Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 104 posts

Re: Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

#81

Post by ScottBurson »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #76
DoreenMichele wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologize for the formatting issues. It is one of the reasons I shut this blog down. But here are some of my thoughts from a few years ago: http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/05/theranos-cul...

I'm skeptical that this a gender-specific issue. Lots of men complain about the difficulty of getting helpful feedback, too. And feedback is hard to provide, regardless of the recipient's gender. You're always walking a line between being sharp enough to be heard versus gentle enough to avoid offence. Ultimately, the recipient is still responsible for the consequences of their actions, and you just have to let them p…

I can only speak personally, but I sure haven't experienced any of this alleged difficulty of getting feedback, especially of the negative variety. Sure, it's not the case that everyone I've mentioned one of my bad ideas to has objected to it, but there's always been someone willing to give me the bad news as they saw it.

I think it's entirely plausible that there's something gender-related going on. Women are often seen as less tough than men.

Re: Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

#82

Post by ScottBurson »

ukulele wrote: post #5
Areading314 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ambivalent (and its the same in German)

I've always thought of ambivalent as meaning no strong feelings either way, but I see that it can also mean mixed feelings (even strong ones). Is there a word that doesn't also include the first part, where it means solely having strong mixed feelings?

I've always thought of "ambivalent" as indicating fairly strong mixed feelings. I think it's actually the word you want. For the first meaning, I would go with "indifferent".

Re: Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

#83

Post by FireBeyond »

smsm42 wrote: post #38

Reading this article, I've had a nagging feeling - ok, the founder may have presented a wrong picture, but isn't it the task of tech journalists to call them on that? I am sure some would always be fooled, but how comes pretty much all of them, according to the article, were fooled? And not by some ingenious heist that takes a genius to unravel, but by buying a device from another company, showing it to journalists a…

How much ability to do this is possible short of subpoena though?

Theranos history is littered with staged demos (not being described as such), deception (running tests with other manufacturer machines), and outright lies.

For all the upbeat press release regurgitation (of which there was a lot, absolutely), there's limits to investigative journalism of those who _were_ skeptical.

Re: Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

#84

Post by beagle3 »

hprotagonist wrote: post #14

I have been a voice in the wilderness since about 2007 on this one, so this is shadenfraude on a level that makes me kind of embarrassed about myself. My background is biomedical engineering, and I just never, ever understood how the sampling rate could ever work. If you're looking for a low-energy signal and your sampling rate is really low, you're just going to miss it and this should've been screamingly obvious to…

I have no background in biomedical engineering, and I'll take your (and others') word that it could clearly never work.

However, I have had a related experience that stops me, even in these cases, from immediately shouting "the king has no clothes":

Some 25 years ago I was giving a talk at some point, that mentioned spread spectrum communication to a small crowd of physicists and engineers, none of whom was familiar with the concept. When I drew an energy/frequency graph in which the signal level was below the ambient noise level, I got laughing/mocking/disbelieving response, and I had to actually show (a simplified) version of the math to proceed.

None of those people were stupid. In fact, I believe most if not all of them are way smarter than me; but they've all adopted the "s/n ratio must be large enough at every distinct frequency " as an axiom, which is simply wrong.

Since then, when I see extraordinary claims, I just wait for the extraordinary proof.

> It's like going to the beach, drawing a 5 gallon pail of seawater, looking into it, and then declaring that the beach is shark-free today and it's safe to swim.

If shark shed sharkticles that can easily be detected, and the water mixing speed is sufficient, then -- yes, you might be able to make that claim from a 5 gallon pail of seawater.

But before I believe you can do that, I would want to see the theory and a working demonstration. It's astonishing that wasn't demanded of Theranos by any of the investors.

Re: Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

#85

Post by DoreenMichele »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #76
DoreenMichele wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologize for the formatting issues. It is one of the reasons I shut this blog down. But here are some of my thoughts from a few years ago: http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/05/theranos-cul...

I'm skeptical that this a gender-specific issue. Lots of men complain about the difficulty of getting helpful feedback, too. And feedback is hard to provide, regardless of the recipient's gender. You're always walking a line between being sharp enough to be heard versus gentle enough to avoid offence. Ultimately, the recipient is still responsible for the consequences of their actions, and you just have to let them p…

Lots of men complain about the difficulty of getting helpful feedback, too.

Yes, feedback is generally hard to get. But this situation really blew up crazily. It was valued at $10 billion at one time and was a whole lot of hot air.

My argument is that the "Gee, golly, whiz I am talking to a charming, pretty girl!" factor dramatically magnified the problem and allowed it to get blown far out of proportion, more than would have happened with a male CEO. I can't think of any other debacles of this proportion. This is one whale of a debacle. And I think the gender of the CEO is a contributing factor.

That doesn't mean it wouldn't have been a debacle with a guy at the helm. But the essence of my argument is that it would not likely have run on for so very long and hit such crazy big numbers before the bubble burst if the CEO had not been a pretty, charming young woman.

