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She probably believed in her project. You can't know if you are going to succeed when you try to achieve a revolutionary feat. But you have to act like you are

She probably believed in her project. You can't know if you are going to succeed when you try to achieve a revolutionary feat. But you have to act like you are sure you will. Imagine Jobs in an alternate universe, trying to get out the iPhone, but after years of failures and billions wasted, the world realize the product vision was unrealistic. Basically him being the same asshole, but hitting a wall many predicted. That would look the same as Theranos. The difference is that Job didn't fail. But he couldn't know that before trying and commit many people and resource to it. Imagine Elon failing as the Falcon X. Or worst, failing over and over until his company died because they lost control of one that went crashing into a school. Imagine Zuckerberg called out about all the privacy issues on FB before it actually made benefit. I would have died. When you try to achieve radical vision, you often either succeed as a hero or you fail as a vilain.

cdancette 8y ago
The difference is that Jobs wasn't putting people's life in danger as theranos did by releasing malfunctionning blood testing machines
- sametmax 8y ago
  Elon, with self driving car, high capacity batteries and powerful rockets had the ability to put people's life in danger.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    has. And also people who are not his customers.
mxwsn 8y ago
While there is some unknowable risk, Theranos was in a completely different realm in terms of the mismatch between her technological aspirations and the feasibility of current technology. From the interview, Holmes appears to lack the knowledge and even the curiosity to understand the existing technology, making her company essentially a blind bet. This is enormously more irresponsible than the technological bets that FB, Apple, Uber, etc make.
- Bartweiss 8y ago
  > lack the knowledge and even the curiosity to understand the existing technology Honestly, this is what I understand least. I can understand and even respect banking a company on "this isn't possible yet, but maybe we can develop new technology". That's a standard feature of legitimate biotech startups and drug research. I can comprehend the snowballing risks, overstating a case because you think you're almost at something really impressive. I can't really understand the blatant, verifiable lies like "the DoD uses it", but it's not the first time we've seen those. What feels new and totally baffling is to not even care what's being done and what's possible. There's no sign that Holmes or Balwani ever had any idea whether they were close to success. This wasn't just betting on horse races with borrowed money, it was betting on a dead horse because you hadn't bothered to check if it was still alive.
cleong 8y ago
But in that alternate universe Apple would still have been a huge success, and the iPhone would have been another failed product like the Windows Phone. In addition to this pattern to success, Jobs was not a criminal. Theranos made VERY negligent statements such as the military using Theranos products(they did not).
- sametmax 8y ago
  > But in that alternate universe Apple would still have been a huge success Replace iPhone with iPod and Apple never reaches this sky it's currently at. It the product that put it back on the map, open the itune cash valve and paved the road for the iphone flag ship product. The situation is never _exactly_ the same. But you can see a pattern. And history is written by the victors. > Theranos made VERY negligent statements such as the military using Theranos products(they did not). Musk, Jobs and the rests lied as well, just on a different scale. The scale does make it worse, but the mechanism is the same. If Theranos had delivered, nobody would recall this lie.
  - cleong 8y ago
    Your right about history written by victors, however if Theranos delivered would there be fraud? The issue at hand is that she said she delivered when she did not.
    - sametmax 8y ago
      Of course, but failing show it as the fraud it is. Succeeding would have made it appear just like a "risky bet".
- microtherion 8y ago
  > Jobs was not a criminal The options backdating scandal arguably involved criminal behavior, and the anti-poaching collusion between Apple and other companies was arguably illegal as well. Not saying that Jobs was primarily a criminal, but he was involved in a fair amount of unethical behavior over the years.

cdancette 8y ago

The difference is that Jobs wasn't putting people's life in danger as theranos did by releasing malfunctionning blood testing machines

sametmax 8y ago
Elon, with self driving car, high capacity batteries and powerful rockets had the ability to put people's life in danger.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  has. And also people who are not his customers.

mxwsn 8y ago

While there is some unknowable risk, Theranos was in a completely different realm in terms of the mismatch between her technological aspirations and the feasibility of current technology. From the interview, Holmes appears to lack the knowledge and even the curiosity to understand the existing technology, making her company essentially a blind bet. This is enormously more irresponsible than the technological bets that FB, Apple, Uber, etc make.

Bartweiss 8y ago
> lack the knowledge and even the curiosity to understand the existing technology Honestly, this is what I understand least. I can understand and even respect banking a company on "this isn't possible yet, but maybe we can develop new technology". That's a standard feature of legitimate biotech startups and drug research. I can comprehend the snowballing risks, overstating a case because you think you're almost at something really impressive. I can't really understand the blatant, verifiable lies like "the DoD uses it", but it's not the first time we've seen those. What feels new and totally baffling is to not even care what's being done and what's possible. There's no sign that Holmes or Balwani ever had any idea whether they were close to success. This wasn't just betting on horse races with borrowed money, it was betting on a dead horse because you hadn't bothered to check if it was still alive.

cleong 8y ago

But in that alternate universe Apple would still have been a huge success, and the iPhone would have been another failed product like the Windows Phone. In addition to this pattern to success, Jobs was not a criminal. Theranos made VERY negligent statements such as the military using Theranos products(they did not).

sametmax 8y ago
> But in that alternate universe Apple would still have been a huge success Replace iPhone with iPod and Apple never reaches this sky it's currently at. It the product that put it back on the map, open the itune cash valve and paved the road for the iphone flag ship product. The situation is never _exactly_ the same. But you can see a pattern. And history is written by the victors. > Theranos made VERY negligent statements such as the military using Theranos products(they did not). Musk, Jobs and the rests lied as well, just on a different scale. The scale does make it worse, but the mechanism is the same. If Theranos had delivered, nobody would recall this lie.
- cleong 8y ago
  Your right about history written by victors, however if Theranos delivered would there be fraud? The issue at hand is that she said she delivered when she did not.
  - sametmax 8y ago
    Of course, but failing show it as the fraud it is. Succeeding would have made it appear just like a "risky bet".
microtherion 8y ago
> Jobs was not a criminal The options backdating scandal arguably involved criminal behavior, and the anti-poaching collusion between Apple and other companies was arguably illegal as well. Not saying that Jobs was primarily a criminal, but he was involved in a fair amount of unethical behavior over the years.