Comment by RandallBrown
9 hours ago
Surely Theranos developed some technology that was useful?
It lasted for 15 years and (as far as I know) employed actual scientists and researchers that were trying to revolutionize blood testing. They must have gotten somewhere right? Even if it wasn't as far as they wanted/claimed?
I don't know much about what Haemanthus is claiming, but could a business be built using whatever technology Theranos developed? Or were they headed down a dead end street with nothing of use along the way?
Theranos was a bit too early to its idea, and while they were flailing around trying to get customers with the Edison, microfluidic testing became a reality. It was done by the "old" medical device companies that Theranos was supposed to disrupt. It turned out they were the competent ones.
It is entirely possible to spend 15 years doing absolutely nothing of value.
I mean, not really.
Their claim was that they could run hundreds of tests on a mere drop / drops of non-arterial blood, including several that are basically physically impossible due to the makeup of blood in capillaries being different from arteries.
That's still not possible to anything like the original degree of the claim.
Yeah that's true and it's an important distinction. Tests today run on a few microliters of arterial blood, which is "one drop," but to get the right blood they still need to stick a needle in your arm.
If they did generate anything of value, IP wise, it is an almost certainty that neither she nor her husband have any right to profit off it.
Why? Didn’t they own most of the company?
Presumably the claimants in the many lawsuits would now own any IP, or a receiver holds that IP in trust for the claimants so that any revenue derived from the IP goes to the claimants.
The equity holders have surely been totally wiped out and have no further claim.
I talked to some people in the industry shortly before the scandal broke, there were already rumors and the Glassdoor reviews had many warnings from clearly disgruntled former employees. Their thoughts was that the people there should have known, so either they lacked competence, they were desperate, or they were in on it.
While there are plenty of people looking for the chance to do something great and could do it if given the right environment, I expect Theranos didn’t foster such an environment.
how long did enron last before they had to close because of fraud? it was over 20 years i'm pretty sure. that's not a good estimate.
Enron still did things in addition to their fraud.
They ran power plants and fiber optic networks. Those things continued to exist after they went bankrupt.
Were the direct cause of the 2000-2001 California blackouts bankrupting public utilities.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000%E2%80%932001_California...
According to SEC, Madoff started his Ponzi scheme in the early 90s and wasn't arrested until December 2008, about 15 years or so.
Enron started out as a real company doing real things, and only pivoted to fraud later.
Well, I wouldn't put it that way as long as we're correcting the record. It was always the boring moving dirt company, never pivoted, but it grew a cancer that became Too Big To Fail because it was more profitable than moving dirt.
- it did boring non-tech big industry stuff
- it was good at this
- it started an in-house hedging department (normal)
- they were good at their jobs and accidentally created a massive speculative trading business that fell apart
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Working hard doesn't guarantee results. I feel like this is obvious. I would imagine that they never got the thing to work right, or at least not well enough. Even if they did, there's no guarantee it's profitable, much less cost-effective.
Correct. The problem is arrogance doesn't guarantee results either but it sure seems to over-promise to the point of fraud more often than not. Perhaps the Ivy business schools should make an effort to mint MBAs who have real world experience rather churn out Dunning-Kruger effect specimens who believe they have a special monopoly on "the answer".
> over-promise to the point of fraud more often than not.
Sounds strangely familiar...
I remember reading some VC or other came out and said that they picked founders that were over confident, because it was some advantage.
This is the AI result from Google
> Paul Graham and Y Combinator (YC) prioritize determination and ambition over intelligence in selecting founders, often finding success in founders who are overconfident and optimistic. This isn't a mistake; it's a calculated risk based on the belief that persistence and belief in their vision are crucial for overcoming the inevitable challenges of starting a business.
Although this piece https://paulgraham.com/founders.html only talks about the importance of determination
edit: I've just noticed at the bottom of Paul's piece a note about Sam Altman that I think is incredibly accurate - look for hackers (not crackers) - people that find ways to profit by looking at the system in a different way (but they emphasise not to be evil, just naughty)
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Have you noticed how many startups get butt-loads of VC money based on a blatantly obvious faulty premise and never succeed?
A solid, responsibly managed company, has no place in the minds of investors.
To me, the problem is that it is almost more lucrative to NOT succeed, unless one can achieve Nvidia-level of success. It is easier to promise the impossible. I profit today but if we scale the unproven business plan 1000X, the profits will be earth shattering!
How the hell do stupid upstart app-based shady loan companies have tens of thousands of employees including thousands of engineers?
From accounts it seems likely that they completely squandered that opportunity covering up for the exaggerations and fraud.
If at the start there had been, at least internally, an honest view of: We have no idea how to do this, existing technology won't do this, we must make a breakthrough-- and then spent 15 years grinding on that then there might be a chance.
But even then it would just be a chance. It might well be the case that what they were promising is only possible through molecular nanotechnology or some other kind of breakthrough that was entirely outside the domain of their research and which has still not yet been accomplished.
Even the new company's pitch supports that: They credit AI as an integral part of their supposed solution. Was Theranos spending those 15 years working on anything we'd call AI today? probably not.