Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation • Hacker News Board

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#61

Post by chvid » Sun, Dec 20, 2015, 4:45 AM UTC

I don't quite understand the negativity this company is getting. Sure the product that it is developing may not turn out successfully but that is the risk for any company that tries to innovate.

Ms Holmes seems to be solid leader in the sense that she is well-connected, possesses salesmanship and communicates a clear vision. She has certainly been able to raise large funds.

Sure there might be hr problems but that is the case with any company and surely professional mid level management can be hired in to fix that.

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#62

Post by robbiep » Sun, Dec 20, 2015, 4:52 AM UTC

There is so much ... hype around this technology. But some of their use cases aren't all that useful, and their technology (while supposing to be cheaper) is often done on handheld units at the moment in isolated regions.

Let me explain:

Use cases outlined in this article that have minimal real medical benefit, but sound great:

- Home blood testing (why? there are only 2 types of people who may find this useful: patients on Warfarin, and patients on dialysis. Dialysis patients (if not on home dialysis) get tested 3 times a week when they go to dialysis. INR is usually stable once established, ceteris paribus)

- Field blood testing (Mostly pointless. Clinical signs are much more useful in a casualty situation. Arterial blood gasses are useful in resus rooms in emergency departments but in the field you want to keep them breathing, not go reversing exotic blood gas abnormalities)

For the majority of tests (EUC, CMP, LFT, FBC, Coagulation studies) in rural/isolated places, the i-stat machine is used in australia. This is priced ok... around $40 per cartridge for around 6-10 results.

The i-stat works with not much more than a couple of drops of blood as well, although it needs to be drawn from a vein, not a finger-prick.

Other tests, like lipids, or antibody markers, etc, are rarer and much more expensive. It would be great to have them cheap (but again, we don't really know how cheap theranos is saying tests are going to be) which may make them more common, but again there just isn't much benefit in taking them regularly.

Theranos may well be a white elephant. which is unfortunate. The promised technology (fingerprint testing) would be great. But I can't comprehend how they could go for 12 years without a product. And as a doctor, I would be very suprised if the technology works as advertised. There is unfortunately too much hype surrounding this product for me to believe that we will get what has been promoted, but you never know and I would love to be pleasantly surprised.

I wonder how popular this viewpoint will be here on HN - the home of lifehacking and microanalysis of bodyfunction (often without the corresponding knowledge to go with it, but prefaced with a view that 'more data will always be better').

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#63

Post by colmvp » Sun, Dec 20, 2015, 4:57 AM UTC

daveguy wrote: post #29

danso wrote: post #5

> Ms. Holmes said that she needed secrecy to keep others from stealing her ideas, but several former employees say that Ms. Holmes’s steely focus on her mission — an attribute deeply admired by outsiders — made it difficult for her to acknowledge any serious shortcomings in the company’s products. They say she would become angry and sometimes fire people who pointed out problems. She often spoke as though the company…

"It makes me wonder if she had spent at least a couple more years beefing up not just her engineering experience, but life experience, that some of the poor CEO decisions she's made would have been mitigated." I think that is a very astute observation. When you are in the top 0.01% of CEOs you don't have a lot of scrutiny. Bill Gates says that he got lucky with his success and that graduating is a much more sure path…

> but the fact that she didn't spend the extra year or two finishing her degree will make it more difficult if she does fail.

If she weren't so well connected or known I'd agree with you. But she isn't some unknown dropout who failed fast and hard trying to get into YC or bootstrapping in some random location in SF. Unless Theranos gets revealed as a giant fraud, I doubt she'll find it tough to find another position in the future.

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#64

Post by xyzzy4 » Sun, Dec 20, 2015, 5:01 AM UTC

daveguy wrote: post #26

dikdik wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at CEO's and other higher ups of healthcare companies, a significant number have absolutely no science training.

Citation please. My experience is that there are a lot more MDs and PhDs in biotech than other tech fields. I would like to see where you got the information that a "significant number" have absolutely no science training. Also, when you say "significant number" do you mean less than other fields at a significant level or do you mean less than some number you are defining as significant. If the latter would that be o…

Martin Shkreli is an example. Criminal allegations aside, he founded Retrophin which currently has a $750 million market cap.

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#65

Post by specialp » Sun, Dec 20, 2015, 5:06 AM UTC

awl130 wrote: post #25

n0us wrote: post #7

The idea of rapid disruption in the healthcare industry makes me uncomfortable for some reason. I admire Holmes's ambition and in interviews I've watched she seems competent and well guided but something just doesn't seem to add up. How was a college dropout able to get a break in the healthcare sector? Becoming a doctor requires years of education and training and along comes this young woman who just decides "I'm g…

how can you not understand the convenience factor? do you mean, why would you buy a home pregnancy test at Walgreen when you can just schedule an appointment at a doctor? are you kidding me? because it saves time and money, that's why. how is that a difficult concept to understand. I would certainly choose a quick blood test from Walgreens rather than going through my HMO to schedule a blood test if i suspected somet…

Theranos changes none of that. Unless a test is CLIA waived, it needs a prescription to be done. They are trying to make it easier to take samples by requiring less blood to be drawn but it is silly for those in the field. Most chemistry tests take only several microliters of blood so yes the "nanotainer" would work for that. But most tests need venous blood, so it is irrelevant if you take a tube vs a ml when you have to take a vein draw anyway!

