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Theranos paid this company "IncRev", and their CEO Shekar Chandrasekaran, $159,000/mo to host a database for them? That's an impressive scam! I wonder if it's m

Theranos paid this company "IncRev", and their CEO Shekar Chandrasekaran, $159,000/mo to host a database for them? That's an impressive scam! I wonder if it's money laundering or paying off friends, since any mildly competent technologist in the company would laugh them out of the room.

silexia 6y ago
I've heard industry people tell of government contracts paying $300,000 a month to provide "support" for a WordPress site. They didn't get a single support request for over a year.
- kilroy123 6y ago
  Where and how can I get such a gig!?
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    I hear the State Department CMS might have some openings...
Scoundreller 6y ago
They weren't paying for a database, they were paying to be forgotten.
dmix 6y ago
Nothing worse than Janet Yellen getting paid $500k speaker fees to talk to Citadel and a long list of other Wall St companies she will soon be directly regulating at the treasury dept. She wasn’t getting paid the $7M total because of her deep interesting take on markets. They wanted direct access to the power players and to see how their mind works. This revolving door with industry and policy makers gets a very uncritical eye by the media (especially compared to other frivolous background details) and obviously by the self morality of the participant speakers themselves. I personally hope Chandrasekaran gets in trouble for hiding evidence. But nepotism and conflicts of interest seem to be super common in the upper tiers of industry and politics, which Theranos famously surrounded themselves with, right down to their board of directors being politicians and ex generals.
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  When someone is in charge of way more money than that I think you want a sinecure for them after they leave so they don't fuck things up for you if they get restless.
- boc 6y ago
  Janet Yellen was one of the most powerful people in the world. If you want Beyonce to play a private concert for your company, you'll need to fork over $1m+ per hour. Why shouldn't an equivalent rockstar in the macro world be allowed to charge similar rates?
  - mjburgess 6y ago
    It is amazing how people stop thinking when a zero gets added to something. Can a city in a poor country afford anyone here's fee to visit them to speak on their area of expertise?
  - guitarbill 6y ago
    Because Beyoncé won't be (directly) shaping policies that can benefit your company? The price isn't the problem, the conflict of interest is, even if it's just a potential one. Much more unlikely with a rockstar.
  - Traster 6y ago
    Janet Yellen isn't a powerful person because of her reputation on the speaking tour circuit. If you hire Beyonce it's because you're paying for the performance she gives. If you hire Janet Yellen, no person credibly believes it's because that hour talk she's giving is hugely valuable. It's because you want to establish connections with her to influence her in her actual job where her power comes from. It's a pretext for paying her money that, were you to turn up to her office and hand it to her at her day job, would be a bribe.
    - ianhawes 6y ago
      From my own personal experiences, the most you typically get with a high profile speaker is the email address of their assistant or the agent from the speakers bureau.
leokennis 6y ago
Listen to “The Dropout” podcast, which chronicles Theranos’ rise and fall. I believe Holmes and Chandrasekaran were romantically involved in the past and were still close. If you get money thrown at you by VC’s, why not throw and exorbitant amount to a good friend as well... https://abcaudio.com/podcasts/the-dropout/ https://abcaudio.com/podcasts/the-dropout/
- nova22033 6y ago
  That's Sunny Balwani, the former COO of Theranos, not Chandrasekaran.
  - leokennis 6y ago
    You’re right! Sloppy and I stand corrected. Unfortunately I cannot edit my original post.
nova22033 6y ago
what makes is weirder is that theranos wasn't really testing. They were sending the samples to established labs. You could have maintained their test database in excel.
kube-system 6y ago
Nah, situations like that are not at all uncommon in software consulting. I’ve personally been involved with similar projects. 159,000/mo is 4 FTEs at typical consulting rates. You need a DBA to manage the database, an developer to spin up some reports, someone to manage the project, and an ETL developer to get the data in and out? There’s your $159,000/mo “database”. Are there cheaper ways to do it? Of course. But that isn’t why anyone hires consultants.
- feoren 6y ago
  None of those are really full time roles, especially the PM. Maybe 2 FTEs if they're not automating their own job as they go. IncRev also has an office in Bangalore where I'd assume a lot of that low-level stuff gets done, so your estimate of ~$225/hr, which is already too high for the U.S. average (but maybe not SV), could easily be too high by a factor of 3. And I doubt IncRev is really doing the report development, but maybe. So I'd guess you're off by a factor of 6 and Thernaos was just getting fleeced.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    That entirely depends on the business environment. If they're allowed to work remote and the client is easy to work with, then it's not a full time job. If a client wants work to be on-site, demands a large number of meetings, and/or a lot of hoops to jump through, then that can quickly change. I've seen some business environments that expect consultant developers to attend 6 hours of meetings per day. Some companies hire consultants precisely because their internal politics are so bad that they're unable to get the work done themselves. I don't know anything about these companies at hand here, but I wouldn't scoff at these numbers alone.
  - jasonv 6y ago
    SV consulting companies charge way more than $225/hr and still employ local talent even if they have staff in other countries. I say this having been a consultant.
    - feoren 6y ago
larrik 6y ago
For a custom built, mission-critical database? Seems cheap to me.

silexia 6y ago

I've heard industry people tell of government contracts paying $300,000 a month to provide "support" for a WordPress site. They didn't get a single support request for over a year.

kilroy123 6y ago
Where and how can I get such a gig!?
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  I hear the State Department CMS might have some openings...

