6 ms·

DFJ's Draper: There's Nothing Wrong with Theranos [video]

44 points by uptown 10y ago

exolymph 10y ago
Can you put [video] in the title?
projectramo 10y ago
And you know what: we can't dismiss him. The interesting thing here is that we can't just say that's not true. I am not making a larger point about solipsism or our inability to know reality. I mean the much narrower point of not being able to tell -- from the press -- whether a company actually has a technology that works. Think about the implications that has for investing in public stocks. Let's ignore the cases of fraud like Enron etc., and focus on an ordinary company that honestly reports what it is doing. EDIT: I have followed the Theranos story, so I know about the legal actions etc. What I can't tell is if there is poor science at the heart of it, or it is a case of poor scaling and application of good science.
- Animats 10y ago
  Well, after the FDA shut down many of the company's operations, and Walgreens pulled out of their contract to use Theranos services, one might suspect that their technology does not actually work. If it did work, it would be straightforward for them to demonstrate that it did.
  - projectramo 10y ago
    Didn't it have to demonstrate to both Walgreens and the FDA that it was working before? I can't tell if it never worked, or if something prevented it from scaling.
- dimdimdim 10y ago
  >>I mean the much narrower point of not being able to tell -- from the press -- whether a company actually has a technology that works. http://www.wsj.com/article_email/theranos-voids-two-years-of-edison-blood-test-results-1463616976-lMyQjAxMTI2NTEzOTcxODkxWj http://www.wsj.com/article_email/theranos-voids-two-years-of... ??
- minimaxir 10y ago
  > I mean the much narrower point of not being able to tell -- from the press -- whether a company actually has a technology that works. There have been empirical actions which resulted based on Theranos's errors, including FDA/SEC investigations and Walgreens revoking their partnership. Those aren't media spins.
  - projectramo 10y ago
    But didn't Walgreens have to test the technology to agree to the partnership in the first place? There is a difference between the tech that doesn't work and tech that cannot work. The former will work eventually, but the latter can never work. Can you tell which it is?
    - gumby 10y ago
      > But didn't Walgreens have to test the technology to agree to the partnership in the first place? Famously Walgreen's didn't do due diligence. > There is a difference between the tech that doesn't work and tech that cannot work. It was already pretty well known that blood concentrations vary enough in the body that you need large samples to get reproducible results. Life science VCs all passed on this deal. The fundamental science was not there. Note: I have worked in pharma and designed successful clinical trials.
- Zigurd 10y ago
  I don't know what point you are trying to make, but Theranos is not some reality-bending exceptional case. You might say it's possible he is correct, but, yes, one can dismiss "There's nothing wrong with Theranos." There have been documented wrongs that nobody has tried to refute.
  - projectramo 10y ago
    In your opinion, has it been documented that the technology doesn't work or that they couldn't apply the technology properly in the field? In other words: 1. Is it fraud and poor science? 2. Is it good science but still immature? That is the key distinction.
    - Zigurd 10y ago
      Your question attempts to make a distinction without a difference. The Theranos machine does not work because nobody knows how to make whatever theory they had work in practice. Moreover, Theranos's management knew that as they were selling unreliable lab results.
- conistonwater 10y ago
  > I mean the much narrower point of not being able to tell -- from the press -- whether a company actually has a technology that works. There has always been a simple solution to this: it is the company's own job to clearly demonstrate that it has a working technology. If you view it that way, then the press's inability to prove it one way or the other doesn't matter because the responsibility lies with the company. In fact, Theranos was quite unusual among lab companies from the beginning in that it didn't follow the path other companies followed in showing they had a working technology. Anything less than a clear proof by the company, and the subsequent confusion is the company's own fault.
  - projectramo 10y ago
    To demonstrate it to whom?
yueq 10y ago
stockholm syndrome?
- joezydeco 10y ago
  sunk-cost fallacy.
dimdimdim 10y ago
Unbelievable - even if he said Theranos is trying to get their shit together and there have been some mistakes, it would make sense. To say its just a smear campaign is ridiculous - what about the thousands of results they withdrew as they admitted it was wrong? http://www.wsj.com/article_email/theranos-voids-two-years-of-edison-blood-test-results-1463616976-lMyQjAxMTI2NTEzOTcxODkxWj http://www.wsj.com/article_email/theranos-voids-two-years-of... It's even more ridiculous to call her one of the greatest female entrepreneurs! I had a lot of respect for Draper but this is so disappointing. Just to make sure their investment does not hit a big ZERO value, they seem to be siding with an entrepreneur who has wronged everyone! What a shame!
- entee 10y ago
  I'm not sure if he's completely blind or self-deluded. I hope to believe that he's not saying these things just to line his own pockets. Being delusional isn't malicious. That said, it makes me wonder how it is possible for someone to live so far outside a reasonable view of the world. We should critically examine the press, but these days conspiracy theories are running rampant and we can't seem to agree on a common set of facts to examine anymore. The facts here are clear, Theranos has sold a product that doesn't work irresponsibly, and done so without proper science.
  - minimaxir 10y ago
    Back when the first anti-Theranos article was published, VC Dave Morin argued that it was the duty of Millennials to dig deeper and investigate the press for the possibility of a smear campaign: https://twitter.com/williamalden/status/658705178523258880 https://twitter.com/williamalden/status/658705178523258880 After Theranos admitted fault, he retracted those comments.
- xiaoma 10y ago
  >"I had a lot of respect for Draper but this is so disappointing." Didn't you ever read Founders at Work and what DFJ did to the Hotmail guys?