Re: Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

#86

Post by eftychis »

growlix wrote: post #45
subpixel wrote: post #18

I haven't found an article or comment that gives me any insight into what Ms. Holmes might have been thinking. Did she earnestly believe she was on the cusp of some breakthrough, or that one was inevitable with enough brute-force application of investor money? Or was she shrewd and cunning to the core, calculating that she could siphon off enough money to make it worthwhile and spend enough money to spin the facts? I…

On the "Delusion Con Artist" continuum, I'm inclined to think she's more on the delusion end. If your intent is to defraud, you'd want to avoid a domain that's 1) scientifically accountable, and 2) subject to heavy oversight and regulation. She seems smart enough to know that. This Vanity Fair piece provides a fair amount of character background: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/elizabeth-holmes-the...

> If your intent is to defraud, you'd want to avoid a domain that's 1) scientifically accountable, and 2) subject to heavy oversight and regulation. She seems smart enough to know that.

I would like to comment jokingly here with the saying "If you wish to [defraud] go into politics." But let's not support people in that cause.

Seriously, in this case it appears to me it was more and more a series of cascading lies that had to be added to cover the original lie. Which either stemmed from hope, misconception or lack of due dilligence.

If she thought actually her idea was going to work, and nobody raised a flag from her peers, faculty, ..., I think after some point the weight of capital invested made the executives follow the "fake it till you make it path".

I think in that case there was a lot of emotion, pride and "our name is on the line" that came into play.

However, in that case I wonder, if it is believable that major investors did not do their homework? Or are they also part of the game. Cass Grandone bailing on such a promising project should have been a red flag for any serious investor. I bet in that case, a lot of major investors knew and chose to follow the path. In that case they are accountable.

If the story reported about Tyler Shultz is right that means that George Shultz, and his peers, knew but turned a blind eye. In that case, I wonder if Holmes ended up as the scapegoat just to keep the boat floating a bit longer (or even recover). In that case her mistake was writing down a lie in an official document and signing it. Alas, I see clues everywhere that the whole board and investing body are complicit in this deception.

Re: Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

#87

Post by subpixel »

Nomentatus wrote: post #57
headmelted wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect the truth exists somewhere in between. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that: * Holmes started with the best of intentions * Theranos raised capital from starry-eyed investors that didn't carry out proper due diligence * Realization set in early on that it wasn't going to work out * Theranos got scared as so much of their time and other people's money had been invested * The questions mounted * Stal…

If you want completeness, there may be another possibility: we know that venture capitalists (who spend other people's money, for the most part) have used their positions to improve their sex lives (#metoo) contrary to the interests of their investors. It's just assumed none of them have ever actually handed over millions of other people's money to hairbrained projects in order to accomplish this. I very much hope th…

Well, that line of thinking opens up a whole other angle of speculation (and of course that's all it is, so I won't detail it) regarding how events may have unfolded in this debacle.

Re: Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

#88

Post by smsm42 »

FireBeyond wrote: post #83
smsm42 wrote: post #38

Reading this article, I've had a nagging feeling - ok, the founder may have presented a wrong picture, but isn't it the task of tech journalists to call them on that? I am sure some would always be fooled, but how comes pretty much all of them, according to the article, were fooled? And not by some ingenious heist that takes a genius to unravel, but by buying a device from another company, showing it to journalists a…

How much ability to do this is possible short of subpoena though? Theranos history is littered with staged demos (not being described as such), deception (running tests with other manufacturer machines), and outright lies. For all the upbeat press release regurgitation (of which there was a lot, absolutely), there's limits to investigative journalism of those who _were_ skeptical.

Well, interviewing a bunch of specialists saying "this contradicts all I know about medical diagnostics for this and this reason" - like we see happening here - and then asking the Theranos reps "could you please explain what these experts are missing here, in detail" would be a good start. Of course, Theranos could bullshit their way out of it, but distinguishing bullshit answers from substantial answers is usually much easier and more accessible to non-specialists than figuring out if the whole thing is bullshit from zero.

Re: Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

#89

Post by Sangermaine »

ethbro wrote: post #52
headmelted wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect the truth exists somewhere in between. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that: * Holmes started with the best of intentions * Theranos raised capital from starry-eyed investors that didn't carry out proper due diligence * Realization set in early on that it wasn't going to work out * Theranos got scared as so much of their time and other people's money had been invested * The questions mounted * Stal…

If things working out better are predicated on rising tech stars admitting they're wrong and forgoing the accolades and adulation that accompany the identifier... I can see why things went the way they did. That said, from a personal perspective, I honestly hope Ms. Holmes is either a sociopath or was actually in the dark about how bad things were (e.g. her direct reports were lying to her). It seems like it would be…

Yeah, committing fraud is pretty nerve-wracking. Won't anyone think of the con men?

Re: Theranos Misled Investors and Consumers Who Used Its Blood Test

#90

Post by Sangermaine »

kolpa wrote: post #49
Nomentatus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Steve Jobs-like ability to live in her own reality distortion field, plus much of the salesmanship, but minus Steve's very acute (not perfect) sense of what currently impossible problems were on the cusp of being solved, creating future practical products. There were two companies that I simply couldn't understand, at all, from media reports in the last couple decades. One was Enron, 'tother Theranos. Turned out th…

Jobs's job was to look at stuff and see what he could sell, and to demand that employees invent more stuff to sell. Holmes' job was to invent stuff on demand. She tried (and failed) at a much harder job.

Yeesh, the Hacker News spin on stuff like this is absurd.
Post reply on HN