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#66

Post by specialp » Sun, Dec 20, 2015, 5:09 AM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #35

n0us wrote: post #7

The idea of rapid disruption in the healthcare industry makes me uncomfortable for some reason. I admire Holmes's ambition and in interviews I've watched she seems competent and well guided but something just doesn't seem to add up. How was a college dropout able to get a break in the healthcare sector? Becoming a doctor requires years of education and training and along comes this young woman who just decides "I'm g…

Perhaps I just don't understand the phobia that some people have around blood tests but it is my understanding that you get a blood test as a way to gauge your health, not because it makes you feel nice. The hold up doesn't seem to be that tons of people are afraid of needles otherwise they would be getting tested all the time. The hold up to people getting blood tests all the time is that doctors don't order them, p…

Basic panel of blood tests is reimbursed $8 from medicare. That is pretty darn cheap. I know here we always think that industries are ripe for disruption, but the lab industry is mature, highly competitive, and has a high barrier to entry that is not possible to circumvent (FDA/CLIA approval) for tests.

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#67

Post by steven2012 » Sun, Dec 20, 2015, 5:25 AM UTC

n0us wrote: post #7

The idea of rapid disruption in the healthcare industry makes me uncomfortable for some reason. I admire Holmes's ambition and in interviews I've watched she seems competent and well guided but something just doesn't seem to add up. How was a college dropout able to get a break in the healthcare sector? Becoming a doctor requires years of education and training and along comes this young woman who just decides "I'm g…

This is an ignorant viewpoint. It's not just phobia. If a fingerprick blood test were actually possible it would make a huge win for children. One of my kids needs to get his blood tested for lead ( standard blood test for his age). Good luck trying to get him to hold still while he's screaming and fighting and drawing enough blood for a test. It would also be a huge win for premature babies, some of which only have 2oz of blood in their entire system.

The sell of Theranos was that you could do a thousand blood tests on a few drops of blood. If you could go to Safeway and get an accurate fingerprick blood test, then you wouldn't need a trained specialist to draw blood and collect the blood samples anymore. That's a huge win as well.

It seems less and less likely that is actually possible but if it were and you could get reliable and accurate results, it would really make a difference. It's not just people being scared of needles.

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#68

Post by pain_perdu » Sun, Dec 20, 2015, 5:26 AM UTC

n0us wrote: post #14

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She comes from a very, very privileged family with the kind of connections most of us can only dream about. Alas that still counts for a lot, even amongst the VCs (especially amongst?) in PAMPA.

This is a true point. When you have a lot of money available to invest and you already have a diverse portfolio of high risk-reward investments I suppose it isn't such a big deal to spend 1m on an intelligent family friend. Still... they didn't get to be that wealthy by being careless with their money so I suppose we/I just don't know the full story.

The story as it was explained to me (by Tim Draper) was that Elizabeth grew up with Tim's daughter, Jesse, and asking for her first million from him was thus relatively easy.

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#69

Post by trimbo » Sun, Dec 20, 2015, 5:32 AM UTC

xyzzy4 wrote: post #64

daveguy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation please. My experience is that there are a lot more MDs and PhDs in biotech than other tech fields. I would like to see where you got the information that a "significant number" have absolutely no science training. Also, when you say "significant number" do you mean less than other fields at a significant level or do you mean less than some number you are defining as significant. If the latter would that be o…

Martin Shkreli is an example. Criminal allegations aside, he founded Retrophin which currently has a $750 million market cap.

My understanding is that Retrophin is an M&A company. They did not develop any drugs that they sell.

Re: Theranos Founder Faces a Test of Technology, and Reputation

#70

Post by Asparagirl » Sun, Dec 20, 2015, 5:33 AM UTC

Have you guys seen Elizabeth Holmes' Twitter favorites?

99% of them are faves for someone saying how inspiring she is. How she breaks glass ceilings. How she's doing something significant. How the press just wants to build people up to then tear people down. How she should run for president. How her speeches were transformative. How she has vision. Her bio. Her story. Videos of her. Press puff pieces about her. Her face. Her.

I've never seen anyone on Twitter use faves in quite this way. It's not faves about anyone else's content or jokes. It's not faves about Theranos, either. It's all. about. her.

https://www.twitter.com/eholmes2003/favorites

#narcissism