This woman is really amazing!

[Picasso]

I think Elizabeth got gored by her own unicorn!

 

 

Anytime I can reference Cabin in the Woods, it's a good day.

[randomep]

I think Elizabeth got gored by her own unicorn!

 

 

Anytime I can reference Cabin in the Woods, it's a good day.

 

+1 this is so left field! Where the hell you find this shit!

 

[randomep]

Or she's a narcissistic psychopath who endangered peoples lives with faulty blood tests and scammed investors for a billion or some. Probably something in between. We'll see. Props to randomep for asking the right questions back when everybody was salivating.

 

+1 thanks!

 

I almost never get any kudos here, which is ok. But in my posts on OTHER threads, not this one, what kinda irks me is that my posts almost never get responses, positive or negative.  I think I focus on getting at the truth too much. And I jump on thoughts that are contrarian.

 

I work in tech and after many years I have come to the shocking realization that truth doesn't really matter a lot of the time in terms of getting recognition and reward. I have sat in meetings where - to make a simple analogy - people basically conclude that 1+1=3.  I often listen to people tell me such ridiculous things that I wonder, are you lying to me and you know that your lying to me, or are you that stupid. I used to think the former, but later I think it is probably the latter. And today.... well today I realize they don't really know which and they don't care cos it don't matter!!!

 

 

If you can convince people designing on computers that 1+1=3 then that is the truth.  If you build a plane with one wing longer than the other that's fine until you try to fly it and wonder why it plows into the hill.  By that time however, the culprit is so far removed and forgotten that he is doing just fine and happy, hell he is probably promoted to VP!

 

You can see where I am leading to, EH spent 11 years working on this blood vial thing that you can hold in your hand. During which time she got medals, recognized on major business publications, and $600M in funding.  But all that she did is to convince people that she had this wonderful device that will solve one of our big problems.  And I see no publicly convincing evidence of progress in 11 years! We sent a man to the moon in just 7!  My opinion is that she would have kept at it for another 10-20 years if they keep funding her.  That's exactly what I saw in those meetings mentioned earlier.  To some people, R&D is not the means to an end, it is the end.

 

This is why my heart has checked out of engineering, though it still pays the bills. I want to put my heart more into VALUE investing because I feel the results are more inline with truth.  That's why there are so man acclaimed books like Charlies Almanac, Irrational Exuberance, the Most Important Thing. I think the theme of all of them is that we have to stop our innate habit of groupthink and looking for confirmation from others.

 

anyway, that's my 2cents, and my OPINIONs my facts may be wrong and are probably wrong

 

 

 

[giofranchi]

I have no idea what your returns have been

 

A decline of -9% last year (almost all due to the VRX position) is certainly weighing on my investment results during the last 5 years… On the contrary my results as an entrepreneur have been better than I had thought. The end result is I have compounded the equity of my company at slightly more than 15% annual during the last 5 years, which is my goal and essentially what I am interested in.

 

Of course you might say this board is investment oriented and, as some have already “kindly” pointed out, my results as an entrepreneur shouldn’t even be mentioned… Maybe that reasoning is sound, but I on the contrary don’t think those two aspects of my professional career are so completely independent from one another. If I thought so, I would be probably investing in a S&P500 ETF and never devote any time following specific businesses.

 

Cheers,

 

Gio

[Jurgis]

This is why my heart has checked out of engineering, though it still pays the bills. I want to put my heart more into VALUE investing because I feel the results are more inline with truth.

 

ROFL.  ;D  ::)  :D  ;D

 

OK, sorry man. You want the truth? Investing is way way way way way more away from truth than engineering is, was or will ever be.

 

Engineering is at least measurable and actually measured in good organizations. Investing? Well, 99% if not more investors don't add any value. Even on this forum, I'd guess more than 50% of already 1%'ers don't add any value. Discussions here? The truth? LOL. It's all agendas and biases and p3n15 size and all that. Even the best investors just push their agenda and run their book.

[randomep]

This is why my heart has checked out of engineering, though it still pays the bills. I want to put my heart more into VALUE investing because I feel the results are more inline with truth.

