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To my disgust, the biggest thing most people seem to take away from it is "Yup, that's what happens when a woman is in charge of a business." I'm a woman. I am

• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• refulgentis 10y ago
  Really? I'm very surprised anyone would blame malfeasance on anatomy.
• protomyth 10y ago
  Interesting, because most of the comments I've heard from friends and relatives is "Snake Oil seller updated for Silicon Valley". Looks has been brought up, but that goes both ways as you don't find many hucksters who are on the ugly side regardless of gender.
  • maverick_iceman 10y ago
    True. Zuck, Page-Brin, Evan Spiegel all are pretty good looking. PG once said , "I can be tricked by anyone who looks like Mark Zuckerberg" (though he claims it was a joke)[1]. I think good looking people have a natural advantage when it comes to persuading VCs or getting the media interested in their companies. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-03/how-to-get-into-y-combinator-look-like-mark-zuckerberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-03/how-to-ge...
    • rublev 10y ago
      Zuckberg is considered attractive?
    • protomyth 10y ago
      I would love to find the person that doesn't think being "good looking" for the current standard is an advantage. Heck, Hollywood does a TV show about a person who is "Ugly" and even the ugly person is amazing looking. Being taller is an advantage. Never mind the articles that crop up about people having plastic surgery to look younger so they have a better shot at being a CEO.
      • hkmurakami 10y ago
        Height and looks are such an advantage. It's interesting because I actually notice myself being affected by their looks or their height and even then I'm likely not able to completely separate out this effect.
    • berberous 10y ago
      I don't mean to rag on him, but I don't think Zuckerberg is generally viewed as good looking. I also think you are likely misinterpreting PG's quote; I'm guessing he meant that he has a heuristic that anyone Zuck-like (vs. good looking) will be successful.
    • simplicio 10y ago
      Eh, there's plenty of ugly looking founders out there (Certainly circa 1980's Bill Gates was no ones idea of a cover-model). Plus I suspect there's a confounding factor in there. Here's a picture of Musk and Thiel[1] around the time Paypal was started. Its pretty clear that personal trainers, chefs, tailored clothing and whatever the hell treatment Musk got for his hair can go along way to making successful people better looking than they were when they first started earning the big bucks. [1]https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0196/5170/files/uzn_1461930513_grande.jpg?v=1478902043 https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0196/5170/files/uzn_146193...
• omarforgotpwd 10y ago
  I don't think anyone sane would say Theranos problem was that the CEO was a woman. I feel like men are much more likely to pull off this kind of fraud than women, but all genders are equally capable.
• maverick_iceman 10y ago
  Really? I have discussed Theranos with a lot of people, both on HN and elsewhere, and nobody ever referred to her gender. Not as if there's any dearth of unethical male executives. Fraud is an equal opportunity employer.
• cjf4 10y ago
  I've seen this complaint several times, but personally have yet to see any comments attributing the disaster to Theranos's founder being a woman.
  • Mz 10y ago
    And, yet, her catastrophe and the fact that it is founded by a woman gets vastly more press than any female successes. So, one must wonder why that is. And my feeling is that it is a form of sexism and the subtext is "See, this is why you shouldn't put a woman in charge." Also, at this point, there are six comments refuting what I said. Why is that? If I am so wrong, crazy and stupid, why do so very many people need to step up and inform me of my error? <-- Methinks thou doth protest too much.
    • yumyai 10y ago
      "If I am so wrong, crazy and stupid, why do so very many people need to step up and inform me of my error?" Because it is wrong?
      • Mz 10y ago
        Oh, and in addition to all the downvotes and the pile on, you needed to create a brand new account to join the pile on. But, sure, I am just a vitriolic, hysterical woman who is oversensitive. I couldn't possibly have a valid point or concern.
        • yumyai 10y ago
          Thank you, I couldn't phrase it better even if I try.
        • cblock811 10y ago
          Seems like you have a martyr complex. You're fighting against something that doesn't exist. Nobody here is out to get you.
