4 ms·

I feel like any bad news about Theranos (or Yahoo) is just piling on what I perceive as the corpse of a company. Am I the only one who is just mostly surprised

by bertil 10y ago

I feel like any bad news about Theranos (or Yahoo) is just piling on what I perceive as the corpse of a company. Am I the only one who is just mostly surprised that it’s still around, and enough people on Hacker News care about it?

DonHopkins 10y ago
It's just interesting because it's a preview of Magic Leap's trajectory.
chaostheory 10y ago
> and enough people on Hacker News care about it? Sadly I feel the reason why it's still clinging on to Hacker News is because of Al Bundy syndrome. Some people like watching others fail because it makes them feel better about their current situation. Of course, I could always be completely wrong; I just don't have any other explanation as to why boring and predictable news gets voted up on HN. I'm just happy that it didn't get too much upvoting.
- kqr2 10y ago
  Better known as Schadenfreude: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  Personally, I don't like watching just anyone fail, but I do enjoy seeing actual bad people fail. I suppose it reassures me that justice occasionally exists.
nommm-nommm 10y ago
Yahoo has valuable properties in Flickr and Tumblr.
- bertil 10y ago
  I’m sure there are, and Yahoo itself has a large audience. But I see Hacker News as a source of insight and inspiration: are we expecting interesting things to come from either of those? I co-wrote so many articles on Flickr tag graph more than a decade ago, but I have not seen many since. Yahoo (and Theranos) have a story to tell about Mayer trying to save the company, but neither CEO seem ready to tell that story.
  - tdurden 10y ago
    Forcing Yahoo into this discussion is a bit of a stretch.
firebones 10y ago
If the two companies (Theranos and Yahoo) are in the same category, it's not because their descents have anything in common--it's just morbid curiosity around the mechanisms by which they descended. There's a bit of mystery that people want to examine if only to learn to pick up warning signs in other companies, employers, or investments. With Yahoo, it seems like it's simple mismanagement and lack of strategy/vision after concrete success. There doesn't seem to be much mystery there other than speculation on what a leader can do to prevent a fall. With Theranos, there's a little more mystery: from the dramatic standpoint, it's already gone from being a "Silicon Valley" spoof ("Pricks"[1]), to an upcoming JLaw screenplay[2] and now seems to be entering tragic opera territory. Is it fraud? Or is it "Moby Dick" set to music? [1] http://www.pricks.com/ http://www.pricks.com/ [2] http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/jennifer-lawrence-will-star-as-elizabeth-holmes-in-a-movie-about-theranos http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/jennifer-lawrence-wil...

by bertil 10y ago

DonHopkins 10y ago

It's just interesting because it's a preview of Magic Leap's trajectory.

chaostheory 10y ago

> and enough people on Hacker News care about it? Sadly I feel the reason why it's still clinging on to Hacker News is because of Al Bundy syndrome. Some people like watching others fail because it makes them feel better about their current situation. Of course, I could always be completely wrong; I just don't have any other explanation as to why boring and predictable news gets voted up on HN. I'm just happy that it didn't get too much upvoting.

kqr2 10y ago
Better known as Schadenfreude: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
Personally, I don't like watching just anyone fail, but I do enjoy seeing actual bad people fail. I suppose it reassures me that justice occasionally exists.

nommm-nommm 10y ago

Yahoo has valuable properties in Flickr and Tumblr.

bertil 10y ago
I’m sure there are, and Yahoo itself has a large audience. But I see Hacker News as a source of insight and inspiration: are we expecting interesting things to come from either of those? I co-wrote so many articles on Flickr tag graph more than a decade ago, but I have not seen many since. Yahoo (and Theranos) have a story to tell about Mayer trying to save the company, but neither CEO seem ready to tell that story.
- tdurden 10y ago
  Forcing Yahoo into this discussion is a bit of a stretch.

firebones 10y ago

If the two companies (Theranos and Yahoo) are in the same category, it's not because their descents have anything in common--it's just morbid curiosity around the mechanisms by which they descended. There's a bit of mystery that people want to examine if only to learn to pick up warning signs in other companies, employers, or investments. With Yahoo, it seems like it's simple mismanagement and lack of strategy/vision after concrete success. There doesn't seem to be much mystery there other than speculation on what a leader can do to prevent a fall. With Theranos, there's a little more mystery: from the dramatic standpoint, it's already gone from being a "Silicon Valley" spoof ("Pricks"[1]), to an upcoming JLaw screenplay[2] and now seems to be entering tragic opera territory. Is it fraud? Or is it "Moby Dick" set to music? [1] http://www.pricks.com/ http://www.pricks.com/ [2] http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/jennifer-lawrence-will-star-as-elizabeth-holmes-in-a-movie-about-theranos http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/06/jennifer-lawrence-wil...