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Murderers have a victim party that lay charges. Have the investors or beta users laid charges? I actually don't know. Like I said AFAIK, Theranos hasn't taken

by pj_mukh 11y ago

Murderers have a victim party that lay charges. Have the investors or beta users laid charges? I actually don't know. Like I said AFAIK, Theranos hasn't taken money away from any more deserving startup. Though, I agree $400M is A LOT of money gone to a supposed undeserved startup. Maybe that's the source of the rage.

st3v3r 11y ago
Money is finite. Money given to Theranos means the funds have less money to invest elsewhere. So yes, they did take money away from more deserving startups.
toss1 11y ago
Wow. Just because there is not yet a specific harm to a specific person enumerated to you in a way that you understand and agree with, no one should be annoyed and everyone should just let it happen? There do exist broader harms, and people's behavior can be so egregious that it "offends the sensibilities". Start with the least of, yet most salient of your stated issues: did Theranos divert money from other more deserving startups -- 'AFAYK, no specific one of those dollars was kept from another specific deserving startup familiar to you, so it's OK'? Really? Are you saying that all other startups are similarly dishonest and undeserving, or that because because no one can specifically track it to your satisfaction, no one should be PO'd? Related to your other posts, and as another responder commented, this is not a case of a mere unfinished app with noticeable demand, to which funds and effort are applied until it gets built-out until v1.1 gets rolled out. This is a case where the "app" is a blood test critical to people's lives, determining drug dosages, treatment courses and outcomes, etc. A failure here can really f*$k up someone's life or kill them, not just inconvenience them because the app failed to load and order their dinner. Moreover, this is a case where Theranos clearly must have known that the basic technology DID NOT WORK and COULD NOT BE MADE TO WORK with any reasonable effort. The right thing to do after a suitable amount of R&D is to shut it down and return remaining money to investors. Many startups have done this. Instead, Theranos decided perpetrate a continuing fraud on investors, customers and the public. They used competitor's machines claiming to be using their own machines. This defrauds everyone, pollutes the investing and entrepreneurial ecosystem, and puts patients at risk. (but AFAYK, this is no reason for anyone to be even a bit annoyed...) Worse yet, and this is one of the bases for the govt's CRIMINAL investigation, Theranos was using hordes of UNQUALIFIED technicians running both the test equipment, and they even CONTINUED to do so after being previously warned by the govt. WTF?!? This is the most simple, basic management -- no science or engineering here -- just use some of your $400MM to hire people with the required credentials to perform tests upon which people rely for their health and life. And the CEO then said that she didn't know about it? This is just obviously a culture of fraud and corner-cutting, in which the only thing that mattered was the image. Theranos may indeed have started out as an honest development effort (I hope so). But at some point it obviously became clear internally that the tech did not and would not work. At that point, Theranos decided (explicitly or implicitly) to continue to maintain the facade, and wandered off into fraud. If you don't understand that this kind of behavior violates social and legal norms in many ways, and that people are normally annoyed at these sorts of violations and failures to uphold the norms that bind us together as a society, then I'm not sure anyone could help you. And saying that it is OK to lie, cheat, and steal as long as nobody can articulate a specific harm to a specific person puts you on the outside of society, and not in a good way. OTOH, if you're just trolling, then well played.
- pj_mukh 11y ago
  "This is a case where the "app" is a blood test critical to people's lives, determining drug dosages, treatment courses and outcomes, etc. A failure here can really f*$k up someone's life or kill them, not just inconvenience them because the app failed to load and order their dinner." There is a whole government agency dedicated to making sure this doesn't happen. The 'app' analogy doesn't work. They have the power to shut all of a companies services. My only point was, let the FDA do its thing. I don't want a company to die just because there is an article written about it multiple times a day (seriously, monitor the frontpage of HN for this). There is no way to tell between actual journalism and clickbait. I'm sure you would agree, at this point these articles are doing nothing but fulfilling a sense of schadenfreude in us. The government and the FDA are on it. I HOPE at this point that we are all right and the government takes the company down and shuts it down. If it turns out they didn't do anything illegal and just runs out of money in a couple of years, would that be fair?
  - toss1 11y ago
    OK, so we do have a federal agency to monitor this stuff. We also have police. Does this mean that we should not be annoyed when criminals do their crimes, or not be annoyed that we need to be vigilant and protect ourselves against criminals? Of course not -- these federal monitoring agencies/police are a necessary burden, and they only marginally prevent crime -- the crimes still happen, and the agencies/police only come in after to investigate and punish. Meanwhile, people's lives are harmed or ended -- by the criminals -- who act with impunity until caught and punished. Now, are Holmes and the rest of Theranos' mgt criminals? Of course none of us actually know, we have only a preponderance of second-hand evidence from the press and from government actions. If you are saying that we shouldn't trust any of this, that Theranos is really a bunch of upstanding citizens being brought down by a malicious government and press, then say so. Otherwise, if there is a reason to put some trust in the actions of the govt and the press, then we shouldn't be the slightest bit surprised at the anger, schadenfreude, and impatience to have them taken down. IMO, based on the public info, Theranos has become a criminally fraudulent enterprise, and my biggest emotions are anger that they got away with it for so long and impatience at wanting to see them taken down sooner (of course, if it turned out to be a malicious govt and press, then I'd be defending Theranos even more strongly than I now despise them, as a malicious govt and press are an even bigger betrayal of our trust). Re: If they didn't actually do anything illegal and just ran out of money? NO, simply spending down the funds until they are exhausted on a known dead-end project is not fair. At this point, they've had and years of time with unrestricted access to hundreds of millions of dollars for R&D. They will have either 1) a known path forward with a method that can be engineered into a usable solution, or 2) the knowledge that there is no such path in sight or that they are obstructed by physical limits, or 3) neither of these. If 1), they should already be engineering it towards success (and not testing it in the field with unqualified techs). If 2), they should politely shut down and return unspent funds. If 3), then they have and incompetent R&D effort and should also return the unspent funds. Simply continuing to spend down the funds in condition 2 or 3 is at the very least dishonest/fraudlent to the investors (or other entrepreneurs who might access those investment funds), since it is now known that there is no realistic chance for success.

