> If Theranos had done a SPAC, retail investors would've lost a lot of money when it was discovered as a fraud and shorted. You don't know that for sure. Betsy

> If Theranos had done a SPAC, retail investors would've lost a lot of money when it was discovered as a fraud and shorted. You don't know that for sure. Betsy DeVos and Rupert Murdoch lost their millions precisely because there was no mechanism to discover the "counterargument" against Theranos. They were sold on a vision by the founder, and they bought the pitch. It was impossible for anybody else to do any research on whether the pitch was actually accurate, and therefore that research never happened until many years later. Hype continued to grow in a positive feedback, and there was no mechanism to provide any negative feedback. In the counterfactual, Theranos would have gone public, some retail investors would have bought in, but right at the outset there would be a mechanism (and an incentive!) to provide negative feedback and kill the hype before it gets too big. This is exactly what happened to Nikola. The net harm caused by Nikola to all parties involved is much lower than that caused by Theranos. Also, retail investors shouldn't be investing in SPACs, which are obviously risky. They have every right to, but I have little sympathy for people that lose money on risky bets. Ultimately, having a risky company go public allows institutional investors to have their say and contribute to the price discovery. It's sort of like peer-reviewed research.