3 ms·

I'm not worrying about corner cases here. Theranos is an exception. But someone coming from a startup that died? Yeah, they can talk about it, and I'd like them

by beat 8y ago

I'm not worrying about corner cases here. Theranos is an exception. But someone coming from a startup that died? Yeah, they can talk about it, and I'd like them to talk about how they saw it in an honest way.

HarryHirsch 8y ago
Theranos was founded in 2003 and when people first started asking hard questions in 2012 or thereabouts they were marginalized. Holmes was the darling poster woman of Silicon Valley until the WSJ started investigating in October 2015. They were very much alive for over a decade. Startuplandia has a way of attracting hucksters, unscrupulous businessmen and crazies with a firm disregard for what is physically possible. I notice that Ubeam was founded in 2011 and they are still around! I once worked for an outfit where one founder was named party to an investor suit (he had awarded himself stock options after a clinical trial came out favourable) and the other was frankly incompetent and afflicted with cluster B personality disorders. It ended as well as one would have predicted. Failing startups because of founder personality and founder competence issues are unfortunately common, they are not corner cases at all, and for the person coming out of one the incidence is 100 %, but discussing such matters in an interview will torpedo your chances. No honesty for you, it's counterproductive for the jobseeker! Seriously, Dave, if you were interviewing a candidate that had been working on the gluebot that Carreyrou mentioned in Bad Blood, how would he have to spin the story to get an offer out of you?
- beat 8y ago
  How to describe that? Simple, describe how management was setting up cage matches between competing development teams. I'm not saying "Don't blame management", not at all. I'm saying "bad management" is an insufficient answer. How did they go wrong? Playing dev teams off one another is a different problem than, say, insisting on using tech that isn't up to the task (a situation I've been in before), or an unwillingness to say no to the customer (a situation I've been in before, too). Hell, I've talked openly in interviews about the problems with a project that I got fired from, and blamed both management and the customer in no uncertain terms. I fault myself mostly for not walking out on it. I still get job offers when talking about how I got fired by incompetent management of an out-of-control project. But part of that is that my story leads somewhere - it leads to my lessons learned, conditions I will no longer tolerate in a workplace, #1 of which is the bottomless budget. So I care less about how you screwed up, or who or what you blame, and more about what you learned from the failure. Tell me that, and you win my heart.
- beat 8y ago
  I should add, to get back to the idea of how a life scientist at Theranos would explain it... well, did you know you were doing something that couldn't be done? How did you feel about it? What did you do about it? Why did you stay/why did you leave? Did you feel your work was unethical? Conceptually, Theranos was very exciting. I hope someone actually pulls it off someday. I can understand the attraction for a scientist.

by beat 8y ago

HarryHirsch 8y ago

Theranos was founded in 2003 and when people first started asking hard questions in 2012 or thereabouts they were marginalized. Holmes was the darling poster woman of Silicon Valley until the WSJ started investigating in October 2015. They were very much alive for over a decade. Startuplandia has a way of attracting hucksters, unscrupulous businessmen and crazies with a firm disregard for what is physically possible. I notice that Ubeam was founded in 2011 and they are still around! I once worked for an outfit where one founder was named party to an investor suit (he had awarded himself stock options after a clinical trial came out favourable) and the other was frankly incompetent and afflicted with cluster B personality disorders. It ended as well as one would have predicted. Failing startups because of founder personality and founder competence issues are unfortunately common, they are not corner cases at all, and for the person coming out of one the incidence is 100 %, but discussing such matters in an interview will torpedo your chances. No honesty for you, it's counterproductive for the jobseeker! Seriously, Dave, if you were interviewing a candidate that had been working on the gluebot that Carreyrou mentioned in Bad Blood, how would he have to spin the story to get an offer out of you?

beat 8y ago
How to describe that? Simple, describe how management was setting up cage matches between competing development teams. I'm not saying "Don't blame management", not at all. I'm saying "bad management" is an insufficient answer. How did they go wrong? Playing dev teams off one another is a different problem than, say, insisting on using tech that isn't up to the task (a situation I've been in before), or an unwillingness to say no to the customer (a situation I've been in before, too). Hell, I've talked openly in interviews about the problems with a project that I got fired from, and blamed both management and the customer in no uncertain terms. I fault myself mostly for not walking out on it. I still get job offers when talking about how I got fired by incompetent management of an out-of-control project. But part of that is that my story leads somewhere - it leads to my lessons learned, conditions I will no longer tolerate in a workplace, #1 of which is the bottomless budget. So I care less about how you screwed up, or who or what you blame, and more about what you learned from the failure. Tell me that, and you win my heart.
beat 8y ago
I should add, to get back to the idea of how a life scientist at Theranos would explain it... well, did you know you were doing something that couldn't be done? How did you feel about it? What did you do about it? Why did you stay/why did you leave? Did you feel your work was unethical? Conceptually, Theranos was very exciting. I hope someone actually pulls it off someday. I can understand the attraction for a scientist.