6 ms·

I think the reason we (maybe secretly) take so much satisfaction / schadenfreude at this story is that someone who was so hyped and the darling of Silicon Valle

I think the reason we (maybe secretly) take so much satisfaction / schadenfreude at this story is that someone who was so hyped and the darling of Silicon Valley got so much funding and attention. While others who toil away on good ideas, without nearly so many connections and silver spoons, struggle to even get 1 minute of air time with the kind of funders and backers that she got. That, plus seeing the cluelessness and herd mentality of the people who are supposedly the experts at judging tech potential in this area.

Mz 11y ago
Or maybe some folks feel relieved to have their mental models for actual reality validated. Folks who thought it smelled like vaporware at best, or BS at worst, may not be engaging in schadenfreude so much as "Ha! I knew it! I'm not crazy!" It is possible to have not ugly reasons for finding satisfaction in seeing how this is turning out.
- jjoonathan 11y ago
  Thanks, I miscategorized my own feelings of validation as schadenfreude and was feeling bad about it. Now I don't have to.
- wpietri 11y ago
  Good point. For me it's not exactly schadenfreude. I'm ok with hype that turns out to be justified. And I'm mostly resigned to people who go wrong through an excess of enthusiasm and naivete. But when unjustified hype shades into negligence or fraud, I take a rich pleasure in seeing people get their comeuppance. It's not schadenfreude precisely, but more about seeing justice done, about seeing karma fulfilled.
  - mikekchar 11y ago
    I don't speak German, but I don't know if it ceases being schadenfreude just because you feel that the bad thing that happens is justified. Indeed, the Wikipedia page on the word freely mixes those kinds of examples in their page. I'm not trying to be confrontational here, but recently I've been having a fairly negative reaction to the happy feelings that occur when justice is served. Sometimes I think this fuels a search for justice, where punishment is almost a desired goal from the beginning. The OP also discussed the feeling of satisfaction that their world view is justified when someone gets punished. Without trying to ascribe any intent to the OP, I get very bad vibes out of relentless searches for justice where the punishment of those caught fuels a reinforcement that a certain world view is correct. Of course this is completely blowing these feelings up out of proportion, but from small seeds grow tall trees. I have lately wondered if justice is really something we should not try to pursue.
    - csallen 11y ago
      It might interest you to check out Better Angels of Our Nature, a book by Steven Pinker about the history of violence. He argues that it's typical for humans to fall into cycles of retributive/vengeful violence against one another, or even "Hobbesian trap" patterns of preemptive violence. This leads to astronomically high rates of homicide. The development of governments that have a monopoly on the use of violence helped curb this. If both sides of a dispute cede their right to violence and entrust a neutral third party with dispensing justice, they can be satisfied with the outcome and save face. For obvious reasons, this leads to a much more civil society than people needing to take the law into their own hands. In this sense, it's actually a blessing that we're inclined to feel so satisfied seeing justice done by a third party.
      - chongli 11y ago
        In this sense, it's actually a blessing that we're inclined to feel so satisfied seeing justice done by a third party. Maybe, but the schadenfreude is going to boil over if we ever get to see Holmes being perp-walked in her black turtleneck.
    - wpietri 11y ago
      Anything can go awry, but looking at the headlines I don't think we have a surplus of justice in the world. And this: > I have lately wondered if justice is really something we should not try to pursue. That strikes me as the perspective of somebody who leads a very comfortable life.
    - Mz 11y ago
      The OP also discussed the feeling of satisfaction that their world view is justified when someone gets punished. If you mean me, I feel like this puts words in my mouth, words that I do not agree with. I am not a vindictive person. I am not taking glee in people being punished per se. But I have made my peace with the fact that when people pursue a bad path long enough, at some point, it is likely to get push back. It no longer bothers me that the pushback may involve what you are terming punishment. But, so far, what I am hearing is that Holmes is being banned from a thing, not thrown in jail. She may find that painful, but I don't think telling her "We expect you to stop this shit that is potentially harmful to other people." is actually punishment. It is merely protecting other people. If she cannot behave responsibly enough to provide a genuine service while getting rich, she has no God given right to do whatever the fuck she pleases. To my mind, this is in the vein of "Your right to swing your fist ends where my face begins." If you or Ms. Holmes thinks that is a painful and excessive restriction, well, too bad, so fucking sad. It isn't being done to hurt the woman. It is being done to stop her from hurting others.