 

ROFL.  ;D  ::)  :D  ;D

 

OK, sorry man. You want the truth? Investing is way way way way way more away from truth than engineering is, was or will ever be.

 

Engineering is at least measurable and actually measured in good organizations. Investing? Well, 99% if not more investors don't add any value. Even on this forum, I'd guess more than 50% of already 1%'ers don't add any value. Discussions here? The truth? LOL. It's all agendas and biases and p3n15 size and all that. Even the best investors just push their agenda and run their book.

 

You see this is such a situation.  I don't know if are to put it politely: just egging me on or if you truly don't get what I said.

 

Best investors push the agenda? to who do I push my agenda? Personal investing is a solitary job, it is convincing yourself.  If you push some BS agenda to yourself then its called denial.

 

Maybe my explanation is just off, tell you what, save me the thought watch Big Short, and go to the part where the austic Michael Burry says in response to "are you being sarcastic", something to the effect "I don't know how to lie I don't know how to BS I don't know how to be sarcastic all I know is numbers....."

 

Or go to the part where the Frontpoint team is introduced and how they in effect think everyone else is a moron and they are right and make money off being right.

 

[edit] ok I fired off that response too soon, what I mean is:

 

in investing your own money: you get paid if your bet is right (truthful whatever adjective you want)

 

in engineering you make money convincing others you are right....... to a certain extent

 

 

 

[LongHaul]

Randomrep,

 

Keep posting - I think you did a good job being skeptical and a lot more people read this board than you may think.  A lot of great posts get no response but I guess that is function of the board.

 

Most fields are similarly filled with a lot of BS.  Medical field, nutrition, advertising, luxury goods, car dealerships, professional investors, etc.  I am not fully sure why but my sense is that people are innately lazy and the ego hates being wrong.  Many people are just not that curious either.  Then there is the whole list of psychological bias'. 

 

I think in the long run though companies that are reality oriented when executing do better.  At least it should show up with better products.  And consumers of products are not dumb at all over the long run.

[Jurgis]

in investing your own money: you get paid if your bet is right (truthful whatever adjective you want)

 

in engineering you make money convincing others you are right....... to a certain extent

 

OK, so you now qualified with "in investing your own money". That's the first part. In investing other people's money 90% if not more is sales. And Burry, sure, it sounds good in the movie when Christian Bale says that phrase with the puppy eyes of his. But I knew Mike in real life and yeah that man actually could sell like shiz. No, he got the capital not just because people were agog about his numbers. It was in large part because he wrote the columns and participated in the new-at-the-time Internet investing forums and people knew of him. So sales.

 

But let's get back to "in investing your own money". So if I do some programming, I create something useful. Maybe not a lot of people use it, but it's still useful. And 99%+ of engineers create something useful every day. Something that makes this world a better place, that advances the civilization. Investors? OK, you are right "In investing your own money: you get paid if your bet is right ". But in general this creates pretty much zero value. Actually, it's likely that some crappy investors create more value than good investors. I.e. people who put money into biotech stocks and lose most of it, but doing so advances drug research. Good investors mostly just make money. So, OK, if money is your yardstick, maybe that's more fulfilling than engineering. And sure, it also promotes your ego and individualistic tendencies. I get it. Investing is the perfect occupation where you don't have to deal with others (if you don't want it), nobody can tell you what to do, you don't have to compromise or reach consensus with a team - and it rains money (if you're good). But I still object to it being called "truthful". Even successful, numbers-based investing is way less truthful than most of engineering. For your result you're depending on companies to do the right things, you are dependent on markets to do the right things, you are dependent on the politics and economy and country and so on. It's actually really much more society dependent than any engineering and much less dependent on you. And to call the results based on what thousands of people involved in companies you invest are going to do "truthful" - well I don't see that at all.

 

And I also disagree with "in engineering you make money convincing others you are right". I actually make money by creating something. What you say only applies once you go up the management ladder. And then it's no longer engineering. It's management, leadership, sales, advertising, entrepreneurship. Not engineering.

 

All of this IMO and whatever. Have fun being an investor. Peace.

