Comment by tomhoward

Y Combinator didn't invest in either of these companies. With Theranos, most of the investors weren't VCs. The ones who were were had family/personal connections to Elizabeth Holmes. They've been made to look stupid, and everyone knows if they kept doing deals like that they'd go bust. UBeam had several top VC investors, but they must have been convinced that the original technology demo was legitimate, and that it could be productized and scaled. The skeptics against UBeam only came out later, after they'd already raised their big money. Again, they know if they keep doing deals like that, they'll go bust.