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My guess is that in the beginning it had something to do with VC's being desperate for an attractive, brilliant, successful female founder with world-changing i

My guess is that in the beginning it had something to do with VC's being desperate for an attractive, brilliant, successful female founder with world-changing ideas that could be slapped on magazine covers to show everyone that yes, they do invest in women. After the first round it's much easier to raise subsequent rounds, and the whole thing may have fed on itself - investors throwing good money after bad, both to save face and to chase the glimmer of hope that they were getting somewhere with this. Elizabeth Holmes has somehow kept the money flowing for a decade from extremely credible people, which means she is far better at placating investors in the face of slow progress than perhaps anyone in recent Silicon Valley history.

pen2l 11y ago
That's my reading too. She's basically Color's Bill Nguyen. I wish I was as good as these guys at hustling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nguyen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nguyen
- AndrewKemendo 11y ago
  From your own link you would have seen that Bill successfully founded and sold two companies for 800M and 80M respectively. Yet apparently none of that matters because his most recent venture was a flop. What I'd do for that track record!
pushyriot 11y ago
Yes. In 2003, when she started the company at 19, Draper etc invested & other well known SJWs like Henry Kissinger & George Shultz joined her board because of her gender. They both knew & give a shit that a decade later people would be talking about diversity. For 12 years, she flipped her blonde hair & the men were fooled-& the money just kept pouring in. Do you really think VCs would invest $400 million & Walgreens & Cleveland Clinic would do deals with this company, that put people's health at risk & create massive liability, without diligence because she is a woman? Maybe Theranos will fail. Obviously fraud is unacceptable. And the lack of peer review helps no one. But, the idea that she was funded because of her gender is absurd. If anything, given all the data on this topic, she was funded in spite of it- because she was trying something very difficult & potentially revolutionary--not some dumb app. I hope you'll reconsider your thinking on this. Its hard enough for women to get funded; maybe it's worth giving them the benefit of the doubt when they do.
- peteretep 11y ago
  > Do you really think VCs would invest $400 million & > Walgreens & Cleveland Clinic would do deals with this > company, that put people's health at risk & create > massive liability, without diligence Yes. One way to help yourself swallow a bad decision is to look at all the other people also making it, and convince yourself that if they're doing it, it must be all right.
  - monopolemagnet 11y ago
    Investments in companies mostly make money evaporate as a standard practice. Large-scale investors gravitate towards big risk/big reward ventures which require significant capital because it's saves having to make a zillion angel-scale deals. Plus, it seems sexier with extra-awesome brownie points to go after something which may be r/evolutionary. PS: Color was a snausage clusterfuck of dbag, hubris behaviors that ruined the team (and the venture). Hopefully, that elicited a corrective learning experience.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- no1ne 11y ago
  You bash him because he had the audacity to wonder and have an opinion about how gender could have related to the publicity and valuations.. considering how we are constantly bombarded by p.c click-bait articles on female founders and such stuff, it does not seem so silly after all. Then you use the gender card to have us give her the benefit of the doubt just because she is a woman... well played :)
pushyriot 11y ago
Yes. In 2003, when she started the company at 19, Draper etc invested & other well known SJWs like Henry Kissinger & George Shultz joined her board because of her gender. They both knew & give a shit that a decade later people would be talking about diversity. For 12 years, she flipped her blonde hair & the men were fooled-& the money just kept pouring in. Do you really think VCs would invest $400 million & Walgreens & Cleveland Clinic would do deals with this company, that put people's health at risk & create massive liability, without diligence because she is a woman? Maybe Theranos will fail. Obviously fraud is unacceptable. And the lack of peer review helps no one. But, the idea that she was funded because of her gender is absurd. If anything, given all the data on this topic, she was funded in spite of it- because she was trying something very difficult & potentially revolutionary--not some dumb app. I hope you'll reconsider your thinking on this. Its hard enough for women to get funded; maybe it's worth giving them the benefit of the doubt when they do.
matt4077 11y ago
To raise another, less misogynist, possibility: she does indeed appear to excellent at selling her idea. So maybe that let to her success in VC circles. There's also a lot of precedent in people dropping out of college and being success. Not just with software but also, for example, hardware – which is more similar to biotech. Considering the Wozniak/Jobs success with hardware in the 80ies, I don't find it entirely implausible that a smart hacker could be successful in biotech even without a doctorate these days.
- learc83 11y ago
  Biotech is nothing like computer hardware in the 80s, for one you can't do it out of a garage with a few hundred dollars worth of equipment. You need money and credentials just to get started for practical and regulatory reasons. It's more like starting Intel than Apple. I do agree with you though that it's probably her sales ability rather than her gender that led to the investments. I think it's likely the investors thought she'd make a great cover story, and that contributed somewhat to her success, but I doubt her gender was anywhere near the defining reason.