- SilasX 11y ago
  Sufficiently advanced satisfaction at vindication of your worldmodel due to misfortune is indistinguishable from schafenfreude.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    Not at all. One is empirical where you hone the accuracy of your world model while being able to prove it to others if necessary. It can even benefit their own development and actions, but doesn't have to. An emotionless individual can also possess this trait. Even early robots in A.I. that self-adjusted had a form of this. Whereas, schafenfreude is an emotional response tied to others success or failures. Two different things with one being clearly superior unless one is pursuing emotional highs and lows.
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
    Yes. But what is happening here is not "misfortune" in the sense of something undeservedly bad happening to someone.
  - Mz 11y ago
    People lying and evading the law is hardly "misfortune." This company looks like it was bungled from the start. I have, so far, refrained from spouting off on my blog about it, but, as a woman, I am personally offended at this hype fest. All this cult of personality shit that swirled around this pretty young college drop out who was supposedly a billionaire by age 30 and now is looking like the queen of vaporware is just a huge fucking set back for women who want real careers. If all you want out of life is to be cooed at for being a media darling, go to fucking Hollywood. Stay the hell out of the business world.
GCA10 11y ago
Add Theranos's governance issues to the list, too. Most Valley startups make do with non-famous directors who hold VC/angel stakes -- and are prone to riding management hard about real or imagined problems with the business. That tension is part of the deal; it's pretty inescapable. Theranos created this alternative reality with globally famous directors in their 80s and 90s, who offered instant prestige, without being the types that would ever challenge the CEO's grasp of business details. Wow, it must a joy ride to have Dr. Kissinger on your board. Or maybe not. When Theranos's governance proved unreal, that became sweet vindication for every Valley CEO/CFO who ever stayed up past 1 a.m. getting every last number in shape for a hectoring, detail-obsessed board meeting the next day.
daurnimator 11y ago
FWIW, I had never heard of Theranos until they came up in the news with all these issues (and I read HN every day).
- ProAm 11y ago
  They were on 60 Minutes last year
- ghshephard 11y ago
  June of 2014 there was a massive press roll out for Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. You couldn't go anywhere, or look at a magazine rack, without seeing her face. http://fortune.com/2014/06/12/theranos-blood-holmes/ http://fortune.com/2014/06/12/theranos-blood-holmes/
  - spacehome 11y ago
    I'm the same -- I never heard of Theranos before the criticisms on HN. I also don't read magazines, read newspapers, watch TV, or listen to the radio.
  - corin_ 11y ago
    It's appeared on HN that far back (and further), as well. September 2013, 211 points 113 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349349 June 2014, 202 points 97 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7951019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7951019 August 2014, 180 points 76 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8181339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8181339 There's even a "Theranos" user account on HN that has been posting in "who's hiring" threads as far back as May 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Theranos&next=8682876 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Theranos&next=868287...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
jondubois 11y ago
Agreed. Most tech investors are not savvy enough to make informed decisions when it comes to high-tech ventures. A lot of investors rely on other investors' opinions as a barometer for quality/value because they don't understand what they're doing. When you have too many empty suits at the top making all the decisions, then you get into a situation of the blind leading the blind. It is shocking that it can happen at such a scale. It's frustrating for intelligent, motivated founders who do the hard work to watch vaporware competitors getting billion dollar valuations and taking all the market share right in front of them. Too many investors don't have a clue about what real innovation/value looks like because they've never actually seen it - Most of them probably got into their position through a combination of hard hustling and luck instead of through hard work and critical thinking. Unfortunately, hustling doesn't advance science or human knowledge.
