5 ms·

Maybe HOlmes's problem was she was collecting too much blood. Maybe she needed to collect less blood.

joering2 5y ago
Her only problem was that she fell off the runway before she had a chance to take off. Some engineers I spoke with told me she was 2 years before her big breakthru. At the end of the day no difference between Holmes being over-promising on blood testing, and Musk over-promising with your Tesla being a robotaxi that makes you $30,000 profit a year, by driving fully autonomously inside a vast network of underground 3D tunnels at speeds of 150 mph.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  > Some engineers I spoke with told me she was 2 years before her big breakthru. That's pretty gullible given her history to date. 2 years before a breakthrough spells 'never', that's exactly how the rest of the investors got bilked.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  Did these "some engineers" get their degree from a crackerjack box? Holmes was always full of shit, and a "big breakthru" in this area is impossible, as there is ample evidence that capillary blood at these volumes is simply not homogeneous enough to give accurate results for quantitative tests.
  - joering2 5y ago
    Impossible with todays technology. When Musk was initially pitching electric car, everyone was laughing because back then the batteries density made it impossible for battery to be lightweight enough to be carried in a normal sized car. And look where we are today... Let's revisit Holmes claims in 15 years. Unless you want to argue that there will never be any progress made in terms of blood tests???
    - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
      Not sure why I'm feeding the trolls, but anyway: > everyone was laughing because back then the batteries density made it impossible for battery to be lightweight enough to be carried in a normal sized car. That's simply untrue. The issue was always recognized to be economic, not a physical impossibility issue. There were a bunch of (crappy) electric cars in the 90s. With respect to Theranos, impossible as in it is physically impossible, because of the non-homogeneity of capillary blood. It simply doesn't matter how good your blood test is, if you are doing a quantitative test, for many types of tests you can simply not get good enough accuracy doing a finger prick test.
      - joering2 5y ago
      - fastball 5y ago
        When you said the 90s, did you mean the 1890s? If so, you would be correct.
      - CamperBob2 5y ago
        With respect to Theranos, impossible as in it is physically impossible, because of the non-homogeneity of capillary blood. It simply doesn't matter how good your blood test is, if you are doing a quantitative test, for many types of tests you can simply not get good enough accuracy doing a finger prick test. The crazy thing is, you don't have to consult biomedical engineers or pore over leading-edge research papers to discover this. You just need to ask almost any med tech with a modicum of experience with blood tests. They will tell you, in no uncertain terms, that Blood Does Not Work That Way. I will never understand the lack of due diligence performed by the Theranos investors. There couldn't possibly have been any due diligence at all. It's very hard to avoid slipping into victim-blaming mode in any conversation about this company.
    - austinjp 5y ago
      You've leapt from 2 years to 15 years, I notice. And "blood tests" vs tests of capillary blood is a big difference.
- kuhewa 5y ago
  Were the engineers from the future?
- axutio 5y ago
  Holmes wasn't just making lofty promises about the future capabilities of her technology, she was lying about its current capabilities to investors and using unreliable diagnostic tools to provide patients with test results that were frequently wrong - real patients experienced real harm as a result. The better analogy would be Musk indiscriminately enabling full self-driving in every Model 3, claiming its Level 5 as is, and encouraging drivers to sit in the back with a blindfold on.
  - BoorishBears 5y ago
    Actually the current state of the FSD Beta would be a great analogy, no alteration needed.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > At the end of the day no difference between Holmes being over-promising on blood testing, and Musk over-promising with your Tesla being a robotaxi that makes you $30,000 profit a year, by driving fully autonomously inside a vast network of underground 3D tunnels at speeds of 150 mph. There's a difference, Musk is wealthy and has mostly swindled consumers and retail investors, while Holmes wasn't wealthy and mainly swindled the wealthy.

Her only problem was that she fell off the runway before she had a chance to take off. Some engineers I spoke with told me she was 2 years before her big breakthru. At the end of the day no difference between Holmes being over-promising on blood testing, and Musk over-promising with your Tesla being a robotaxi that makes you $30,000 profit a year, by driving fully autonomously inside a vast network of underground 3D tunnels at speeds of 150 mph.

jacquesm 5y ago
> Some engineers I spoke with told me she was 2 years before her big breakthru. That's pretty gullible given her history to date. 2 years before a breakthrough spells 'never', that's exactly how the rest of the investors got bilked.
hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
Did these "some engineers" get their degree from a crackerjack box? Holmes was always full of shit, and a "big breakthru" in this area is impossible, as there is ample evidence that capillary blood at these volumes is simply not homogeneous enough to give accurate results for quantitative tests.
- joering2 5y ago
  Impossible with todays technology. When Musk was initially pitching electric car, everyone was laughing because back then the batteries density made it impossible for battery to be lightweight enough to be carried in a normal sized car. And look where we are today... Let's revisit Holmes claims in 15 years. Unless you want to argue that there will never be any progress made in terms of blood tests???
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    Not sure why I'm feeding the trolls, but anyway: > everyone was laughing because back then the batteries density made it impossible for battery to be lightweight enough to be carried in a normal sized car. That's simply untrue. The issue was always recognized to be economic, not a physical impossibility issue. There were a bunch of (crappy) electric cars in the 90s. With respect to Theranos, impossible as in it is physically impossible, because of the non-homogeneity of capillary blood. It simply doesn't matter how good your blood test is, if you are doing a quantitative test, for many types of tests you can simply not get good enough accuracy doing a finger prick test.
    - joering2 5y ago
    - fastball 5y ago
      When you said the 90s, did you mean the 1890s? If so, you would be correct.
    - CamperBob2 5y ago
      With respect to Theranos, impossible as in it is physically impossible, because of the non-homogeneity of capillary blood. It simply doesn't matter how good your blood test is, if you are doing a quantitative test, for many types of tests you can simply not get good enough accuracy doing a finger prick test. The crazy thing is, you don't have to consult biomedical engineers or pore over leading-edge research papers to discover this. You just need to ask almost any med tech with a modicum of experience with blood tests. They will tell you, in no uncertain terms, that Blood Does Not Work That Way. I will never understand the lack of due diligence performed by the Theranos investors. There couldn't possibly have been any due diligence at all. It's very hard to avoid slipping into victim-blaming mode in any conversation about this company.
  - austinjp 5y ago
    You've leapt from 2 years to 15 years, I notice. And "blood tests" vs tests of capillary blood is a big difference.
kuhewa 5y ago
Were the engineers from the future?
axutio 5y ago
Holmes wasn't just making lofty promises about the future capabilities of her technology, she was lying about its current capabilities to investors and using unreliable diagnostic tools to provide patients with test results that were frequently wrong - real patients experienced real harm as a result. The better analogy would be Musk indiscriminately enabling full self-driving in every Model 3, claiming its Level 5 as is, and encouraging drivers to sit in the back with a blindfold on.
- BoorishBears 5y ago
  Actually the current state of the FSD Beta would be a great analogy, no alteration needed.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> At the end of the day no difference between Holmes being over-promising on blood testing, and Musk over-promising with your Tesla being a robotaxi that makes you $30,000 profit a year, by driving fully autonomously inside a vast network of underground 3D tunnels at speeds of 150 mph. There's a difference, Musk is wealthy and has mostly swindled consumers and retail investors, while Holmes wasn't wealthy and mainly swindled the wealthy.