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Not trying to glorify the fraud in any way but I still wonder if she would have made it in an alternate universe where covid happened a year earlier. The optics

Not trying to glorify the fraud in any way but I still wonder if she would have made it in an alternate universe where covid happened a year earlier. The optics for the regulators would be completely different and more akin to going after Elon right now.

CerealFounder 6y ago
Probably not. The morale of the story was she was good at collecting people with clout who simultaneously knew nothing about her business. Even in their earliest days, the outside was screaming "literally impossible" from all sides. iirc, there is even a historic thread on HN where if you go back to the comments, its mostly people proving that there is almost certain fraud behind the scenes.
- ksd482 6y ago
  Perhaps some threads linked in this thread will lead to the thread you are talking about: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22156371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22156371
- cat199 6y ago
  > simultaneously knew nothing about her business. ... they new the business was convincing enough to get a contract for blood testing with CVS, effectively lining it up to be a direct beneficiary of a not-insignificant portion of ACA funds for several years until the fraud came to the surface in my view, holmes and the blood testing device are just the patsy/'fall guy' story - it's the higher up relations in connection with getting the CVS contracts that should be getting investigated
  - CerealFounder 6y ago
    Im a pretty well known founder and I cant stress enough, the higher up you get the less people know whats happening holistically. Observationally I think it's a product of the fact that managers who get to the top are so dialed to the politics and daily reality of the role (its how they reached the top of the mountain), that theyre very brittle to all the other details of their world. I think this happens all the time and her cardinal sin was courting national press in a space that kills people while committing fraud.
fsh 6y ago
Theranos pretended to do blood testing for chemical markers. I don't see the connection to the covid pandemic. Theranos didn't even pretend to do PCR tests that would be useful for virus detection.
- vntok 6y ago
  They definitely would have pretended to do that.
dmix 6y ago
Theranos went on for nearly a decade before it crashed and burned. There was plenty of time. DOJ hasn’t stopped taking on major cases and if anything the WSJ journalist who was critical in uncovering the lies and wrote the book on Theranos could have had even more time to poke around. Plus most importantly the VCs would be putting on a lot more pressure to see something real, something they could use ASAP. So I could see this have the complete opposite pressure you imagine.
notJim 6y ago
I don't see the Elon connection at all? Say what you will about the man, Tesla is certainly a going concern in a way that Theranos never even got close to.
- michaelt 6y ago
  The Elon comparison is merely about being a position of relative political strength. Pre-Covid, the narrative around drug companies was all about inflated insulin prices, the opioid epidemic manufactured by the Sackler family, and the profiteering exemplified by the likes of Martin Shkreli. The industry hadn't produced any truly high-profile successes in many years, and promising to reign in their worst excesses and get costs under control was politically popular. Post-Covid, the drug industry are the cavalry heroically saving the day. They're no longer an attractive target for politicians looking to visibly battle the bad guys.

CerealFounder 6y ago

Probably not. The morale of the story was she was good at collecting people with clout who simultaneously knew nothing about her business. Even in their earliest days, the outside was screaming "literally impossible" from all sides. iirc, there is even a historic thread on HN where if you go back to the comments, its mostly people proving that there is almost certain fraud behind the scenes.

ksd482 6y ago
Perhaps some threads linked in this thread will lead to the thread you are talking about: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22156371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22156371
cat199 6y ago
> simultaneously knew nothing about her business. ... they new the business was convincing enough to get a contract for blood testing with CVS, effectively lining it up to be a direct beneficiary of a not-insignificant portion of ACA funds for several years until the fraud came to the surface in my view, holmes and the blood testing device are just the patsy/'fall guy' story - it's the higher up relations in connection with getting the CVS contracts that should be getting investigated
- CerealFounder 6y ago
  Im a pretty well known founder and I cant stress enough, the higher up you get the less people know whats happening holistically. Observationally I think it's a product of the fact that managers who get to the top are so dialed to the politics and daily reality of the role (its how they reached the top of the mountain), that theyre very brittle to all the other details of their world. I think this happens all the time and her cardinal sin was courting national press in a space that kills people while committing fraud.

fsh 6y ago

Theranos pretended to do blood testing for chemical markers. I don't see the connection to the covid pandemic. Theranos didn't even pretend to do PCR tests that would be useful for virus detection.

vntok 6y ago
They definitely would have pretended to do that.

dmix 6y ago

Theranos went on for nearly a decade before it crashed and burned. There was plenty of time. DOJ hasn’t stopped taking on major cases and if anything the WSJ journalist who was critical in uncovering the lies and wrote the book on Theranos could have had even more time to poke around. Plus most importantly the VCs would be putting on a lot more pressure to see something real, something they could use ASAP. So I could see this have the complete opposite pressure you imagine.

notJim 6y ago

I don't see the Elon connection at all? Say what you will about the man, Tesla is certainly a going concern in a way that Theranos never even got close to.

michaelt 6y ago
The Elon comparison is merely about being a position of relative political strength. Pre-Covid, the narrative around drug companies was all about inflated insulin prices, the opioid epidemic manufactured by the Sackler family, and the profiteering exemplified by the likes of Martin Shkreli. The industry hadn't produced any truly high-profile successes in many years, and promising to reign in their worst excesses and get costs under control was politically popular. Post-Covid, the drug industry are the cavalry heroically saving the day. They're no longer an attractive target for politicians looking to visibly battle the bad guys.