pen2l 11y ago

That's my reading too. She's basically Color's Bill Nguyen. I wish I was as good as these guys at hustling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nguyen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Nguyen

AndrewKemendo 11y ago
From your own link you would have seen that Bill successfully founded and sold two companies for 800M and 80M respectively. Yet apparently none of that matters because his most recent venture was a flop. What I'd do for that track record!

pushyriot 11y ago

Yes. In 2003, when she started the company at 19, Draper etc invested & other well known SJWs like Henry Kissinger & George Shultz joined her board because of her gender. They both knew & give a shit that a decade later people would be talking about diversity. For 12 years, she flipped her blonde hair & the men were fooled-& the money just kept pouring in. Do you really think VCs would invest $400 million & Walgreens & Cleveland Clinic would do deals with this company, that put people's health at risk & create massive liability, without diligence because she is a woman? Maybe Theranos will fail. Obviously fraud is unacceptable. And the lack of peer review helps no one. But, the idea that she was funded because of her gender is absurd. If anything, given all the data on this topic, she was funded in spite of it- because she was trying something very difficult & potentially revolutionary--not some dumb app. I hope you'll reconsider your thinking on this. Its hard enough for women to get funded; maybe it's worth giving them the benefit of the doubt when they do.

peteretep 11y ago
> Do you really think VCs would invest $400 million & > Walgreens & Cleveland Clinic would do deals with this > company, that put people's health at risk & create > massive liability, without diligence Yes. One way to help yourself swallow a bad decision is to look at all the other people also making it, and convince yourself that if they're doing it, it must be all right.
- monopolemagnet 11y ago
  Investments in companies mostly make money evaporate as a standard practice. Large-scale investors gravitate towards big risk/big reward ventures which require significant capital because it's saves having to make a zillion angel-scale deals. Plus, it seems sexier with extra-awesome brownie points to go after something which may be r/evolutionary. PS: Color was a snausage clusterfuck of dbag, hubris behaviors that ruined the team (and the venture). Hopefully, that elicited a corrective learning experience.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
no1ne 11y ago
You bash him because he had the audacity to wonder and have an opinion about how gender could have related to the publicity and valuations.. considering how we are constantly bombarded by p.c click-bait articles on female founders and such stuff, it does not seem so silly after all. Then you use the gender card to have us give her the benefit of the doubt just because she is a woman... well played :)

pushyriot 11y ago

matt4077 11y ago

To raise another, less misogynist, possibility: she does indeed appear to excellent at selling her idea. So maybe that let to her success in VC circles. There's also a lot of precedent in people dropping out of college and being success. Not just with software but also, for example, hardware – which is more similar to biotech. Considering the Wozniak/Jobs success with hardware in the 80ies, I don't find it entirely implausible that a smart hacker could be successful in biotech even without a doctorate these days.

learc83 11y ago
Biotech is nothing like computer hardware in the 80s, for one you can't do it out of a garage with a few hundred dollars worth of equipment. You need money and credentials just to get started for practical and regulatory reasons. It's more like starting Intel than Apple. I do agree with you though that it's probably her sales ability rather than her gender that led to the investments. I think it's likely the investors thought she'd make a great cover story, and that contributed somewhat to her success, but I doubt her gender was anywhere near the defining reason.