Scoundreller 6y ago

They weren't paying for a database, they were paying to be forgotten.

dmix 6y ago

Nothing worse than Janet Yellen getting paid $500k speaker fees to talk to Citadel and a long list of other Wall St companies she will soon be directly regulating at the treasury dept. She wasn’t getting paid the $7M total because of her deep interesting take on markets. They wanted direct access to the power players and to see how their mind works. This revolving door with industry and policy makers gets a very uncritical eye by the media (especially compared to other frivolous background details) and obviously by the self morality of the participant speakers themselves. I personally hope Chandrasekaran gets in trouble for hiding evidence. But nepotism and conflicts of interest seem to be super common in the upper tiers of industry and politics, which Theranos famously surrounded themselves with, right down to their board of directors being politicians and ex generals.

selimthegrim 6y ago
When someone is in charge of way more money than that I think you want a sinecure for them after they leave so they don't fuck things up for you if they get restless.
boc 6y ago
Janet Yellen was one of the most powerful people in the world. If you want Beyonce to play a private concert for your company, you'll need to fork over $1m+ per hour. Why shouldn't an equivalent rockstar in the macro world be allowed to charge similar rates?
- mjburgess 6y ago
  It is amazing how people stop thinking when a zero gets added to something. Can a city in a poor country afford anyone here's fee to visit them to speak on their area of expertise?
- guitarbill 6y ago
  Because Beyoncé won't be (directly) shaping policies that can benefit your company? The price isn't the problem, the conflict of interest is, even if it's just a potential one. Much more unlikely with a rockstar.
- Traster 6y ago
  Janet Yellen isn't a powerful person because of her reputation on the speaking tour circuit. If you hire Beyonce it's because you're paying for the performance she gives. If you hire Janet Yellen, no person credibly believes it's because that hour talk she's giving is hugely valuable. It's because you want to establish connections with her to influence her in her actual job where her power comes from. It's a pretext for paying her money that, were you to turn up to her office and hand it to her at her day job, would be a bribe.
  - ianhawes 6y ago
    From my own personal experiences, the most you typically get with a high profile speaker is the email address of their assistant or the agent from the speakers bureau.

leokennis 6y ago

Listen to “The Dropout” podcast, which chronicles Theranos’ rise and fall. I believe Holmes and Chandrasekaran were romantically involved in the past and were still close. If you get money thrown at you by VC’s, why not throw and exorbitant amount to a good friend as well... https://abcaudio.com/podcasts/the-dropout/ https://abcaudio.com/podcasts/the-dropout/

nova22033 6y ago
That's Sunny Balwani, the former COO of Theranos, not Chandrasekaran.
- leokennis 6y ago
  You’re right! Sloppy and I stand corrected. Unfortunately I cannot edit my original post.

nova22033 6y ago

what makes is weirder is that theranos wasn't really testing. They were sending the samples to established labs. You could have maintained their test database in excel.

kube-system 6y ago

Nah, situations like that are not at all uncommon in software consulting. I’ve personally been involved with similar projects. 159,000/mo is 4 FTEs at typical consulting rates. You need a DBA to manage the database, an developer to spin up some reports, someone to manage the project, and an ETL developer to get the data in and out? There’s your $159,000/mo “database”. Are there cheaper ways to do it? Of course. But that isn’t why anyone hires consultants.

feoren 6y ago
None of those are really full time roles, especially the PM. Maybe 2 FTEs if they're not automating their own job as they go. IncRev also has an office in Bangalore where I'd assume a lot of that low-level stuff gets done, so your estimate of ~$225/hr, which is already too high for the U.S. average (but maybe not SV), could easily be too high by a factor of 3. And I doubt IncRev is really doing the report development, but maybe. So I'd guess you're off by a factor of 6 and Thernaos was just getting fleeced.
- kube-system 6y ago
  That entirely depends on the business environment. If they're allowed to work remote and the client is easy to work with, then it's not a full time job. If a client wants work to be on-site, demands a large number of meetings, and/or a lot of hoops to jump through, then that can quickly change. I've seen some business environments that expect consultant developers to attend 6 hours of meetings per day. Some companies hire consultants precisely because their internal politics are so bad that they're unable to get the work done themselves. I don't know anything about these companies at hand here, but I wouldn't scoff at these numbers alone.
- jasonv 6y ago
  SV consulting companies charge way more than $225/hr and still employ local talent even if they have staff in other countries. I say this having been a consultant.
  - feoren 6y ago

larrik 6y ago

For a custom built, mission-critical database? Seems cheap to me.