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>In the Theranos case I suspect the 'big names' blinded investors, which is dumb on a very basic level. But it's their money and if they decide to throw it awa

>In the Theranos case I suspect the 'big names' blinded investors, which is dumb on a very basic level. But it's their money and if they decide to throw it away on a BS project that is their right. It's funny that you yourself were very high on Theranos in early articles on this site, and specifically praised the obvious due diligence these companies must have done.

jacquesm 11y ago
I wasn't high enough to invest money in them and I would not have invested money without doing DD (not that I would be let anywhere near that project anyway). The main point is that I (and many with me) are quite shocked that this amount of investment was done without anybody knowledgeable in the field apparently doing DD on the company. That there is a mechanism that explains this is what makes it interesting, especially given the size of the various investments. There are a few more cases like this that are - in my opinion at least - more interesting still because they are closer to fields that I know more about than about bloodworks. And that's one of the main take-aways for me, investors should invest in things that they understand or they should hire their own independent experts to verify that the technology is real, but in practice even if they know this they do not always do it, even at the level of Theranos (hard to imagine, but there is pretty solid proof by now). That Theranos is - at this point this seems likely - a lemon is a very good and extremely expensive lesson for anybody that wishes to invest looking at the bona-fides of the other investors already on board. That should count for exactly nothing. Good luck convincing the world of that but that is my conclusion. The way I read the Theranos story is that the dream didn't work out, that - rather than welcome inquiry and fixing of the tech. They chose to become super defensive and play silly games rather than to open up which suggests that there is a level of self deception going on. And this is where it becomes very hard to distinguish a scam from an accident and a fraud from simply one of many failed investments. If anything the level rather than the principles here are what attracts attention, you see this situation in the investment world with great regularity at lower levels of investment and usually these take much less time to play out. I wonder if at some level Theranos and its executives still believe they can 'fix' the technology or if they have actually given up on that. This will be the harder part for them, to acknowledge defeat and to own it. It's a sad story, nothing to be gleeful about but at least for me there are some very valuable lessons here. Social proof is no proof at all and each and every investor that lost (or stands to lose) money in this whole saga will have paid a very dear price to learn that lesson. Next up: uBeam.

jacquesm 11y ago

I wasn't high enough to invest money in them and I would not have invested money without doing DD (not that I would be let anywhere near that project anyway). The main point is that I (and many with me) are quite shocked that this amount of investment was done without anybody knowledgeable in the field apparently doing DD on the company. That there is a mechanism that explains this is what makes it interesting, especially given the size of the various investments. There are a few more cases like this that are - in my opinion at least - more interesting still because they are closer to fields that I know more about than about bloodworks. And that's one of the main take-aways for me, investors should invest in things that they understand or they should hire their own independent experts to verify that the technology is real, but in practice even if they know this they do not always do it, even at the level of Theranos (hard to imagine, but there is pretty solid proof by now). That Theranos is - at this point this seems likely - a lemon is a very good and extremely expensive lesson for anybody that wishes to invest looking at the bona-fides of the other investors already on board. That should count for exactly nothing. Good luck convincing the world of that but that is my conclusion. The way I read the Theranos story is that the dream didn't work out, that - rather than welcome inquiry and fixing of the tech. They chose to become super defensive and play silly games rather than to open up which suggests that there is a level of self deception going on. And this is where it becomes very hard to distinguish a scam from an accident and a fraud from simply one of many failed investments. If anything the level rather than the principles here are what attracts attention, you see this situation in the investment world with great regularity at lower levels of investment and usually these take much less time to play out. I wonder if at some level Theranos and its executives still believe they can 'fix' the technology or if they have actually given up on that. This will be the harder part for them, to acknowledge defeat and to own it. It's a sad story, nothing to be gleeful about but at least for me there are some very valuable lessons here. Social proof is no proof at all and each and every investor that lost (or stands to lose) money in this whole saga will have paid a very dear price to learn that lesson. Next up: uBeam.