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This woman is really amazing!

giofranchi

By giofranchi
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Spekulatius Grand Master

Spekulatius

Posted
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Is it a surprise a company run by a 20 some year old drop out from stanford is dysfunctional?  The gall they have to think that they can turn an industry upside down.  TBH, that reminds me of Musk.

 

Yeah, to change the world, you need to be like Bill Gates--old and well-educated.

 

Wait a minute....

 

Never mind.

 

Imagine what Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs could have achieved, if they hadn’t dropped out of college  ???

randomep Contributor

randomep

Posted
Posted

Is it a surprise a company run by a 20 some year old drop out from stanford is dysfunctional?  The gall they have to think that they can turn an industry upside down.  TBH, that reminds me of Musk.

 

Yeah, to change the world, you need to be like Bill Gates--old and well-educated.

 

Wait a minute....

 

Never mind.

 

Imagine what Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs could have achieved, if they hadn’t dropped out of college  ???

 

OK OK I ADMIT IT I SHOULD'VE THOUGHT MORE ABOUT WHAT I SAID ABOUT COLLEGE DROPOUTS!

 

randomep Contributor

randomep

Posted
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From the point of view of a angel investor, when a college dropout comes to you with no experience with their hand out, I would advise, be surprised if they succeed like bill gates steve jobs or zuckerburg. Don't be surprised if they don't know how to run a company. 

 

For the most part those 3 college dropouts invested their college years before any investors gave them money.  Bill Gates knew he was a millionaire in 1980 when people were interested in investing in Microsoft.  Its pretty easy for an investor who has access to those 3 dropouts to part with their money.

 

Lets see what Holmes had to show that she was worth millions: angelic looks, some really good salesmanship, some connections to the military.  They showed stuff that was smoke and mirrors, but nothing audited.  (read the article to see what I mean)

 

I myself am in a startup that has received lots of money. I am very very wary because I know the kind of people that invested in my company invested in Theranos.......

 

This is a very good cautionary tale and I've said so in my earlier posts.......

LongHaul Contributor

LongHaul

Posted
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How could someone have spotted Theranos as being a fraud prior to this becoming publicly known?

 

One Idea I had was getting your blood tested by Theranos and actually watching the machine give the test results and comparing those results with proven test machines.  I had read that investors got test results at Theranos (but out of sight and from other proven test machines) and not the Edison machines.

 

Any other ideas?

rb Newbie

rb

Posted
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How could someone have spotted Theranos as being a fraud prior to this becoming publicly known?

 

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-30/theranos-fatal-flaws-were-in-plain-sight

Just like Spekilatius said. Spotting and proving are two different things.

 

Fraudsters by definition are good at bullshit ans weaving a good story. Then people want to believe. They want to believe the story. Anyone who points out that the emperor has no clothes is a nini who wants to ruin the story they want to believe in. Just look at the title of this thread.

 

If you need evidence of that take a look at how people reacted on the Valeant thread when some members were pointing out that things don't quite add up. You can also look at the Tesla thread to see how some people reach when you point out inconvenient facts. In fact you don't have to go that far. You can look earlier in this thread at reactions to randomep's pointing out that Holmes' qualifications should have raised a red flag. So who needs that aggravation especially when there's nothing to gain. Much easier to realize something smells fishy and just move on.

LongHaul Contributor

LongHaul

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Good article.  Thanks for posting.  The book sounds good too. 

Positive proof is difficult but there are patterns that we can learn from.

 

There can be massive blowback when you tell someone negative things about their stocks. 

 

  • 2 weeks later...
rb Newbie

rb

Posted
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It's _interesting_ that Holmes is being used as a stick to beat tech figures who've actually built things, and who never had anything to do with her, when a coalition of journalists and old-power apparatchiks were mostly responsible for her rise. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-age-of-tech-superheroes-must-end-1528387420

 

Theranos is the fault of the media?! Get the outta here man!  The investors who kept giving it money had nothing to do with it? Give me a break. And old-power apparatchiks? Mad dog is the current secretary of defense.

randomep Contributor

randomep

Posted
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I don't really think Theranos is exceptional. I think most startups are pretty much run the same way:

 

Following are two articles that are pretty much on point:

 

https://slate.com/business/2018/06/elizabeth-holmes-deserves-prison-but-her-indictment-wont-make-silicon-valley-any-less-reckless.html?via=homepage_taps_top

 

http://fortune.com/silicon-valley-startups-fraud-venture-capital/

 

Most startups are run that way???? I have worked for about 8 startups (I have lost exact count), none sold a product that didn't work.  My area is chip making in silicon valley.  Behaving like that is like us selling a chip that doesn't work. Uh it is kind of hard to fake a video decoder or a WIFI transmitter. It either works or it doesn't work. She told the world on a secretive product and faked the results by diluting blood and using other people's machines.

 

I have never heard of any of my companies getting into lawsuits with their employees. I can openly advertise what I am working on and at what company on my resume on Monster, there is nothing my employer can do about it.  Despite the mystique of silicon valley virtually every company knows what every other company is doing, there is nothing miraculous about what we do, it is just a good culture to build stuff.

 

I read the book Bad Blood and that is one shit company taking things to the extreme.

 

 

Liberty Contributor

Liberty

Posted
Posted

It's _interesting_ that Holmes is being used as a stick to beat tech figures who've actually built things, and who never had anything to do with her, when a coalition of journalists and old-power apparatchiks were mostly responsible for her rise. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-age-of-tech-superheroes-must-end-1528387420

 

Theranos is the fault of the media?! Get the outta here man!  The investors who kept giving it money had nothing to do with it? Give me a break. And old-power apparatchiks? Mad dog is the current secretary of defense.

 

I don't know who you're talking to, but not to me or to the person I quoted.

 

Theranos was a media darling, with Holmes on lots of magazine covers, being compared to Steve Jobs, with breathless features about her brilliance and personal life and such. The media certainly helped a lot to legitimize the company to the wider world, no doubt about it. Most startups never get that kind of coverage. Holmes was just a good story, and the media latched to it and ran with it.

 

And "old power" doesn't mean "not in power anymore". I think it can mean a few things: Old as opposed to new, just look at their board, it's a bunch of old military and diplomats/politicians, old media moguls, etc. It wasn't backed by the SV tech guys, or Google and Sequoia and Elon Musk or whatever. Also, old power can just mean they've been in power for a long time, again, just look at the board.

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