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> She only pauses in her work to run — seven miles a day. -- Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, yes that Andreessen, writing in the New York Times Magazine about Visi

by biztos 5y ago

> She only pauses in her work to run — seven miles a day. -- Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, yes that Andreessen, writing in the New York Times Magazine about Visionary Tech Entrepreneurs with, um, no conflict of interest whatsoever I'm sure. Turns out Palantir's Alex Karp was also "harnessing goodness through technology." No idea how she missed Adam Neumann. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/12/t-magazine/elizabeth-holmes-tech-visionaries-brian-chesky.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/12/t-magazine/el... [Edit: there is an implied conflict of interest in the spouse of a major venture capitalist hyping startups in a supposedly neutral publication, which is something I'm kind of surprised needs clarification, but there is also an explicit conflict of interest -- if we treat the author as a journalist anyway -- in that one of the five companies thus hyped in the linked article was an A16Z portfolio company. Sorry to anyone who thought I was implying that the Andreessens or A16Z were investors in Theranos, I assumed they were not and I didn't intend to imply that. Nor do I think it is in fact implied, but I obviously should have been clearer since people took it that way.]

Grustaf 5y ago
A16z didn't invest in Theranos, did Marc personally invest or what is the conflict?
- biztos 5y ago
  The article hypes five founders, one definitely was funded by A16Z, the others I think were not but I'm not sure. I don't know anything about the Andreessens' personal investments but just as a general rule you might question the propriety of someone that close to the VC money using your storied newspaper to promote startup founders. I'm not going to hold up the NYT as some bastion of journalistic ethics, but still. https://a16z.com/2011/07/24/meet-our-newest-portfolio-company-airbnb-2/ https://a16z.com/2011/07/24/meet-our-newest-portfolio-compan...
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    Hyping founders you _didn't_ invest in is sort of the opposite of nepotism though.
    - biztos 5y ago
      I disagree. It's a small VC world. I'm not going to assume the author was rooting for the failure of the other four operations. One of them even was interviewed on the A16Z podcast later (the one who tragically died). If you had a graph of all the people who contributed to Palantir's success and all the ones who have made money for A16Z, I bet you'd see a lot of overlap. Consider I have five artists in my collection, and I write an article about five artists but four of them are not in my collection. If I were to write about only the five in my collection, I might be called on it. By writing about the others I'm making it seem like the one in my collection just belongs in the group; and maybe the group will elevate my artist by association. I might actually like all five of the artists I write about! They might be true visionaries and altruists besides! They might paint all the time except when they are running! (Actually this kind of thing happens all the time in the art world, which makes my analogy a little depressing when I think about it...)
      - Grustaf 5y ago
        Sure, if you hype your own investment and add 4 more as decoy then you are hyping your own company, so that would be self serving.
    - morelisp 5y ago
      The Arrillaga family fortune goes up any time the value of "SV" as a brand (or concrete asset) goes up. It's a nice trick to not have a formal COI while still closely and actively managing your interests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arrillaga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arrillaga
      - Grustaf 5y ago
        Interesting, I had no idea.
CRConrad 5y ago
Adam, or Alfred E...?
anthony_romeo 5y ago
I think you ought to actually explain the conflict of interest. I'm trying to find a clear connection between Theranos and Andreessen-related investments. I can't find evidence of an actual investment in Theranos. I'm not trying to dismiss you -- your theory[^1] could very well be totally right and there truly was a conflict [my duck-duck-go-ing skills only go so far]. And yeah, perhaps a person married to a wealthy tech investor ought not write high-profile articles possibly related to their partner's investments, and that publishers should be more wary of publishing such articles. Yet I do get frustrated seeing these sorts of vague cynical quips levying specific accusations based more upon a gut plausibility of a scenario rather than a clear outline of information. It's easy to throw bread crumbs into a forest and connect them to make a path, but that doesn't mean you've found a useful path. EDIT: Here is a somewhat-arbitrarily-selected article I found which discusses this topic: https://www.vox.com/2015/10/29/11620186/nyt-public-editor-blasts-arrillaga-andreessen-magazine-feature-for https://www.vox.com/2015/10/29/11620186/nyt-public-editor-bl... [^1]: Technically you wrote that you were sure there was no conflict of interest whatsoever, but surely that was in jest.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  I'm sure the author has no business relationship at all with Theranos and merely knows her socially. Plausible deniability is useful in this kind of situation.
  - anthony_romeo 5y ago
    My main point from above: > I do get frustrated seeing these sorts of vague cynical quips levying *specific* accusations based more upon a gut plausibility of a scenario rather than a clear outline of information.
    - elzbardico 5y ago
      We got it and I couldn’t possibly agree more if you didn’t obnoxiously cut and pasted the same criticism for every subsequent message that failed to satisfy your standards. Sometimes people don’t get our point, so we just move on
nathanvanfleet 5y ago
I think that Fox news has been around enough that people really don't expect any media to be neutral anymore. It just seems natural and normal for any media outlet to be vertically integrated into something. Washington Post seems to be anti union and against billionaires being taxed? Whatever.
- autokad 5y ago
  when fox news came out, most news agencies (maybe all) were already left, so it choose to do something different and liberals have been bemoaning that ever since.
pyuser583 5y ago
This reads like a PR release: > By breaking down barriers to testing, she’s paving the way for a scalable approach to early diagnosis and therefore lower-cost, less invasive treatments. And by standing up to lawmakers and entities with vested interests for individuals’ fundamental right to access their health care information, Holmes may be doing more than running one of the world’s most successful start-ups — she may be starting a movement to change the health care paradigm as we know it.