[premfan]

in investing your own money: you get paid if your bet is right (truthful whatever adjective you want)

 

in engineering you make money convincing others you are right....... to a certain extent

 

OK, so you now qualified with "in investing your own money". That's the first part. In investing other people's money 90% if not more is sales. And Burry, sure, it sounds good in the movie when Christian Bale says that phrase with the puppy eyes of his. But I knew Mike in real life and yeah that man actually could sell like shiz. No, he got the capital not just because people were agog about his numbers. It was in large part because he wrote the columns and participated in the new-at-the-time Internet investing forums and people knew of him. So sales.

 

But let's get back to "in investing your own money". So if I do some programming, I create something useful. Maybe not a lot of people use it, but it's still useful. And 99%+ of engineers create something useful every day. Something that makes this world a better place, that advances the civilization. Investors? OK, you are right "In investing your own money: you get paid if your bet is right ". But in general this creates pretty much zero value. Actually, it's likely that some crappy investors create more value than good investors. I.e. people who put money into biotech stocks and lose most of it, but doing so advances drug research. Good investors mostly just make money. So, OK, if money is your yardstick, maybe that's more fulfilling than engineering. And sure, it also promotes your ego and individualistic tendencies. I get it. Investing is the perfect occupation where you don't have to deal with others (if you don't want it), nobody can tell you what to do, you don't have to compromise or reach consensus with a team - and it rains money (if you're good). But I still object to it being called "truthful". Even successful, numbers-based investing is way less truthful than most of engineering. For your result you're depending on companies to do the right things, you are dependent on markets to do the right things, you are dependent on the politics and economy and country and so on. It's actually really much more society dependent than any engineering and much less dependent on you. And to call the results based on what thousands of people involved in companies you invest are going to do "truthful" - well I don't see that at all.

 

And I also disagree with "in engineering you make money convincing others you are right". I actually make money by creating something. What you say only applies once you go up the management ladder. And then it's no longer engineering. It's management, leadership, sales, advertising, entrepreneurship. Not engineering.

 

All of this IMO and whatever. Have fun being an investor. Peace.

 

The truth as told by previous sages and avatars is self revealing over time.  Time is undefeated.  In a practical sense ( less contextual than the previous sentence) the truth is more evident in the hard sciences.  So investing can be "truthful" within a multidisciplinary approach.  Combining hard science with intuition.  Combing the content (data) with context ( gut feel).  That said, you can do everything "right" and still not produce results.

[randomep]

Randomrep,

 

Keep posting - I think you did a good job being skeptical and a lot more people read this board than you may think.  A lot of great posts get no response but I guess that is function of the board.

 

Most fields are similarly filled with a lot of BS.  Medical field, nutrition, advertising, luxury goods, car dealerships, professional investors, etc.  I am not fully sure why but my sense is that people are innately lazy and the ego hates being wrong.  Many people are just not that curious either.  Then there is the whole list of psychological bias'. 

 

I think in the long run though companies that are reality oriented when executing do better.  At least it should show up with better products.  And consumers of products are not dumb at all over the long run.

 

 

Thanks!

 

Ya I may have been a grunt in the chip making business too long.  The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. But back to the topic of theranos, I put my 2 cents in due in part to my experience working in startups.  I have seen management elevate some persona to attract funding which  pays the employees.  Also the persona myth-making can itself also help attract and motivate employees.  Look work for us, we are going to make you rich, and we are going to change the world cos we are brilliant.

 

 

[Mephistopheles]

David Boies comments

 

[Jurgis]

David Boies comments

 

 

Oh well.

 

Let's sue WSJ for ...

 

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/super-villain/images/9/91/3998596-dr-evil.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140805055410

 

$9 billion dollars baby!

[randomep]

David Boies comments

 

 

wasn't he Lance Armstrong's lawyer?

 

::) ::) ::) ::) ::) ::)

 

;D ;D ;D

 

 

 

 

 

[boilermaker75]

This is why my heart has checked out of engineering, though it still pays the bills. I want to put my heart more into VALUE investing because I feel the results are more inline with truth.

