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Listening to the Audible version right now. Even as someone who read every story the WSJ published on Theranos, I'm still finding the book version to be very wo

by danso 8y ago

Listening to the Audible version right now. Even as someone who read every story the WSJ published on Theranos, I'm still finding the book version to be very worthwhile. Lots of interesting detail, including on what it was like on the engineering front to hack together the machines for what turned out to be a pipe dream. edit: for example, the second chapter focuses on the "Gluebot", a robot originally designed for glue-dispensing that became the core of Theranos's "Edison" machine. The author goes into decent detail about how this robot differed from Elizabeth Holmes's original vision of a wildly unrealistic microfluidic processor. And how Holmes/Theranos hired a new separate engineering team (which came up with the Gluebot idea) to pit against Theranos's own engineering department after the then lead engineer refused Holmes's request to run his team on a 24/7 schedule.

Balgair 8y ago
Wha? A 24 hour engineering team? Who they hell did they think they were going to hire to do engineering at 3am? Maybe they mean quality control engineers for a 24 hour production line? Medtronic does this, but the QC guys are really only there for when the lines mess up.
- danso 8y ago
  Relevant excerpt from the book: > ED WAS WORKING late one evening when Elizabeth came by his workspace. She was frustrated with the pace of their progress and wanted to run the engineering department twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to accelerate development. Ed thought that was a terrible idea. His team was working long hours as it was... > Ed pushed back against Elizabeth’s proposal. Even if he instituted shifts, a round-the-clock schedule would make his engineers burn out, he told her. “I don’t care. We can change people in and out,” she responded. “The company is all that matters.” Carreyrou, John. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (p. 28). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
  - Balgair 8y ago
    > “I don’t care. We can change people in and out,” Yeah, that's a great person to work for right there.

by danso 8y ago

Balgair 8y ago

Wha? A 24 hour engineering team? Who they hell did they think they were going to hire to do engineering at 3am? Maybe they mean quality control engineers for a 24 hour production line? Medtronic does this, but the QC guys are really only there for when the lines mess up.

danso 8y ago
Relevant excerpt from the book: > ED WAS WORKING late one evening when Elizabeth came by his workspace. She was frustrated with the pace of their progress and wanted to run the engineering department twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to accelerate development. Ed thought that was a terrible idea. His team was working long hours as it was... > Ed pushed back against Elizabeth’s proposal. Even if he instituted shifts, a round-the-clock schedule would make his engineers burn out, he told her. “I don’t care. We can change people in and out,” she responded. “The company is all that matters.” Carreyrou, John. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (p. 28). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
- Balgair 8y ago
  > “I don’t care. We can change people in and out,” Yeah, that's a great person to work for right there.