by biztos 5y ago

Grustaf 5y ago

A16z didn't invest in Theranos, did Marc personally invest or what is the conflict?

biztos 5y ago
The article hypes five founders, one definitely was funded by A16Z, the others I think were not but I'm not sure. I don't know anything about the Andreessens' personal investments but just as a general rule you might question the propriety of someone that close to the VC money using your storied newspaper to promote startup founders. I'm not going to hold up the NYT as some bastion of journalistic ethics, but still. https://a16z.com/2011/07/24/meet-our-newest-portfolio-company-airbnb-2/ https://a16z.com/2011/07/24/meet-our-newest-portfolio-compan...
- Grustaf 5y ago
  Hyping founders you _didn't_ invest in is sort of the opposite of nepotism though.
  - biztos 5y ago
    I disagree. It's a small VC world. I'm not going to assume the author was rooting for the failure of the other four operations. One of them even was interviewed on the A16Z podcast later (the one who tragically died). If you had a graph of all the people who contributed to Palantir's success and all the ones who have made money for A16Z, I bet you'd see a lot of overlap. Consider I have five artists in my collection, and I write an article about five artists but four of them are not in my collection. If I were to write about only the five in my collection, I might be called on it. By writing about the others I'm making it seem like the one in my collection just belongs in the group; and maybe the group will elevate my artist by association. I might actually like all five of the artists I write about! They might be true visionaries and altruists besides! They might paint all the time except when they are running! (Actually this kind of thing happens all the time in the art world, which makes my analogy a little depressing when I think about it...)
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      Sure, if you hype your own investment and add 4 more as decoy then you are hyping your own company, so that would be self serving.
  - morelisp 5y ago
    The Arrillaga family fortune goes up any time the value of "SV" as a brand (or concrete asset) goes up. It's a nice trick to not have a formal COI while still closely and actively managing your interests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arrillaga https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arrillaga
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      Interesting, I had no idea.

CRConrad 5y ago

Adam, or Alfred E...?

anthony_romeo 5y ago

I think you ought to actually explain the conflict of interest. I'm trying to find a clear connection between Theranos and Andreessen-related investments. I can't find evidence of an actual investment in Theranos. I'm not trying to dismiss you -- your theory[^1] could very well be totally right and there truly was a conflict [my duck-duck-go-ing skills only go so far]. And yeah, perhaps a person married to a wealthy tech investor ought not write high-profile articles possibly related to their partner's investments, and that publishers should be more wary of publishing such articles. Yet I do get frustrated seeing these sorts of vague cynical quips levying specific accusations based more upon a gut plausibility of a scenario rather than a clear outline of information. It's easy to throw bread crumbs into a forest and connect them to make a path, but that doesn't mean you've found a useful path. EDIT: Here is a somewhat-arbitrarily-selected article I found which discusses this topic: https://www.vox.com/2015/10/29/11620186/nyt-public-editor-blasts-arrillaga-andreessen-magazine-feature-for https://www.vox.com/2015/10/29/11620186/nyt-public-editor-bl... [^1]: Technically you wrote that you were sure there was no conflict of interest whatsoever, but surely that was in jest.

mywittyname 5y ago
I'm sure the author has no business relationship at all with Theranos and merely knows her socially. Plausible deniability is useful in this kind of situation.
- anthony_romeo 5y ago
  My main point from above: > I do get frustrated seeing these sorts of vague cynical quips levying *specific* accusations based more upon a gut plausibility of a scenario rather than a clear outline of information.
  - elzbardico 5y ago
    We got it and I couldn’t possibly agree more if you didn’t obnoxiously cut and pasted the same criticism for every subsequent message that failed to satisfy your standards. Sometimes people don’t get our point, so we just move on

nathanvanfleet 5y ago

I think that Fox news has been around enough that people really don't expect any media to be neutral anymore. It just seems natural and normal for any media outlet to be vertically integrated into something. Washington Post seems to be anti union and against billionaires being taxed? Whatever.

autokad 5y ago
when fox news came out, most news agencies (maybe all) were already left, so it choose to do something different and liberals have been bemoaning that ever since.

pyuser583 5y ago

This reads like a PR release: > By breaking down barriers to testing, she’s paving the way for a scalable approach to early diagnosis and therefore lower-cost, less invasive treatments. And by standing up to lawmakers and entities with vested interests for individuals’ fundamental right to access their health care information, Holmes may be doing more than running one of the world’s most successful start-ups — she may be starting a movement to change the health care paradigm as we know it.