  - 10y ago
grandalf 10y ago
Theranos technology is more like typical startup tech. How many bugs did Facebook's feed algorithm suffer before it finally got stable? How many pages of sub-optimal search results has Google returned? How many major security bugs have been found in Windows, Chrome, Linux, etc? Healthcare is one area where many people (particularly Americans) have the absurd idea that everything has to work perfectly. Think of the level of indignation people feel when a surgeon who spent 15 years beyond college doing advanced training (for little pay) makes a small mistake that costs someone's life. Or an OB misjudges something and ends up in a major lawsuit. But for other jobs, mistakes are a part of life. In software we are proud to decrease our bugs through testing and improved techniques and processes, but nobody expects perfection. Even mass market products like TurboTax ship with tons of bugs. Lawyers routinely let innocent people wind up in jail out of pure incompetence. We need to get over it. Theranos is doing something very smart and while it needs some additional refinement, it is pretty clear that doing large scale blood testing/monitoring is the future of diagnostic medicine. The irrationality we have about healthcare being perfect is a) false (mistakes get swept under the rug all the time) and b) counterproductive because it gives us a sense of mastery over our destiny that we simply do not (yet) have. Let's also not forget that medicine is plagued by a very irrational risk aversion, which is why many useful treatments are available around the world but not in the US.
- minimaxir 10y ago
  > Healthcare is one area where many people (particularly Americans) have the absurd idea that everything has to work perfectly. There's a line between not working perfectly and not working at all.
- dimdimdim 10y ago
  Not when your bug can kill a person or damage his organs due to wrong medication give because of a wrong test result. http://www.wsj.com/article_email/theranos-voids-two-years-of-edison-blood-test-results-1463616976-lMyQjAxMTI2NTEzOTcxODkxWj http://www.wsj.com/article_email/theranos-voids-two-years-of... There is a reason Healthcare is regulated and required multiple degrees of testing before it can be released to the general public -- imagine every new "health startup" pushing new drugs and then saying they'll "fix a bug" when a couple of folks die. The comparison is immature.
joezydeco 10y ago
Their top spokeswoman just resigned today: http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Theranos-spokeswoman-Brooke-Buchanan-to-exit-8323546.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Theranos-spokesw...
- w1ntermute 10y ago
  Full text: https://notehub.org/iugbf https://notehub.org/iugbf
stanfordkid 10y ago
Tim Draper is, quite frankly, the Trump of Venture Capital. He's a great, nurturing guy though in terms of personality and affect.
- dimdimdim 10y ago
  I love his song though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTrz6lMQGAs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTrz6lMQGAs :)
w1ntermute 10y ago
The rights to the Theranos movie (Adam McKay, JLaw) have been picked up by Legendary Pictures[0]. Looks like the tentative title is Bad Blood. Too bad they didn't go with the HN-recommended title, Unicorn Blood[1]. 0: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/06/jennifer-lawrence-theranos-elizabeth-holmes http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/06/jennifer-lawrenc... 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876937
- dmix 10y ago
  From the Vanity Fair link: > “They basically tell the story of how Elizabeth Holmes created these fraudulent blood-testing machines, raised $9 billion through venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, and refuses to admit they don’t work even when it is obvious the testing is inaccurate,” says a studio source familiar with how the project was pitched. This old hat: they were valued at $9 billion by VCs while raising $400 million in 2014.
- wavefunction 10y ago
  They'd have to pay someone if they took any suggestions. Or even acknowledged being exposed to suggestions.
grandalf 10y ago
re-posting my comment so it can be read and rebutted rather than just downvoted: Theranos technology is more like typical startup tech. How many bugs did Facebook's feed algorithm suffer before it finally got stable? How many pages of sub-optimal search results has Google returned? How many major security bugs have been found in Windows, Chrome, Linux, etc? Healthcare is one area where many people (particularly Americans) have the absurd idea that everything has to work perfectly. Think of the level of indignation people feel when a surgeon who spent 15 years beyond college doing advanced training (for little pay) makes a small mistake that costs someone's life. Or an OB misjudges something and ends up in a major lawsuit. But for other jobs, mistakes are a part of life. In software we are proud to decrease our bugs through testing and improved techniques and processes, but nobody expects perfection. Even mass market products like TurboTax ship with tons of bugs. Lawyers routinely let innocent people wind up in jail out of pure incompetence. We need to get over it. Theranos is doing something very smart and while it needs some additional refinement, it is pretty clear that doing large scale blood testing/monitoring is the future of diagnostic medicine. The irrationality we have about healthcare being perfect is a) false (mistakes get swept under the rug all the time) and b) counterproductive because it gives us a sense of mastery over our destiny that we simply do not (yet) have. Let's also not forget that medicine is plagued by a very irrational risk aversion, which is why many useful treatments are available around the world but not in the US.
- minimaxir 10y ago
  Your comment has been rebutted several times by several people.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    and those rebuttals rebutted :)
- dang 10y ago
  Please don't repost comments, even if you feel they didn't get a fair hearing. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11973349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11973349 and marked it off-topic.
dimdimdim 10y ago
Something seems awfully wrong with HNs rating system - somehow this story is plummeting way soon down the list :) Seems like a Google - Hilary thing :)

