6 ms·

For the 1000th time, a total of 0 (zero) VCs that most people would associate with "silicon valley" invested in Theranos, and the board was all made up of polit

For the 1000th time, a total of 0 (zero) VCs that most people would associate with "silicon valley" invested in Theranos, and the board was all made up of political and business figures like Kissinger.

capableweb 5y ago
The article doesn't seem to be about hating "Silicon Valley" type VCs, but more VCs in general so not sure where this comment comes from, or why you'd have to repeat a comeback so many times to an argument that doesn't even seem to be made in the first place.
- rsynnott 5y ago
  When people talk about VCs here, they normally mean venture capital firms, who are relatively sophisticated, do due diligence, etc. The vast bulk of Theranos's investment came from, for want of a better term, elderly rich people operating in a personal capacity. I mean, you _could_ call Betsy DeVos or Rupert Murdoch VCs, but it's not how people typically understand the term.
  - dnautics 5y ago
    Doing due diligence and doing due diligence well are separate things. I have seen so many fictional or peri-impossible (impossible or "extremely implausible at current tech levels") tech get venture in silicon valley. For example, there was a company called blue turtle that claimed to want to build a bacterium that provided gaucher's disease enzyme as a probiotic supplement. I mean technically speaking it's not impossible, but there are so many things that 'dont exist yet and would need to be engineered' that I couldn't see it making it as a company.
    - colechristensen 5y ago
      To be fair, engineering bacteria to produce a single enzyme as an MVP is an afternoon activity for a single person. You can watch it done on youtube. (you do have to wait some weeks to get your gene sequences or plasmids or whatever manufactured then you have to culture etc. and it doesn’t always work…) But in general it’s not out of the ordinary to think you could do the engineering part in a day.
      - dnautics 5y ago
        Even a trivial due dill on cerezyme which is the gaucher's disease enzyme that blue turtle was proposing would have revealed that approved formulation is encapsulated in a membrane, has a membrane anchor (which bacteria cannot natively produce), has glycosylated protein (which bacteria cannot natively produce), not to mention "how the hell do you deliver a protein through the intestinal barrier" and "how do you target probiotic to the intestine", "how do you keep intestinal probiotics there", "what is the plan to measure uptake variations in the population" etc. etc. Like seriously, i was able to look this up on wikipedia in the timespan of their demo pitch.
    - rsynnott 5y ago
      Oh, absolutely. A lot of VC firms are quite bad at due diligence. However, if you believe John Carreyrou, the big investors mostly weren't thinking along those lines, and some attempts to get investment from real VCs were stymied by the most basic due diligence (one pulled out when Theranos was unable to produce audited accounts, for instance). Notably, one early investor said, in interviews, that he was comfortable investing because Holmes' grandfather was a businessman, and another relative was a famous doctor (presumably the theory was that she was thus _genetically_ good at medical tech businesses?!). These were, by and large, very much the opposite of sophisticated investors.
jasode 5y ago
>For the 1000th time, a total of 0 (zero) VCs that most people would associate with "silicon valley" invested in Theranos Well, Tim Draper is a VC that people would associate with "Silicon Valley". (portfolio: https://www.dfj.com/ https://www.dfj.com/) The first $500k seed came from DFJ.[1] But somewhat to your point, Elizabeth Holmes did not get his backing via the typical "VC due diligence" channel. Instead, she was childhood friends with Draper's daughter. Apparently, her charm completely bypassed his VC radar for detecting bullshit. [1] https://news.crunchbase.com/news/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-trial-investors-board/#:~:text=other%20business%20ties.-,Theranos'%20investors,June%202004%2C%20according%20to%20Crunchbase https://news.crunchbase.com/news/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-t....
- throwawayswede 5y ago
  /s/bypassed/overloaded
  - HPsquared 5y ago
    Overloading the opponent's radar with false signals is a good jamming method, after all.
- FiberBundle 5y ago
  Draper actually continues to back her [1], recently (2019 tbf, but after the release of the Carreyrou book) claiming that Theranos has opened the door for other companies to make progress in the blood test area. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vqliQZv1ehA&t=410s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vqliQZv1ehA&t=410s
  - Waterluvian 5y ago
    Is that backing her or is that licking his own embarrassing wounds?
    - FiberBundle 5y ago
      I didn't find the right video earlier. This was actually what I was looking for and since he said in the more recent video that he hasn't changed his mind on this, he probably still feels that Holmes is in some way a victim in all of this: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/05/10/vc-draper-theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes-was-bullied-into-submission.html https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/05/10/vc-draper-theranos-fou...
hatmatrix 5y ago
This article is a hot mess for the reason you said, but also for saying Elizabeth Holmes is the scapegoat of investors (who didn't do due diligence) for the endangering people's health. If she was selling death machines that's one thing, but she (through her company) made fraudulent claims about the accuracy of their device not only to investors but also the doctors and patients.
- swalsh 5y ago
  The fraudlent claims to doctors and patients is the bit that really makes me fume about the company. I really could care less about VC money being squandered. But people made critical health decisions based on these results.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bigbillheck 5y ago
How many SV startups does a VC have to invest in before they become associated?