- drij 11y ago
  Yet they are propped up by a lot of smart people. It's quite obvious that very few are disproportionally benefiting from modern tech. Unlikely to sustain much longer. Doug Rushkoff has a good talk on this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87TSoqnZass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87TSoqnZass There is a shorter version on BigThink.
awl130 11y ago
I think part of it is that the founder comes from a very well-connected family and her connections to institutional capital (Draper is a family friend; Lucas) and ridiculously high-level advisors in business (Oracle's Ellison) and the government (Frist) are not generally available to others.
- cb18 11y ago
  That stuff would seem to make it all the more strange. Was she "playing business" and got in over her head? Was it just an outright scam? Some people have said maybe those big name directors were brought in to grease the tracks as part of a deliberate scam. Who knows? Maybe there will be some answers if this probe turns up anything.
  - sbardle 11y ago
    I don't think it was intended to be a scam. The founder raised too much capital on the back of massively inflated expectations. They couldn't deliver (didn't one of the technical team commit suicide in despair over this?) and rather than doing the honest thing and returning the capital, they've ended up creating a Kafkaesque web of shadows and lies. The fundamental issue is overfunding, and it is not limited to this one company, which is why we're in bubble territory once again.
    - cb18 11y ago
      Yeah, I'm not particularly well-versed in this, but I'm inclined to agree. As others have mentioned they were probably just believing there own hype. There is the question though of at what point did they realize what they were attempting was pushing up against some fundamental limits and just wasn't going to work? Did they think they were going to pivot? At some point a 'web of shadows and lies' would have to be construed as a scam, wouldn't it? Even if that wasn't the initial intent.
    - DavidHm 11y ago
      I tend to agree. From what I've read about her (and not in the puff-pieces at the height of the Theranos hype) she was indeed a much smarter than average young lady - but probably the team was not able to deliver on the original vision/ idea, and rather than admit defeat, they tried to cling on it for as long as possible.
peter303 11y ago
It was concept we would have loved to have worked out- super efficient blood testing. Alas, it was too good to be true, or ahead of its time. Now the serious question is why the founder or board abandon the approach when it did not succeed. That whey the company became shady.
- transfire 11y ago
  What if it actually does work? All of the accusations I've read revolve around everything but the the actual science, e.g. not classifying their containers as Class II, instead of Class I.
AJ007 11y ago
It's satisfying to see enforcement against frauds, especially when they are so close to your own industry. I've seen people do sketchy stuff which seemed obviously wrong and publicly apparent for many, many years. Sometimes it finally catches up with them, but other times it does not, and they cash out, are rewarded, and praised by others who have great respect. That is deeply unnerving.
- baran1 11y ago
  interesting point. enforcement came via government.
  - duncan_bayne 11y ago
    That's one of the few things legitimate Government is for: prosecuting people for fraud.
rdiddly 11y ago
It's also because she's blonde.
enraged_camel 11y ago
I take satisfaction in it because of her incredibly irresponsible conduct. Medicine is a serious field where failure can cost lives. If your Twitter clone doesn't work, no one notices. If your "revolutionary" blood-testing device reports a false positive or false negative, it can lead to a misdiagnosis.
cb18 11y ago
cluelessness and herd mentality The guy[0] who pointed out how ridiculous the Rolling Stone UVA rape story was while the press was eating it up, made the point that when people are told what they want to hear they don't ask many questions. I wonder how much the Grrlpower element around this story dissuaded some obvious questions in the initial reporting around this mess. [0]http://richardbradley.net/ http://richardbradley.net/
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Not to immediately jump into your assertion as correct in this instance, I do recall such an element being used as an initial defense by GoldiBlox after they sued the Beastie Boys. It was a real horror show. Still wish it had gone to court for some legal clarity, oh well.
kofejnik 11y ago
I'm not making a secret out of it