44 points by uptown 10y ago

Can you put [video] in the title?

And you know what: we can't dismiss him. The interesting thing here is that we can't just say that's not true. I am not making a larger point about solipsism or our inability to know reality. I mean the much narrower point of not being able to tell -- from the press -- whether a company actually has a technology that works. Think about the implications that has for investing in public stocks. Let's ignore the cases of fraud like Enron etc., and focus on an ordinary company that honestly reports what it is doing. EDIT: I have followed the Theranos story, so I know about the legal actions etc. What I can't tell is if there is poor science at the heart of it, or it is a case of poor scaling and application of good science.

Animats 10y ago
Well, after the FDA shut down many of the company's operations, and Walgreens pulled out of their contract to use Theranos services, one might suspect that their technology does not actually work. If it did work, it would be straightforward for them to demonstrate that it did.
- projectramo 10y ago
  Didn't it have to demonstrate to both Walgreens and the FDA that it was working before? I can't tell if it never worked, or if something prevented it from scaling.
dimdimdim 10y ago
>>I mean the much narrower point of not being able to tell -- from the press -- whether a company actually has a technology that works. http://www.wsj.com/article_email/theranos-voids-two-years-of-edison-blood-test-results-1463616976-lMyQjAxMTI2NTEzOTcxODkxWj http://www.wsj.com/article_email/theranos-voids-two-years-of... ??
minimaxir 10y ago
> I mean the much narrower point of not being able to tell -- from the press -- whether a company actually has a technology that works. There have been empirical actions which resulted based on Theranos's errors, including FDA/SEC investigations and Walgreens revoking their partnership. Those aren't media spins.
- projectramo 10y ago
  But didn't Walgreens have to test the technology to agree to the partnership in the first place? There is a difference between the tech that doesn't work and tech that cannot work. The former will work eventually, but the latter can never work. Can you tell which it is?
  - gumby 10y ago
    > But didn't Walgreens have to test the technology to agree to the partnership in the first place? Famously Walgreen's didn't do due diligence. > There is a difference between the tech that doesn't work and tech that cannot work. It was already pretty well known that blood concentrations vary enough in the body that you need large samples to get reproducible results. Life science VCs all passed on this deal. The fundamental science was not there. Note: I have worked in pharma and designed successful clinical trials.
Zigurd 10y ago
I don't know what point you are trying to make, but Theranos is not some reality-bending exceptional case. You might say it's possible he is correct, but, yes, one can dismiss "There's nothing wrong with Theranos." There have been documented wrongs that nobody has tried to refute.
- projectramo 10y ago
  In your opinion, has it been documented that the technology doesn't work or that they couldn't apply the technology properly in the field? In other words: 1. Is it fraud and poor science? 2. Is it good science but still immature? That is the key distinction.
  - Zigurd 10y ago
    Your question attempts to make a distinction without a difference. The Theranos machine does not work because nobody knows how to make whatever theory they had work in practice. Moreover, Theranos's management knew that as they were selling unreliable lab results.
conistonwater 10y ago
