misguided belief that her gender was part of the reason for her failure.
Agreed, her and Marissa Mayer make for some very visible, very unfortunate anti role models recently. Certainly doesn't help for paving the way for more women to join the top ranks.