capableweb 5y ago

The article doesn't seem to be about hating "Silicon Valley" type VCs, but more VCs in general so not sure where this comment comes from, or why you'd have to repeat a comeback so many times to an argument that doesn't even seem to be made in the first place.

rsynnott 5y ago
When people talk about VCs here, they normally mean venture capital firms, who are relatively sophisticated, do due diligence, etc. The vast bulk of Theranos's investment came from, for want of a better term, elderly rich people operating in a personal capacity. I mean, you _could_ call Betsy DeVos or Rupert Murdoch VCs, but it's not how people typically understand the term.
- dnautics 5y ago
  Doing due diligence and doing due diligence well are separate things. I have seen so many fictional or peri-impossible (impossible or "extremely implausible at current tech levels") tech get venture in silicon valley. For example, there was a company called blue turtle that claimed to want to build a bacterium that provided gaucher's disease enzyme as a probiotic supplement. I mean technically speaking it's not impossible, but there are so many things that 'dont exist yet and would need to be engineered' that I couldn't see it making it as a company.
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    To be fair, engineering bacteria to produce a single enzyme as an MVP is an afternoon activity for a single person. You can watch it done on youtube. (you do have to wait some weeks to get your gene sequences or plasmids or whatever manufactured then you have to culture etc. and it doesn’t always work…) But in general it’s not out of the ordinary to think you could do the engineering part in a day.
    - dnautics 5y ago
      Even a trivial due dill on cerezyme which is the gaucher's disease enzyme that blue turtle was proposing would have revealed that approved formulation is encapsulated in a membrane, has a membrane anchor (which bacteria cannot natively produce), has glycosylated protein (which bacteria cannot natively produce), not to mention "how the hell do you deliver a protein through the intestinal barrier" and "how do you target probiotic to the intestine", "how do you keep intestinal probiotics there", "what is the plan to measure uptake variations in the population" etc. etc. Like seriously, i was able to look this up on wikipedia in the timespan of their demo pitch.
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    Oh, absolutely. A lot of VC firms are quite bad at due diligence. However, if you believe John Carreyrou, the big investors mostly weren't thinking along those lines, and some attempts to get investment from real VCs were stymied by the most basic due diligence (one pulled out when Theranos was unable to produce audited accounts, for instance). Notably, one early investor said, in interviews, that he was comfortable investing because Holmes' grandfather was a businessman, and another relative was a famous doctor (presumably the theory was that she was thus _genetically_ good at medical tech businesses?!). These were, by and large, very much the opposite of sophisticated investors.

jasode 5y ago

>For the 1000th time, a total of 0 (zero) VCs that most people would associate with "silicon valley" invested in Theranos Well, Tim Draper is a VC that people would associate with "Silicon Valley". (portfolio: https://www.dfj.com/ https://www.dfj.com/) The first $500k seed came from DFJ.[1] But somewhat to your point, Elizabeth Holmes did not get his backing via the typical "VC due diligence" channel. Instead, she was childhood friends with Draper's daughter. Apparently, her charm completely bypassed his VC radar for detecting bullshit. [1] https://news.crunchbase.com/news/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-trial-investors-board/#:~:text=other%20business%20ties.-,Theranos'%20investors,June%202004%2C%20according%20to%20Crunchbase https://news.crunchbase.com/news/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-t....

throwawayswede 5y ago
/s/bypassed/overloaded
- HPsquared 5y ago
  Overloading the opponent's radar with false signals is a good jamming method, after all.
FiberBundle 5y ago
Draper actually continues to back her [1], recently (2019 tbf, but after the release of the Carreyrou book) claiming that Theranos has opened the door for other companies to make progress in the blood test area. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vqliQZv1ehA&t=410s https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vqliQZv1ehA&t=410s
- Waterluvian 5y ago
  Is that backing her or is that licking his own embarrassing wounds?
  - FiberBundle 5y ago
    I didn't find the right video earlier. This was actually what I was looking for and since he said in the more recent video that he hasn't changed his mind on this, he probably still feels that Holmes is in some way a victim in all of this: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/05/10/vc-draper-theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes-was-bullied-into-submission.html https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/05/10/vc-draper-theranos-fou...

hatmatrix 5y ago

This article is a hot mess for the reason you said, but also for saying Elizabeth Holmes is the scapegoat of investors (who didn't do due diligence) for the endangering people's health. If she was selling death machines that's one thing, but she (through her company) made fraudulent claims about the accuracy of their device not only to investors but also the doctors and patients.

swalsh 5y ago
The fraudlent claims to doctors and patients is the bit that really makes me fume about the company. I really could care less about VC money being squandered. But people made critical health decisions based on these results.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bigbillheck 5y ago

How many SV startups does a VC have to invest in before they become associated?