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Being a woman that ticked all the boxes for a big investment was exactly one of Holmes main selling features, so a lot of the author's points ring hollow. Every

Being a woman that ticked all the boxes for a big investment was exactly one of Holmes main selling features, so a lot of the author's points ring hollow. Everyone was / is looking for a success story like hers, and she shrewdly took advantage. I agree fully that she didn't do anything out of step with what other startup founders are doing all the time. It's just that the stakes are higher in front line diagnostic medicine than in some SaSS thing, and so a failure has a higher cost. But overall, I'm not guilty. You're the one that's guilty. The lawmakers, the politicians, the Colombian drug lords, all you who lobby against making drugs legal. Just like you did with alcohol during Prohibition. You're the one who's guilty. I mean, c'mon, let's kick the ballistics here: ain't no Uzi's made in Harlem. Not one of us in here owns a poppy field. This thing is bigger than Nino Brown. This is big business. This is the American way. (Don't hate the player hate the game)

jjeaff 5y ago
That may have been why she got a lot of press, and her gender may also have been the focus of much of that press. But I don't see any evidence that people invested in her -because- she was female. In fact, many of the most public and well known VC firms did not invest in Holmes. These big public firms are the ones most interested in deal flow and PR image. If Holmes was such a draw for being female, why did they pass? In fact, most of Theranos' investors were individuals like Rupert Murdoch and Larry Ellison or firms that were positioned to profit from retail testing like Walgreens and Safeway. I'll start entertaining the idea that investors are putting money into female owned companies just because they are female when I see the percentage of capital invested in female owned companies go above a few meager percentage points.
- weezin 5y ago
  VC firms didn't invest in her because they know how to smell fraud. The other investors didn't and invested in a story line over a product.

jjeaff 5y ago

That may have been why she got a lot of press, and her gender may also have been the focus of much of that press. But I don't see any evidence that people invested in her -because- she was female. In fact, many of the most public and well known VC firms did not invest in Holmes. These big public firms are the ones most interested in deal flow and PR image. If Holmes was such a draw for being female, why did they pass? In fact, most of Theranos' investors were individuals like Rupert Murdoch and Larry Ellison or firms that were positioned to profit from retail testing like Walgreens and Safeway. I'll start entertaining the idea that investors are putting money into female owned companies just because they are female when I see the percentage of capital invested in female owned companies go above a few meager percentage points.

weezin 5y ago
VC firms didn't invest in her because they know how to smell fraud. The other investors didn't and invested in a story line over a product.