> I mean the much narrower point of not being able to tell -- from the press -- whether a company actually has a technology that works. There has always been a simple solution to this: it is the company's own job to clearly demonstrate that it has a working technology. If you view it that way, then the press's inability to prove it one way or the other doesn't matter because the responsibility lies with the company. In fact, Theranos was quite unusual among lab companies from the beginning in that it didn't follow the path other companies followed in showing they had a working technology. Anything less than a clear proof by the company, and the subsequent confusion is the company's own fault.
- projectramo 10y ago
  To demonstrate it to whom?

yueq 10y ago

stockholm syndrome?

joezydeco 10y ago
sunk-cost fallacy.

dimdimdim 10y ago

Unbelievable - even if he said Theranos is trying to get their shit together and there have been some mistakes, it would make sense. To say its just a smear campaign is ridiculous - what about the thousands of results they withdrew as they admitted it was wrong? http://www.wsj.com/article_email/theranos-voids-two-years-of-edison-blood-test-results-1463616976-lMyQjAxMTI2NTEzOTcxODkxWj http://www.wsj.com/article_email/theranos-voids-two-years-of... It's even more ridiculous to call her one of the greatest female entrepreneurs! I had a lot of respect for Draper but this is so disappointing. Just to make sure their investment does not hit a big ZERO value, they seem to be siding with an entrepreneur who has wronged everyone! What a shame!

entee 10y ago
I'm not sure if he's completely blind or self-deluded. I hope to believe that he's not saying these things just to line his own pockets. Being delusional isn't malicious. That said, it makes me wonder how it is possible for someone to live so far outside a reasonable view of the world. We should critically examine the press, but these days conspiracy theories are running rampant and we can't seem to agree on a common set of facts to examine anymore. The facts here are clear, Theranos has sold a product that doesn't work irresponsibly, and done so without proper science.
- minimaxir 10y ago
  Back when the first anti-Theranos article was published, VC Dave Morin argued that it was the duty of Millennials to dig deeper and investigate the press for the possibility of a smear campaign: https://twitter.com/williamalden/status/658705178523258880 https://twitter.com/williamalden/status/658705178523258880 After Theranos admitted fault, he retracted those comments.
xiaoma 10y ago
>"I had a lot of respect for Draper but this is so disappointing." Didn't you ever read Founders at Work and what DFJ did to the Hotmail guys?
- 10y ago

grandalf 10y ago

Theranos technology is more like typical startup tech. How many bugs did Facebook's feed algorithm suffer before it finally got stable? How many pages of sub-optimal search results has Google returned? How many major security bugs have been found in Windows, Chrome, Linux, etc? Healthcare is one area where many people (particularly Americans) have the absurd idea that everything has to work perfectly. Think of the level of indignation people feel when a surgeon who spent 15 years beyond college doing advanced training (for little pay) makes a small mistake that costs someone's life. Or an OB misjudges something and ends up in a major lawsuit. But for other jobs, mistakes are a part of life. In software we are proud to decrease our bugs through testing and improved techniques and processes, but nobody expects perfection. Even mass market products like TurboTax ship with tons of bugs. Lawyers routinely let innocent people wind up in jail out of pure incompetence. We need to get over it. Theranos is doing something very smart and while it needs some additional refinement, it is pretty clear that doing large scale blood testing/monitoring is the future of diagnostic medicine. The irrationality we have about healthcare being perfect is a) false (mistakes get swept under the rug all the time) and b) counterproductive because it gives us a sense of mastery over our destiny that we simply do not (yet) have. Let's also not forget that medicine is plagued by a very irrational risk aversion, which is why many useful treatments are available around the world but not in the US.