 

ROFL.  ;D  ::)  :D  ;D

 

OK, sorry man. You want the truth? Investing is way way way way way more away from truth than engineering is, was or will ever be.

 

Engineering is at least measurable and actually measured in good organizations. Investing? Well, 99% if not more investors don't add any value. Even on this forum, I'd guess more than 50% of already 1%'ers don't add any value. Discussions here? The truth? LOL. It's all agendas and biases and p3n15 size and all that. Even the best investors just push their agenda and run their book.

 

You see this is such a situation.  I don't know if are to put it politely: just egging me on or if you truly don't get what I said.

 

Best investors push the agenda? to who do I push my agenda? Personal investing is a solitary job, it is convincing yourself.  If you push some BS agenda to yourself then its called denial.

 

Maybe my explanation is just off, tell you what, save me the thought watch Big Short, and go to the part where the austic Michael Burry says in response to "are you being sarcastic", something to the effect "I don't know how to lie I don't know how to BS I don't know how to be sarcastic all I know is numbers....."

 

Or go to the part where the Frontpoint team is introduced and how they in effect think everyone else is a moron and they are right and make money off being right.

 

[edit] ok I fired off that response too soon, what I mean is:

 

in investing your own money: you get paid if your bet is right (truthful whatever adjective you want)

 

in engineering you make money convincing others you are right....... to a certain extent

 

Could you give an example where you can make money in engineering by convincing people you are right?

 

Let me show an example of my own experience why I don't think this could typically be possible in engineering, at least not for long.

 

My first job as an engineer was in 1976 working at Intel. I was designing microcomputers. In those days two engineers designed the whole chip. It would come back from fab and we would test it and not everything worked. If I tried to convince anyone else that it worked, it wouldn't be too long before the truth was known. Once we "claimed" it was working it had to go to reliability testing and my lie would soon be discovered. I would probably then be out of a job and no longer making money from engineering. Instead the two of us had to figure out what didn't work, fix the design and resubmit to fab. We usually had to go through this several times before we got it working, after which it would then go to reliability testing and eventually to production.

[randomep]

 

Could you give an example where you can make money in engineering by convincing people you are right?

 

Let me show an example of my own experience why I don't think this could typically be possible in engineering, at least not for long.

 

My first job as an engineer was in 1976 working at Intel. I was designing microcomputers. In those days two engineers designed the whole chip. It would come back from fab and we would test it and not everything worked. If I tried to convince anyone else that it worked, it wouldn't be too long before the truth was known. Once we "claimed" it was working it had to go to reliability testing and my lie would soon be discovered. I would probably then be out of a job and no longer making money from engineering. Instead the two of us had to figure out what didn't work, fix the design and resubmit to fab. We usually had to go through this several times before we got it working, after which it would then go to reliability testing and eventually to production.

 

 

I was debating whether I should continue discussion about engineering.  Here I'll try to clarify some of my meaning. And I know I make generalizations using not the greatest choice of words.  So don't take all that I have said too literally.  I exaggerate a bit and that's mt way of ranting I guess. But regarding examples of making perception the goal. I think the best example is Elizabeth Holmes.  She has had a cool college project for 12years now. Suppose she made financial gain including perks of 300k a year. That's about 2.4M in 12yrs after tax.  And how did she do it?  by getting investors to part with their money by claiming that she can do hundreds of blood tests with a nano vial.  She has not shown concrete proof that she can do it and even if - that's a huge if - she does show proof future it is irrelevant.  She already made $2.4M in salary.  Pretty good for a nobody before she did this. Many engineers will perpetuate some belief as long as possible, and if they are shown to be total BS just move on to another job.  Typically engineers are small fish and their new employers will not know of their bad reputations.

 

Ok now back to your particular experience with Intel. Intel is a case in point.  In 1976 Intel may have been what? 200 employees? Today there are probably 5000 doing your type of work today (I am not talking about fab stage or even back-end) I am just talking about design and implementation front-end.  Say Intel at any given time is doing 50 chips, with 2 completing designs on each.  The employees work on average 2 designs. That is still 100 employees per chip design.  You can pin the blame on 2 people as in your case, but hardly with 100. Even if you can pick out 2 out of that 100, the other 98 can still hide.