Mz 11y ago

Or maybe some folks feel relieved to have their mental models for actual reality validated. Folks who thought it smelled like vaporware at best, or BS at worst, may not be engaging in schadenfreude so much as "Ha! I knew it! I'm not crazy!" It is possible to have not ugly reasons for finding satisfaction in seeing how this is turning out.

jjoonathan 11y ago
Thanks, I miscategorized my own feelings of validation as schadenfreude and was feeling bad about it. Now I don't have to.
wpietri 11y ago
Good point. For me it's not exactly schadenfreude. I'm ok with hype that turns out to be justified. And I'm mostly resigned to people who go wrong through an excess of enthusiasm and naivete. But when unjustified hype shades into negligence or fraud, I take a rich pleasure in seeing people get their comeuppance. It's not schadenfreude precisely, but more about seeing justice done, about seeing karma fulfilled.
- mikekchar 11y ago
  I don't speak German, but I don't know if it ceases being schadenfreude just because you feel that the bad thing that happens is justified. Indeed, the Wikipedia page on the word freely mixes those kinds of examples in their page. I'm not trying to be confrontational here, but recently I've been having a fairly negative reaction to the happy feelings that occur when justice is served. Sometimes I think this fuels a search for justice, where punishment is almost a desired goal from the beginning. The OP also discussed the feeling of satisfaction that their world view is justified when someone gets punished. Without trying to ascribe any intent to the OP, I get very bad vibes out of relentless searches for justice where the punishment of those caught fuels a reinforcement that a certain world view is correct. Of course this is completely blowing these feelings up out of proportion, but from small seeds grow tall trees. I have lately wondered if justice is really something we should not try to pursue.
  - csallen 11y ago
    It might interest you to check out Better Angels of Our Nature, a book by Steven Pinker about the history of violence. He argues that it's typical for humans to fall into cycles of retributive/vengeful violence against one another, or even "Hobbesian trap" patterns of preemptive violence. This leads to astronomically high rates of homicide. The development of governments that have a monopoly on the use of violence helped curb this. If both sides of a dispute cede their right to violence and entrust a neutral third party with dispensing justice, they can be satisfied with the outcome and save face. For obvious reasons, this leads to a much more civil society than people needing to take the law into their own hands. In this sense, it's actually a blessing that we're inclined to feel so satisfied seeing justice done by a third party.
    - chongli 11y ago
      In this sense, it's actually a blessing that we're inclined to feel so satisfied seeing justice done by a third party. Maybe, but the schadenfreude is going to boil over if we ever get to see Holmes being perp-walked in her black turtleneck.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    Anything can go awry, but looking at the headlines I don't think we have a surplus of justice in the world. And this: > I have lately wondered if justice is really something we should not try to pursue. That strikes me as the perspective of somebody who leads a very comfortable life.
  - Mz 11y ago
    The OP also discussed the feeling of satisfaction that their world view is justified when someone gets punished. If you mean me, I feel like this puts words in my mouth, words that I do not agree with. I am not a vindictive person. I am not taking glee in people being punished per se. But I have made my peace with the fact that when people pursue a bad path long enough, at some point, it is likely to get push back. It no longer bothers me that the pushback may involve what you are terming punishment. But, so far, what I am hearing is that Holmes is being banned from a thing, not thrown in jail. She may find that painful, but I don't think telling her "We expect you to stop this shit that is potentially harmful to other people." is actually punishment. It is merely protecting other people. If she cannot behave responsibly enough to provide a genuine service while getting rich, she has no God given right to do whatever the fuck she pleases. To my mind, this is in the vein of "Your right to swing your fist ends where my face begins." If you or Ms. Holmes thinks that is a painful and excessive restriction, well, too bad, so fucking sad. It isn't being done to hurt the woman. It is being done to stop her from hurting others.
SilasX 11y ago
Sufficiently advanced satisfaction at vindication of your worldmodel due to misfortune is indistinguishable from schafenfreude.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Not at all. One is empirical where you hone the accuracy of your world model while being able to prove it to others if necessary. It can even benefit their own development and actions, but doesn't have to. An emotionless individual can also possess this trait. Even early robots in A.I. that self-adjusted had a form of this. Whereas, schafenfreude is an emotional response tied to others success or failures. Two different things with one being clearly superior unless one is pursuing emotional highs and lows.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago
  Yes. But what is happening here is not "misfortune" in the sense of something undeservedly bad happening to someone.
- Mz 11y ago
  People lying and evading the law is hardly "misfortune." This company looks like it was bungled from the start. I have, so far, refrained from spouting off on my blog about it, but, as a woman, I am personally offended at this hype fest. All this cult of personality shit that swirled around this pretty young college drop out who was supposedly a billionaire by age 30 and now is looking like the queen of vaporware is just a huge fucking set back for women who want real careers. If all you want out of life is to be cooed at for being a media darling, go to fucking Hollywood. Stay the hell out of the business world.

GCA10 11y ago

Add Theranos's governance issues to the list, too. Most Valley startups make do with non-famous directors who hold VC/angel stakes -- and are prone to riding management hard about real or imagined problems with the business. That tension is part of the deal; it's pretty inescapable. Theranos created this alternative reality with globally famous directors in their 80s and 90s, who offered instant prestige, without being the types that would ever challenge the CEO's grasp of business details. Wow, it must a joy ride to have Dr. Kissinger on your board. Or maybe not. When Theranos's governance proved unreal, that became sweet vindication for every Valley CEO/CFO who ever stayed up past 1 a.m. getting every last number in shape for a hectoring, detail-obsessed board meeting the next day.

daurnimator 11y ago

FWIW, I had never heard of Theranos until they came up in the news with all these issues (and I read HN every day).

ProAm 11y ago
They were on 60 Minutes last year
ghshephard 11y ago
June of 2014 there was a massive press roll out for Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. You couldn't go anywhere, or look at a magazine rack, without seeing her face. http://fortune.com/2014/06/12/theranos-blood-holmes/ http://fortune.com/2014/06/12/theranos-blood-holmes/
- spacehome 11y ago
  I'm the same -- I never heard of Theranos before the criticisms on HN. I also don't read magazines, read newspapers, watch TV, or listen to the radio.
- corin_ 11y ago
  It's appeared on HN that far back (and further), as well. September 2013, 211 points 113 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349349 June 2014, 202 points 97 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7951019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7951019 August 2014, 180 points 76 comments, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8181339 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8181339 There's even a "Theranos" user account on HN that has been posting in "who's hiring" threads as far back as May 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Theranos&next=8682876 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=Theranos&next=868287...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

