Theranos's problem seems to be that they (especially Holmes) would not bend on technical issues that would have allowed them to build a functioning product. It

Theranos's problem seems to be that they (especially Holmes) would not bend on technical issues that would have allowed them to build a functioning product. It sounds like if they had allowed the machine to be a little bigger, and if they had compromised on being able to take a little more blood (instead of the one drop they had been marketing), they could have had a real machine that would produce reliable results. Then they could have iterated and continued the push to miniaturize what they already had commercialized. Instead, Holmes insisted on a sample size that technically they couldn't achieve reliable results with, and when faced with the decision of compromising on spec to get something to work, or release something that didn't work and then lie about it, she chose the latter. If anything, a "lean" approach (to the extent possible with medical testing hardware) would have benefited them.