          • 10y ago
• celticninja 10y ago
  i have never seen this feeling expressed, her gender has never come into any criticism I have read of Theranos, it is clearly focussed on the failure of the technology, the compartmentalisation of information and their attempts to fill the board with people who can further their business contracts rather than their expertise in medical technology.
• deleted 10y ago
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• ianamartin 10y ago
  I disagree with your takeaway, but I agree with the point that much of the talk about Theranos is really about gender. That company just doesn't get covered without people talking about how Elizabeth Holmes is, in fact, a woman, and how she tries to channel a Steve Jobs persona, and how it's not working. If Travis Kaladick or whatever his name is were running the company, the narrative would be very different. I don't know how or if there is splashback against women trying to be taken seriously. But if there is, I wish you the best.
  • Mz 10y ago
    Thank you.
  • Helmet 10y ago
    How would the narrative be different? Travis Kalanick has been absolutely shit on by the press, and the HN crowd in general, and what he has done is arguably much less egregious than what Elizabeth Holmes has done.
    • Mz 10y ago
      One of the differences is that men (as a group) get vastly more positive press about actual accomplishments. One insidious form of sexism, racism etc is the degree to which we mostly talk about certain groups when there is something negative to say.
      • Helmet 10y ago
        You didn't answer my question. OP claimed that: "If Travis Kaladick or whatever his name is were running the company, the narrative would be very different." Now, given that Uber and Travis have been disparaged by both the press and HN on a regular basis, how would the narrative be different if he was running Theranos? Do you actually believe that if Travis was in Elizabeth's shoes, we would speak more positively about the general situation? I don't see how that's true, given that we speak very negatively about him already, and what he has done (behaved like a douche, promoted a bad culture) is, arguably, less egregious than what she has done (committed outright fraud, stolen investors money, possibly killed or at very least jeopardized peoples' health).
• zeroer 10y ago
  I've never heard this criticism.
• hkmurakami 10y ago
  I have literally never seen that sentiment in a single post here (maybe it's different in person walking the streets somewhere?), and I'm a pretty hopeless HN addict who's read at least 10+ Theranos threads here and hundreds of posts. But if you say you've encountered it, I'm inclined to believe you. Which websites do you see this sentiment in? HN? Reddit? FB comments? WSJ comments? Or do you see it in the workplace?
• Retric 10y ago
  There where two major signs that the company was full of it. First advertising a mostly Business to Business product like blood testing. Second, there have been years of research into getting pinprick glucose testing to work and that's known to have poor accuracy. Doing this accurately for a wide range of tests fails the product smell test. Now, a lot of people feel validated that it was snake oil so yea they will dump on the company, but IMO it has little to do with the founder. It's their board that I found really suspicious.
• propman 10y ago
  I think when this broke, her connection to Hillary and the Clinton Foundation kept being played. Also during that same week, news broke that Marissa Mayer hid the huge yahoo data breech from users for years and purposefully didn't take ethical actions addresssing known vulnerabilities. These are three of the most powerful self made women all of whom were heavily publicized for years. The anti-Clinton sentiment along with valid criticism against Holmes and Mayer very well could have burgeoned into an anti-women sentiment. As for the sexism, I felt like it was more of a backlash against the unrelenting positive press Holmes received for years, right or not partly due to her gender. Every time someone commented on why they thought something was wrong with Theranos they were drowned out by voices telling them to stop being sexist and you want her to fail due to her gender. Justified or not, plenty were happy to see her fail after all the praise she had recieved and I am not surprised at all if some of the blowback was sexist. That being said, the majority of the discussion was anti-Theranos though I do agree with you there were a fair bit of anti-woman backlash though like I said much of it I feel was prompted by the positive praise she received.
  • ianamartin 10y ago
    At what point does positive press become "unrelenting"? This is just stupid. Are you saying that Theranos was over-hyped? If that's what you mean then just say it. This is really survivor bias talking. If something actually succeeds at delivering the moon, then there's no unrelenting positive press. There was an accurate depiction of what was going on. It's only in hindsight that you can call it hype or unrelenting. And the schadenfreude is doubletime now because not only did the hype fail, but she was also a woman.
