hopefully this isn't an example of a biotech startup embracing the silicon valley 'fake it until you make it' mentality.
Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
61–70 of 119 posts
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#62I 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.
Cambrian Genomics?
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#63I 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…
I don't think it's all smokes and mirrors. I think there was likely a legitimate intent. After all, everyone has been talking about using microfluidics and microliter quantity samples for assays for nearly decades. It seems like the time is right in terms of tech maturity, for these things to hit clinical reality... Why not try to be the first on the scene?
FWIW, this isn't the only company to be trying this sort of thing, there was a company in the first batch of indie.bio claiming to do this, perhaps tellingly at demo day, the attempted live demo failed.
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#64Is there somewhere a clear indication that the extent of the relationship with Phizer or GSK was misrepresented to reporters by someone from Theranos?
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#65I 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.
Exactly what I thought when I read it. Her entire bio reads like nothing but fluff to make up for her lack of credentials or experience.
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#66I 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.
The funny thing is, this startup isn't that young. It's 12 years old. Someone basically gave a completely inexperienced founder tens of millions of dollars and over a decade to run an R&D lab.
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#67I 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…
I don't think it's all smokes and mirrors. I think there was likely a legitimate intent. After all, everyone has been talking about using microfluidics and microliter quantity samples for assays for nearly decades. It seems like the time is right in terms of tech maturity, for these things to hit clinical reality... Why not try to be the first on the scene? FWIW, this isn't the only company to be trying this sort of…
> I don't think it's all smokes and mirrors. I think there was likely a legitimate intent.
It could have easily began with good intentions but slowly devolved into a house of cards over the course of a decade.
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#68I never understood what was unique about this company. I worked for a company over a decade ago that did a clinical trail for a bacterial pneumonia micro-assay at Arup Labs in SLC. This seemed like the same thing but with a lot more fanfare. I called some folks I used to work with to check if I was missing something and they felt the same.
(I'm not a biologist, I wrote the software and did the stat research).
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#69The "dress like Steve Jobs" thing is starting to feel kind of messed up, am I right?
(I read somewhere that she claimed that she hadn't considered that Steve Jobs used to wear black turtlenecks, that she was more inspired by Sharon Stone... which is really hard to believe)
Re: Theranos didn’t work with the huge drug company it supposedly made money from
#70This 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.
$400 million down the drain. Great job VCs.
"She's a Stanford dropout with an idea!!!" Is not due diligence.