jondubois 11y ago

Agreed. Most tech investors are not savvy enough to make informed decisions when it comes to high-tech ventures. A lot of investors rely on other investors' opinions as a barometer for quality/value because they don't understand what they're doing. When you have too many empty suits at the top making all the decisions, then you get into a situation of the blind leading the blind. It is shocking that it can happen at such a scale. It's frustrating for intelligent, motivated founders who do the hard work to watch vaporware competitors getting billion dollar valuations and taking all the market share right in front of them. Too many investors don't have a clue about what real innovation/value looks like because they've never actually seen it - Most of them probably got into their position through a combination of hard hustling and luck instead of through hard work and critical thinking. Unfortunately, hustling doesn't advance science or human knowledge.

drij 11y ago
Yet they are propped up by a lot of smart people. It's quite obvious that very few are disproportionally benefiting from modern tech. Unlikely to sustain much longer. Doug Rushkoff has a good talk on this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87TSoqnZass https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87TSoqnZass There is a shorter version on BigThink.

awl130 11y ago

I think part of it is that the founder comes from a very well-connected family and her connections to institutional capital (Draper is a family friend; Lucas) and ridiculously high-level advisors in business (Oracle's Ellison) and the government (Frist) are not generally available to others.

cb18 11y ago
That stuff would seem to make it all the more strange. Was she "playing business" and got in over her head? Was it just an outright scam? Some people have said maybe those big name directors were brought in to grease the tracks as part of a deliberate scam. Who knows? Maybe there will be some answers if this probe turns up anything.
- sbardle 11y ago
  I don't think it was intended to be a scam. The founder raised too much capital on the back of massively inflated expectations. They couldn't deliver (didn't one of the technical team commit suicide in despair over this?) and rather than doing the honest thing and returning the capital, they've ended up creating a Kafkaesque web of shadows and lies. The fundamental issue is overfunding, and it is not limited to this one company, which is why we're in bubble territory once again.
  - cb18 11y ago
    Yeah, I'm not particularly well-versed in this, but I'm inclined to agree. As others have mentioned they were probably just believing there own hype. There is the question though of at what point did they realize what they were attempting was pushing up against some fundamental limits and just wasn't going to work? Did they think they were going to pivot? At some point a 'web of shadows and lies' would have to be construed as a scam, wouldn't it? Even if that wasn't the initial intent.
  - DavidHm 11y ago
    I tend to agree. From what I've read about her (and not in the puff-pieces at the height of the Theranos hype) she was indeed a much smarter than average young lady - but probably the team was not able to deliver on the original vision/ idea, and rather than admit defeat, they tried to cling on it for as long as possible.

peter303 11y ago

It was concept we would have loved to have worked out- super efficient blood testing. Alas, it was too good to be true, or ahead of its time. Now the serious question is why the founder or board abandon the approach when it did not succeed. That whey the company became shady.

transfire 11y ago
What if it actually does work? All of the accusations I've read revolve around everything but the the actual science, e.g. not classifying their containers as Class II, instead of Class I.

AJ007 11y ago

It's satisfying to see enforcement against frauds, especially when they are so close to your own industry. I've seen people do sketchy stuff which seemed obviously wrong and publicly apparent for many, many years. Sometimes it finally catches up with them, but other times it does not, and they cash out, are rewarded, and praised by others who have great respect. That is deeply unnerving.

baran1 11y ago
interesting point. enforcement came via government.
- duncan_bayne 11y ago
  That's one of the few things legitimate Government is for: prosecuting people for fraud.

rdiddly 11y ago

It's also because she's blonde.

enraged_camel 11y ago

I take satisfaction in it because of her incredibly irresponsible conduct. Medicine is a serious field where failure can cost lives. If your Twitter clone doesn't work, no one notices. If your "revolutionary" blood-testing device reports a false positive or false negative, it can lead to a misdiagnosis.

cb18 11y ago

cluelessness and herd mentality The guy[0] who pointed out how ridiculous the Rolling Stone UVA rape story was while the press was eating it up, made the point that when people are told what they want to hear they don't ask many questions. I wonder how much the Grrlpower element around this story dissuaded some obvious questions in the initial reporting around this mess. [0]http://richardbradley.net/ http://richardbradley.net/

6stringmerc 11y ago
Not to immediately jump into your assertion as correct in this instance, I do recall such an element being used as an initial defense by GoldiBlox after they sued the Beastie Boys. It was a real horror show. Still wish it had gone to court for some legal clarity, oh well.

kofejnik 11y ago

I'm not making a secret out of it