by pj_mukh 11y ago

st3v3r 11y ago

Money is finite. Money given to Theranos means the funds have less money to invest elsewhere. So yes, they did take money away from more deserving startups.

toss1 11y ago

Wow. Just because there is not yet a specific harm to a specific person enumerated to you in a way that you understand and agree with, no one should be annoyed and everyone should just let it happen? There do exist broader harms, and people's behavior can be so egregious that it "offends the sensibilities". Start with the least of, yet most salient of your stated issues: did Theranos divert money from other more deserving startups -- 'AFAYK, no specific one of those dollars was kept from another specific deserving startup familiar to you, so it's OK'? Really? Are you saying that all other startups are similarly dishonest and undeserving, or that because because no one can specifically track it to your satisfaction, no one should be PO'd? Related to your other posts, and as another responder commented, this is not a case of a mere unfinished app with noticeable demand, to which funds and effort are applied until it gets built-out until v1.1 gets rolled out. This is a case where the "app" is a blood test critical to people's lives, determining drug dosages, treatment courses and outcomes, etc. A failure here can really f*$k up someone's life or kill them, not just inconvenience them because the app failed to load and order their dinner. Moreover, this is a case where Theranos clearly must have known that the basic technology DID NOT WORK and COULD NOT BE MADE TO WORK with any reasonable effort. The right thing to do after a suitable amount of R&D is to shut it down and return remaining money to investors. Many startups have done this. Instead, Theranos decided perpetrate a continuing fraud on investors, customers and the public. They used competitor's machines claiming to be using their own machines. This defrauds everyone, pollutes the investing and entrepreneurial ecosystem, and puts patients at risk. (but AFAYK, this is no reason for anyone to be even a bit annoyed...) Worse yet, and this is one of the bases for the govt's CRIMINAL investigation, Theranos was using hordes of UNQUALIFIED technicians running both the test equipment, and they even CONTINUED to do so after being previously warned by the govt. WTF?!? This is the most simple, basic management -- no science or engineering here -- just use some of your $400MM to hire people with the required credentials to perform tests upon which people rely for their health and life. And the CEO then said that she didn't know about it? This is just obviously a culture of fraud and corner-cutting, in which the only thing that mattered was the image. Theranos may indeed have started out as an honest development effort (I hope so). But at some point it obviously became clear internally that the tech did not and would not work. At that point, Theranos decided (explicitly or implicitly) to continue to maintain the facade, and wandered off into fraud. If you don't understand that this kind of behavior violates social and legal norms in many ways, and that people are normally annoyed at these sorts of violations and failures to uphold the norms that bind us together as a society, then I'm not sure anyone could help you. And saying that it is OK to lie, cheat, and steal as long as nobody can articulate a specific harm to a specific person puts you on the outside of society, and not in a good way. OTOH, if you're just trolling, then well played.

