Between this and the "wireless energy over ultrasound" scam I'm starting to wonder if VCs actually do any due diligence at all.
Which wireless over ultrasound scam? I haven't seen anything about that one.
Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
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Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Holmes ran that business in high school. She was born in 1984, so that would put the date around 2000. There were good reasons not to use G++ in 2000. When Alexandrescu's book was published, in 2001, it was somewhat notorious on my team (shipping code on G++) for how much of it didn't work well, or at all, in G++.
Heck, virtually any C++ compiler was a big pile of sharp edges back then, by comparison to just a few years later. Especially if you dared to use it for embedded work, not so much due to the "embedded" part but just because the embedded suite compilers were just so much further behind the C++ curve.
Yep, but the commercial compilers generally had better STLs (particularly for debugging), debuggers that could properly mangle/demangle symbols, and precompiled headers --- in addition to different sets of C++ features that did or didn't work properly.
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#53This company is looking less and less like they're struggling to develop new technology, more and more like a deliberate sham. Given that so much of their support thus far has been due solely to the Cult of Disruption, I can't help but wonder if news like this might make at least a few investors consider a return to good old-fashioned due diligence before placing their bets.
What's interesting is that venture capitalists are slamming media outlets for reporting on the issue. Here's a rather silly rebuttal to a recent Theranos piece on The Information from Dave Morin: https://twitter.com/williamalden/status/658705178523258880 "Isn't it time as Millenials that we try to use the Internet to unearth deeper facts and see through these traditional smear campaigns?"
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Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#54Between this and the "wireless energy over ultrasound" scam I'm starting to wonder if VCs actually do any due diligence at all.
Which wireless over ultrasound scam? I haven't seen anything about that one.
uBeam---the laws of physics are not favorable to their technology working as claimed.
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#55I feel like we've seen this before. Young startup, visionary founder, boat loads of money, then after lots of money burned, outright lies, false claims, or at the very least vaporware.
Wait, but how the founder became a billionaire? I thought they are generating huge profit already...
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#56I interviewed at Theranos a year ago, and found the employees to be smart and dedicated. However, the company was the most secretive I've interviewed at and the employees complained about being overworked. The fact the founder sold C++ compilers to Chinese universities when g++ is open-source sounded odd. But I still had hope in them even after they passed on me -- a Silicon Valley company actually making a differenc…
The compilers thing sounds like a made up story to give her am interesting bio. None of the news stories about it have any details.
She obviously didn't write a C++ compiler worth selling at that age in that time period , so at most it was likely some sort of off-the-shelf reselling sales gig.
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Random thought: maybe "gratuitous positivity" is as damaging as "gratuitous negativity" and should be treated the same way. Only seems fair, doesn't it?
There's an alternative philosophy to consider, stoicism: http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/why-stoicism-is-one-of-th...
I knew there was a word that described my attitude towards tech journalism.
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#58I feel like we've seen this before. Young startup, visionary founder, boat loads of money, then after lots of money burned, outright lies, false claims, or at the very least vaporware.
Wait, but how the founder became a billionaire? I thought they are generating huge profit already...
Make believe billionaire, based on Theranos having a $9 billion valuation, based on $90 million in VC investments.
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#59This company is looking less and less like they're struggling to develop new technology, more and more like a deliberate sham. Given that so much of their support thus far has been due solely to the Cult of Disruption, I can't help but wonder if news like this might make at least a few investors consider a return to good old-fashioned due diligence before placing their bets.
My take on it is that Elizabeth Holmes set out to make this idea a reality, but has been unable to do so. Sadly, all signs point to her trying to buy time via smoke and mirrors. If she has misled investors in the same way she has misled the media, given that she has raised $400 million, she's looking at decades in federal prison. I see this whole thing ending in tragedy, whether that just means the loss of $400 milli…
You're right, it is possible that people started with good intentions and sincere beliefs, then got desperate. That does happen. I do feel bad for the many innocent and even idealistic people who will suffer the consequences along with the true miscreants. On the other hand, there are others who had information the rest of us don't have, and a specific duty (to their own investors) to blow the whistle early if they saw anything amiss. It's a lot harder for them to claim innocence.
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#60hopefully this isn't an example of a biotech startup embracing the silicon valley 'fake it until you make it' mentality.