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Not just Theranos, virtually all early stage investment sees warm introductions as more important than a perfectly structured deck Part of it's perfectly ratio

Not just Theranos, virtually all early stage investment sees warm introductions as more important than a perfectly structured deck Part of it's perfectly rational: faced with two competently written but not directly comparable proposals, knowing that one of the proposers is less of a mystery than the other is additional information about their ability to deliver, and part of it's humans being humans. Ironically I'd see much of crypto and other investment bubbles as the opposite cognitive bias (who cares about the gaps in our knowledge, this number is going up faster than that number?)

derbOac 5y ago
I think the last part of what you are saying is actually maybe closer to why the comparison seems apt to me. Trivial patents are another comparison. There's an Emperor has no clothes aspect of it to me, a focus on appearance of scientific prestige or rigor over actual substance. Ioannidis' "Why Most Scientific Findings are False" is maybe the best-known reference point, although I think that's maybe slightly different from, if related to, the underlying phenomena I have in mind. HN maybe isn't the best forum to explain all of this but I'm quite jaded at this point with academics. I don't want to come across as too negative either, as implying nothing works or there is no progress or something like that, but there's a huge disconnect between what I see personally in scientific circles in actuality vs the nominal narrative in terms of how ideas are taken up, how consensus is reached, what happens to accurate but dissenting perspectives, and how credit accrues. Some of it is common to our time, but some of it I think is amplified or something in the academic community. I also realize at some level my experiences are not universal, but that there are a lot of people who feel the same (apparently) maybe just underscores my point. When someone like Peter Higgs is saying he wouldn't be employable today (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-interview-underlying-incompetence https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-...), scientific institutions should be paying closer attention and doing something about it.

derbOac 5y ago

I think the last part of what you are saying is actually maybe closer to why the comparison seems apt to me. Trivial patents are another comparison. There's an Emperor has no clothes aspect of it to me, a focus on appearance of scientific prestige or rigor over actual substance. Ioannidis' "Why Most Scientific Findings are False" is maybe the best-known reference point, although I think that's maybe slightly different from, if related to, the underlying phenomena I have in mind. HN maybe isn't the best forum to explain all of this but I'm quite jaded at this point with academics. I don't want to come across as too negative either, as implying nothing works or there is no progress or something like that, but there's a huge disconnect between what I see personally in scientific circles in actuality vs the nominal narrative in terms of how ideas are taken up, how consensus is reached, what happens to accurate but dissenting perspectives, and how credit accrues. Some of it is common to our time, but some of it I think is amplified or something in the academic community. I also realize at some level my experiences are not universal, but that there are a lot of people who feel the same (apparently) maybe just underscores my point. When someone like Peter Higgs is saying he wouldn't be employable today (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-interview-underlying-incompetence https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/06/peter-higgs-...), scientific institutions should be paying closer attention and doing something about it.