pj_mukh 11y ago
"This is a case where the "app" is a blood test critical to people's lives, determining drug dosages, treatment courses and outcomes, etc. A failure here can really f*$k up someone's life or kill them, not just inconvenience them because the app failed to load and order their dinner." There is a whole government agency dedicated to making sure this doesn't happen. The 'app' analogy doesn't work. They have the power to shut all of a companies services. My only point was, let the FDA do its thing. I don't want a company to die just because there is an article written about it multiple times a day (seriously, monitor the frontpage of HN for this). There is no way to tell between actual journalism and clickbait. I'm sure you would agree, at this point these articles are doing nothing but fulfilling a sense of schadenfreude in us. The government and the FDA are on it. I HOPE at this point that we are all right and the government takes the company down and shuts it down. If it turns out they didn't do anything illegal and just runs out of money in a couple of years, would that be fair?
- toss1 11y ago
  OK, so we do have a federal agency to monitor this stuff. We also have police. Does this mean that we should not be annoyed when criminals do their crimes, or not be annoyed that we need to be vigilant and protect ourselves against criminals? Of course not -- these federal monitoring agencies/police are a necessary burden, and they only marginally prevent crime -- the crimes still happen, and the agencies/police only come in after to investigate and punish. Meanwhile, people's lives are harmed or ended -- by the criminals -- who act with impunity until caught and punished. Now, are Holmes and the rest of Theranos' mgt criminals? Of course none of us actually know, we have only a preponderance of second-hand evidence from the press and from government actions. If you are saying that we shouldn't trust any of this, that Theranos is really a bunch of upstanding citizens being brought down by a malicious government and press, then say so. Otherwise, if there is a reason to put some trust in the actions of the govt and the press, then we shouldn't be the slightest bit surprised at the anger, schadenfreude, and impatience to have them taken down. IMO, based on the public info, Theranos has become a criminally fraudulent enterprise, and my biggest emotions are anger that they got away with it for so long and impatience at wanting to see them taken down sooner (of course, if it turned out to be a malicious govt and press, then I'd be defending Theranos even more strongly than I now despise them, as a malicious govt and press are an even bigger betrayal of our trust). Re: If they didn't actually do anything illegal and just ran out of money? NO, simply spending down the funds until they are exhausted on a known dead-end project is not fair. At this point, they've had and years of time with unrestricted access to hundreds of millions of dollars for R&D. They will have either 1) a known path forward with a method that can be engineered into a usable solution, or 2) the knowledge that there is no such path in sight or that they are obstructed by physical limits, or 3) neither of these. If 1), they should already be engineering it towards success (and not testing it in the field with unqualified techs). If 2), they should politely shut down and return unspent funds. If 3), then they have and incompetent R&D effort and should also return the unspent funds. Simply continuing to spend down the funds in condition 2 or 3 is at the very least dishonest/fraudlent to the investors (or other entrepreneurs who might access those investment funds), since it is now known that there is no realistic chance for success.