minimaxir 10y ago
> Healthcare is one area where many people (particularly Americans) have the absurd idea that everything has to work perfectly. There's a line between not working perfectly and not working at all.
dimdimdim 10y ago
Not when your bug can kill a person or damage his organs due to wrong medication give because of a wrong test result. http://www.wsj.com/article_email/theranos-voids-two-years-of-edison-blood-test-results-1463616976-lMyQjAxMTI2NTEzOTcxODkxWj http://www.wsj.com/article_email/theranos-voids-two-years-of... There is a reason Healthcare is regulated and required multiple degrees of testing before it can be released to the general public -- imagine every new "health startup" pushing new drugs and then saying they'll "fix a bug" when a couple of folks die. The comparison is immature.

joezydeco 10y ago

Their top spokeswoman just resigned today: http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Theranos-spokeswoman-Brooke-Buchanan-to-exit-8323546.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Theranos-spokesw...

w1ntermute 10y ago
Full text: https://notehub.org/iugbf https://notehub.org/iugbf

stanfordkid 10y ago

Tim Draper is, quite frankly, the Trump of Venture Capital. He's a great, nurturing guy though in terms of personality and affect.

dimdimdim 10y ago
I love his song though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTrz6lMQGAs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTrz6lMQGAs :)

w1ntermute 10y ago

The rights to the Theranos movie (Adam McKay, JLaw) have been picked up by Legendary Pictures[0]. Looks like the tentative title is Bad Blood. Too bad they didn't go with the HN-recommended title, Unicorn Blood[1]. 0: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/06/jennifer-lawrence-theranos-elizabeth-holmes http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/06/jennifer-lawrenc... 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876937 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11876937

dmix 10y ago
From the Vanity Fair link: > “They basically tell the story of how Elizabeth Holmes created these fraudulent blood-testing machines, raised $9 billion through venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, and refuses to admit they don’t work even when it is obvious the testing is inaccurate,” says a studio source familiar with how the project was pitched. This old hat: they were valued at $9 billion by VCs while raising $400 million in 2014.
wavefunction 10y ago
They'd have to pay someone if they took any suggestions. Or even acknowledged being exposed to suggestions.

grandalf 10y ago

re-posting my comment so it can be read and rebutted rather than just downvoted: Theranos technology is more like typical startup tech. How many bugs did Facebook's feed algorithm suffer before it finally got stable? How many pages of sub-optimal search results has Google returned? How many major security bugs have been found in Windows, Chrome, Linux, etc? Healthcare is one area where many people (particularly Americans) have the absurd idea that everything has to work perfectly. Think of the level of indignation people feel when a surgeon who spent 15 years beyond college doing advanced training (for little pay) makes a small mistake that costs someone's life. Or an OB misjudges something and ends up in a major lawsuit. But for other jobs, mistakes are a part of life. In software we are proud to decrease our bugs through testing and improved techniques and processes, but nobody expects perfection. Even mass market products like TurboTax ship with tons of bugs. Lawyers routinely let innocent people wind up in jail out of pure incompetence. We need to get over it. Theranos is doing something very smart and while it needs some additional refinement, it is pretty clear that doing large scale blood testing/monitoring is the future of diagnostic medicine. The irrationality we have about healthcare being perfect is a) false (mistakes get swept under the rug all the time) and b) counterproductive because it gives us a sense of mastery over our destiny that we simply do not (yet) have. Let's also not forget that medicine is plagued by a very irrational risk aversion, which is why many useful treatments are available around the world but not in the US.

minimaxir 10y ago
Your comment has been rebutted several times by several people.
- grandalf 10y ago
  and those rebuttals rebutted :)
dang 10y ago
Please don't repost comments, even if you feel they didn't get a fair hearing. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11973349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11973349 and marked it off-topic.

dimdimdim 10y ago

Something seems awfully wrong with HNs rating system - somehow this story is plummeting way soon down the list :) Seems like a Google - Hilary thing :)