 

And I think about 90% of chip designs never become anything close to product.  So the above example is only for 10% of cases. The people working on the other 90% must work hard also right? They don't know their        product will get cancelled, or do they? Engineers are rarely idle so high level management will keep projects going months after they've be written off.  As you get closer and closer to cancellation, more people can guess or know about it.  What is their mentality when they know what they're working on is useless?  And possible layoff is in the future? You don't work hard and honestly and you promise the world!  Heck if it doesn't work management isn't going to get on your case anyway.  You are just thinking about looking good so you don't get cut.

 

Intel recently laid off 12000 folks. I know roughly which department got it. So you and I should ask ourselves, WTF were these 12000 people doing? Intel isn't exactly poor. They weren't doing the type of work you were doing that's for sure!

 

Back in 1999 I heard a lowly engineering from Nortel tell me that Nortel was buying startups just to prop up the stock price, not because those startups did anything useful.  I was shocked at the time but now I know he was right.  If you were in one of those startups and you felt that, what is your attitude.  What is the rational thing to do when becoming a millionaire hinges not on making a product let alone making sales but on perception.

 

Chipmaking these days is not a very creative industry. A lot of it is execution and speed.  So there can be entire departments whose jobs is to help designers improve the speed. Yet they actually do nothing useful! And they can make false claims because they aren't really related to the quality of the end product. And if I say they slow us down, they can deny it and say it is my fault or someone else's fault.

 

I haven't given you concrete examples of BS in chip making but you can see how it can happen. I can give you very concrete examples but I don't really want to, its too upsetting, also I have to get back to work!

 

 

 

 

[ratiman]

Agree with her brilliance, however the concept behind this company deserves some scrutiny, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof in my view. The most important is obviously if the tests they have developed match up well with current ones. Point of care testing has existed for a while in the ICU environment, with extremely small blood volumes, specifically for ABG assessment. However the problem is that it only gives a rough approximation of the true values, and is not as accurate as a regular ABG. I actually hope it works out, but the thought that she is worth 4.5 bil based on a valuation assigned by PE is funny. There was an article a while back that talked about valuations being chosen not based on value, but based on the ability to attract more investment. Here is a good article with some of the questions that have been raised about the company.

 

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/science-of-elizabeth-holmes-theranos-2015-4

 

randomep called this early and UNF2007 was also skeptical and as a doctor had some knowledge about it.

[boilermaker75]

 

Could you give an example where you can make money in engineering by convincing people you are right?

 

Let me show an example of my own experience why I don't think this could typically be possible in engineering, at least not for long.

 

My first job as an engineer was in 1976 working at Intel. I was designing microcomputers. In those days two engineers designed the whole chip. It would come back from fab and we would test it and not everything worked. If I tried to convince anyone else that it worked, it wouldn't be too long before the truth was known. Once we "claimed" it was working it had to go to reliability testing and my lie would soon be discovered. I would probably then be out of a job and no longer making money from engineering. Instead the two of us had to figure out what didn't work, fix the design and resubmit to fab. We usually had to go through this several times before we got it working, after which it would then go to reliability testing and eventually to production.

 

 

I was debating whether I should continue discussion about engineering.  Here I'll try to clarify some of my meaning. And I know I make generalizations using not the greatest choice of words.  So don't take all that I have said too literally.  I exaggerate a bit and that's mt way of ranting I guess. But regarding examples of making perception the goal. I think the best example is Elizabeth Holmes.  She has had a cool college project for 12years now. Suppose she made financial gain including perks of 300k a year. That's about 2.4M in 12yrs after tax.  And how did she do it?  by getting investors to part with their money by claiming that she can do hundreds of blood tests with a nano vial.  She has not shown concrete proof that she can do it and even if - that's a huge if - she does show proof future it is irrelevant.  She already made $2.4M in salary.  Pretty good for a nobody before she did this. Many engineers will perpetuate some belief as long as possible, and if they are shown to be total BS just move on to another job.  Typically engineers are small fish and their new employers will not know of their bad reputations.