    • deleted 10y ago
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  • jjn2009 10y ago
    twice the pride double the fall.
• brilliantcode 10y ago
  I don't know why the rest of YC is downvoting and claiming this isn't the case. If you search previous Theranos threads, you will find questionable comments extrapolating a blanket view on women in tech.
  • Mz 10y ago
    Thank you.
    • brilliantcode 10y ago
      No problem. As someone who is a firm believer in social equality across gender, orientation, race, culture and religious identity., it irks to me see the subtle and cleverly veiled micro-aggressions that women face in this environment where logic regardless of it's merit dominates all else, even empathy. It's also the result of being around highly technocentric where we've erroneously optimized for logic as the driver in all debates. Unfortunately, dialectics aren't very popular. For example, I regularly see transphobic statements that simply go undownvoted/unflagged on HN. I was even downvoted for adding Chelsea Manning, a transgender whistleblower, had full rights to be the correct gender because it was a human right. Ever since Trump got elected, I find HN picked up a bit of intolerance.
  • rhizome 10y ago
    So it happened? I mean geez, "welcome to the internet," but are any of them credible? It seems just as unfair to extrapolate a blanket view on commentary about Theranos if it's just random shitposters.
    • brilliantcode 10y ago
      Well I just find it hypocritical that the mods would censor dubious and subjective criteria for what's considered unsubstantial a.k.a. whoever the HN elite circles dislike or feels like a threat to their narrative.
      • 10y ago
• ianamartin 10y ago
  I'm sorry this is getting downvoted so heavily, but there's a legitimate point here about the way things are talked about here. When Uber breaks the law and does really bad things and endangers people's lives, it's questionable at best. It's fighting outdated regulations that haven't kept up with the times, artificial monopoly busting, etc. Theranos tries to apply the same kinds of tactics, and people are literally calling for Holmes to go to jail. If you don't think there's a gender variable about how this is reported and perceived, you're nuts. Most of you in this thread are approaching this the same way my ancient dad talks about women getting involved in the war effort during WW2. Are women able to be as good at being men as men are? No? Then they have no place in x. The conversation typically ends there because we have all these set phrases that we use to protect ourselves from our biases. "Decisions are decisions. Doesn't matter who makes them." Yeah right. It does matter who makes them, fellas. Marissa Mayer eliminates work from home at yahoo. The world freaks out. Jeff Bezos does the same thing at amazon: he's smart. This is good for the culture. Or people say, "Code doesn't care who you are. It's either good or it's not. Doesn't matter who wrote it." Which is also bullshit because whether or not it compiles is the bare minimum for getting code into a review to begin with. It's everything after it compiles that's subjective. The problem here is the implicit standard we have ingrained in us. When we interview a guy, it makes sense. Are you as good at being me as I am? Yes? Great. Hired. The issue should be obvious by now, but I'll make clear: if you only hire people exactly like you, you only get products that are exactly like what you want. Diversity in the workplace isn't about diversity because it's fair. It's because we need it to produce real products that people want to use. It's because being a man in the world isn't the only thing worth doing, and we need to have our minds changed and our perspectives altered some times. We are refusing to value anything different from ourselves. Which stupid. The idea that any of us really know it all is really fucked in the head. I currently work at a company with a female CEO. She makes different decisions and places priorities than any male I've ever met would. And I could not be happier. It's totally different from any job I've ever had in the tech world, and it's fantastic. you people downvoting the thread need to grow up and take a closer look at yourselves and your lives. You are a big part of the problem with gender and racial bias in our industry.
  • woofyman 10y ago
    >Theranos tries to apply the same kinds of tactics, and people are literally calling for Holmes to go to jail. The difference is Holmes was endangering people's health and lives. <Marissa Mayer eliminates work from home at yahoo. The world freaks out. Jeff Bezos does the same thing at amazon: he's smart. This is good for the culture. Didn't Mayer build a nursery next to her office? >you people downvoting the thread need to grow up and take a closer look at yourselves and your lives. You are a big part of the problem with gender and racial bias in our industry. Seriously? Calling out people as sexist when it's not there doesn't help.