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Yeah, I kind of feel bad for Elizabeth Holmes. She was built up into this superstar by the media, when she was really just an ambitious kid who developed some c

by exelius 11y ago

Yeah, I kind of feel bad for Elizabeth Holmes. She was built up into this superstar by the media, when she was really just an ambitious kid who developed some cool tech. Now she's likely looking at a prison sentence for fraud, because they're not going to pin this on her VC backers or their powerful friends... I get the feeling that she kind of got wrapped up in something that spiraled out of control. She developed a promising new technology that ended up not working out for the use case they intended; but by that point it was too late to pivot because there were too many deals in place already. She's obviously brilliant, it's just a shame that her youth and naiveté were taken advantage of by greedy biotech VC assholes.

blackguardx 11y ago
I'm not that familiar with her story. What did she develop? Did she get funding based on the prototypes she made? I always assumed the money came first and then engineers and scientists developed the tech. She provided the vision.
- exelius 11y ago
  From what I understand, she developed the initial prototypes as an undergrad at Stanford and one of her professors helped hook her up with a bunch of VCs with powerful friends. Could just be part of the mythos as well; it can be hard to tell with startups like this.
snowwrestler 11y ago
People don't just get "built up into this superstar by the media." To the extent Theranos and Holmes became media superstars, they at least participated fully in that process. More likely is that they had an aggressive PR function that actively sought positive media coverage, and succeeded. Just like some PR operation in Silicon Valley undoubtedly did the legwork to get this op-ed posted by the NY Times.
woah 11y ago
What technology did she develop? It sounds like none of it worked.
- exelius 11y ago
  I thought she developed the initial prototypes and proved that the concept could work. The fact that it couldn't improve / scale is the risk of startups. IMO you had a bunch of Silicon Valley types who are used to ignoring the rules and shipping a "minimum viable product" and improving it later -- but that strategy doesn't work in medical devices (at least if you can't get FDA certification before the shit hits the fan). Her technology worked, but not as well as they had initially hoped and some of the roadblocks turned out to be bigger than they had anticipated. That's the name of the game with biotech startups. Theranos just expanded far too early. They made a bet that they could improve the quality before they hit scale, and they lost that bet. Then they tried to cover it up, which seems to be what people will go to jail over.
st3v3r 11y ago
What tech did the company develop? How is she obviously brilliant?

by exelius 11y ago

blackguardx 11y ago

I'm not that familiar with her story. What did she develop? Did she get funding based on the prototypes she made? I always assumed the money came first and then engineers and scientists developed the tech. She provided the vision.

exelius 11y ago
From what I understand, she developed the initial prototypes as an undergrad at Stanford and one of her professors helped hook her up with a bunch of VCs with powerful friends. Could just be part of the mythos as well; it can be hard to tell with startups like this.

snowwrestler 11y ago

People don't just get "built up into this superstar by the media." To the extent Theranos and Holmes became media superstars, they at least participated fully in that process. More likely is that they had an aggressive PR function that actively sought positive media coverage, and succeeded. Just like some PR operation in Silicon Valley undoubtedly did the legwork to get this op-ed posted by the NY Times.

woah 11y ago

What technology did she develop? It sounds like none of it worked.

exelius 11y ago
I thought she developed the initial prototypes and proved that the concept could work. The fact that it couldn't improve / scale is the risk of startups. IMO you had a bunch of Silicon Valley types who are used to ignoring the rules and shipping a "minimum viable product" and improving it later -- but that strategy doesn't work in medical devices (at least if you can't get FDA certification before the shit hits the fan). Her technology worked, but not as well as they had initially hoped and some of the roadblocks turned out to be bigger than they had anticipated. That's the name of the game with biotech startups. Theranos just expanded far too early. They made a bet that they could improve the quality before they hit scale, and they lost that bet. Then they tried to cover it up, which seems to be what people will go to jail over.

st3v3r 11y ago

What tech did the company develop? How is she obviously brilliant?