 

Ok now back to your particular experience with Intel. Intel is a case in point.  In 1976 Intel may have been what? 200 employees? Today there are probably 5000 doing your type of work today (I am not talking about fab stage or even back-end) I am just talking about design and implementation front-end.  Say Intel at any given time is doing 50 chips, with 2 completing designs on each.  The employees work on average 2 designs. That is still 100 employees per chip design.  You can pin the blame on 2 people as in your case, but hardly with 100. Even if you can pick out 2 out of that 100, the other 98 can still hide.

 

And I think about 90% of chip designs never become anything close to product.  So the above example is only for 10% of cases. The people working on the other 90% must work hard also right? They don't know their        product will get cancelled, or do they? Engineers are rarely idle so high level management will keep projects going months after they've be written off.  As you get closer and closer to cancellation, more people can guess or know about it.  What is their mentality when they know what they're working on is useless?  And possible layoff is in the future? You don't work hard and honestly and you promise the world!  Heck if it doesn't work management isn't going to get on your case anyway.  You are just thinking about looking good so you don't get cut.

 

Intel recently laid off 12000 folks. I know roughly which department got it. So you and I should ask ourselves, WTF were these 12000 people doing? Intel isn't exactly poor. They weren't doing the type of work you were doing that's for sure!

 

Back in 1999 I heard a lowly engineering from Nortel tell me that Nortel was buying startups just to prop up the stock price, not because those startups did anything useful.  I was shocked at the time but now I know he was right.  If you were in one of those startups and you felt that, what is your attitude.  What is the rational thing to do when becoming a millionaire hinges not on making a product let alone making sales but on perception.

 

Chipmaking these days is not a very creative industry. A lot of it is execution and speed.  So there can be entire departments whose jobs is to help designers improve the speed. Yet they actually do nothing useful! And they can make false claims because they aren't really related to the quality of the end product. And if I say they slow us down, they can deny it and say it is my fault or someone else's fault.

 

I haven't given you concrete examples of BS in chip making but you can see how it can happen. I can give you very concrete examples but I don't really want to, its too upsetting, also I have to get back to work!

 

OK, i understand where you are coming from. It is a question of how long before the deception is discovered. In the situation at Intel back in the seventies it would not have been long, a few months maybe. As an aside, even though Intel was only 8 years old when I joined there were already 6000 employees. It is possible that only 200 were over 30 years old! It sure seemed that way.

 

I guess an example is Theranos, which took a long time to discover. This whole company had to be a part of the deception. I wonder how much was intentional and how much was self-deception? I guess the courts will try to decide that.

[Jurgis]

boilermaker75: I think randomep is saying that it's possible to push bad solutions in engineering. Not necessarily fraudulent or broken solutions, rather crappy ones that make the chip/program/widget/gadget less effective, harder to maintain, prone to failures, etc. And some of these bad solutions may earn their authors acclaim in the company while someone else who proposed better solutions may be pushed out or just get no money/acclaim. Sure this happens. Sometimes it happens because of politics, sometimes it happens because the person with bad solutions is great at promoting them, sometimes it happens just because people don't see some issues that come up in the future, sometimes it happens because of (faulty or not) cost/benefit analysis.

 

 

I think investing looks better than engineering to randomep because you can fly solo and that means there's no politics and accountability for good and bad is just on you. However, I think this is unfair comparison. You can't compare working in large company in engineering vs. solo investing. You probably should compare working in large company in engineering vs working in large company in investing and compare solo engineering vs. solo investing. And I realize that you probably can't do solo engineering in chip design, but that's separate issue.

[randomep]

boilermaker75: I think randomep is saying that it's possible to push bad solutions in engineering. Not necessarily fraudulent or broken solutions, rather crappy ones that make the chip/program/widget/gadget less effective, harder to maintain, prone to failures, etc. And some of these bad solutions may earn their authors acclaim in the company while someone else who proposed better solutions may be pushed out or just get no money/acclaim. Sure this happens. Sometimes it happens because of politics, sometimes it happens because the person with bad solutions is great at promoting them, sometimes it happens just because people don't see some issues that come up in the future, sometimes it happens because of (faulty or not) cost/benefit analysis.

 

Jurgis, what you mentioned is part of what I am saying.  Some people can push inferior designs that are marketable when complete. But that's one send of the spectrum, at the other end the people pushing for something that have virtually no chance of ever flying. In my books the people at this end of the spectrum are fraudulent. They may in their heart disagree, but they are in denial.

 

Like I said about the 1998-1999 craze, 95% (and that's probably underestimating) of the chip startups bought by the likes of cisco and nortel and the like did not contribute one dollar the acquirer's revenue.  I sat in meetings and heard startups make perpostrous claims. That's fraud in my books.  But hey they later became multi-millionaires.

 

On of my underlying themes in this thread is that we shouldn't have the mentality that you can get to better solutions simply by throwing more money at a problem.  Sometimes a company hiring one incremental employee will actually have the detremental result.

 

I think business schools need to come up with better theory regarding this aspect of management. We need something like a Michael Porter to teach us better engineering management. The ramifications is not just oh ya technology progress is just a bit less efficient. It can have an effect on the national economy and national security.

 

Look at F35 project. The F35 is a single engine stealth fighter for the US navy, marines and air force. The plane is just starting to go online after 15 years of development.  The F15 was developed 3 years!  One F35 key selling point was that it would use a common design to produce 3 versions of the plane for 3 branches of the military. It was supposed to have 75% commonality between the 3 versions.  Ya right! It turned out to be 25% commonality and cost double original budget. It was such a cluster fock that the military brass had to go in and intervine before it got scrapped.  At $200B over budget this plane can really affect US economy and national security if it fails.  I see this kind of unified design idea from high level management in my work. But reality is it slows everyone down by causing one design in one project to affect another design somewhere else.  When that happens you get bogged down because you unnessarily integerates multiple different designs!  If I was an aircraft engineer at Lockheed I would've probably said in meetings: you guys are lying cos that's what higher ups want to hear.  No fucking way you can get 75% commonality.  I would've been fired as a consequence. But I would've felt great sitting unemployed at home when I am eventaully proven right and I know that I tried to save the country several hundred billion dollars.

 

I think investing looks better than engineering to randomep because you can fly solo and that means there's no politics and accountability for good and bad is just on you. However, I think this is unfair comparison. You can't compare working in large company in engineering vs. solo investing. You probably should compare working in large company in engineering vs working in large company in investing and compare solo engineering vs. solo investing. And I realize that you probably can't do solo engineering in chip design, but that's separate issue.

 

well said.....

 

[abcd]

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fo-hiltzik-forbes-theranos-20160601-snap-story.html

 

[ERICOPOLY]

Somebody has succeeded in developing a miracle 5 minute turnaround time blood test for detecting malaria:

 

http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/03/technology/malaria-blood-test-device/index.html?iid=surge-toplead-dom

 

[Liberty]

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/9/11896534/jennifer-lawrence-adam-mckay-theranos-movie-elizabeth-holmes

 

Now the story is complete ...

[rogermunibond]

The schadenfreude is thick with Theranos. 

 

Somehow they need to get Will Ferrell in this movie.  Maybe cast him as David Boies?  Nice bounceback script after Ferrell and McKay had to drop the Ronald Reagan hot potato movie script they had bought.

[Liberty]

The schadenfreude is thick with Theranos. 

 

Somehow they need to get Will Ferrell in this movie.  Maybe cast him as David Boies?  Nice bounceback script after Ferrell and McKay had to drop the Ronald Reagan hot potato movie script they had bought.

 

No schadenfreude from me. Like many, I read the early coverage of the company and of Holmes and thought it sounded like very interesting tech and a very talented entrepreneur. Too bad it turned out that way...

[boilermaker75]

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/9/11896534/jennifer-lawrence-adam-mckay-theranos-movie-elizabeth-holmes

 

Now the story is complete ...

 

When does the Michael Lewis book come out?