4 ms·

I've been against this site for a long time[1]. Yes, there's a lot to be learned from failed startups. And yes, failures such as Theranos (or in this case, uBio

I've been against this site for a long time[1]. Yes, there's a lot to be learned from failed startups. And yes, failures such as Theranos (or in this case, uBiome) deserve a very bright spotlight on them. But this site just feels like it's picking on people. They never have any real insight; they just call out founders by name and use fast-paced sounding words to cover up that there's not much information to be gleaned. Startups usually don't work out, and as long as no fraud happens, that's just the way it works. (If you're looking for a good version of this, where people on the inside are interviewed about what's going wrong, I highly recommend this episode of Startup: https://gimletmedia.com/shows/startup/awhmbo https://gimletmedia.com/shows/startup/awhmbo) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24733189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24733189

smt88 3y ago
> But this site just feels like it's picking on people. They never have any real insight; they just call out founders by name Sorry, when you ask for tens of millions of other people's dollars and use that experience to self-promote (and possibly raise for a new venture down the road), you don't get to try to bury your failure. If your name is in the press release about raising the money, it's totally reasonable for it to be in the press release about how you lost it all. Encouraging people to benefit from their successes and hide their failures is how we get clowns like Emad Mostaque[1] who fail upward at the expense of more qualified and ethical people. 1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2023/06/04/stable-diffusion-emad-mostaque-stability-ai-exaggeration/?sh=66edfee575c5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2023/06/04/stable-di...
- gkoberger 3y ago
  I'm all for accountability, but no investor is going to source information from Failory. They do no investigation and offer no unique insight; it's just clickbait blog spam. The same exact article gets posted ever few months here. VCs expect a majority of their investments to fail. On a long enough timeline, all companies eventually will fail. A company not working out isn't necessarily a disqualifying event, and your comment confused generic failure and intentional fraud.
causality0 3y ago
But this site just feels like it's picking on people. I'm not sure that's fair, considering how light-touch all the criticisms are. For example, it takes a pretty even hand to lay out what uBiome did without calling them a bunch of exploitative fraudster assholes whose entire company strategy relied on purposefully hanging yet another albatross around the neck of the already-beleaguered American healthcare industry.
Fnoord 3y ago
I don't see a definition of failure being mentioned. In my world, success isn't getting acquired. That's just short-term success for the founders and early investors. But putting such value on short-term success is... well, short-sighted. Long-term success is about developing a concept into something valuable (ie. a product). Its about attracting customers, and retaining them. Its about profit, and retaining profit. You don't need to get acquired for such. I agree that cherry picking examples without in-depth analysis isn't worthwhile. If you want to learn from other's mistakes, you need to go in-depth instead of shallow. Also, there's nothing wrong with failing itself. It can be important to note such, the why. For example, its important to note the founder of Discord previously had a startup where data gathering was part of the profit model. Because that tells us something about where his moral values lie. And that is where mentioning Theranos or uBiome is worthwhile. I don't know about uBiome, but with regards to Theranos it took too long for the fraud to be exposed. Many people got hurt. Mostly financially, but also via fraudulent results, and at least one employer committed suicide. I don't know anything about uBiome but that they got raided by FBI is noteworthy. I know another startup who've acted fraudulently, deleting evidence via FDE in their remote office in Brussels: Uber. Yes, these events are important to note if your subject is failed startups. Although as mentioned fail should be clearly defined.

smt88 3y ago

> But this site just feels like it's picking on people. They never have any real insight; they just call out founders by name Sorry, when you ask for tens of millions of other people's dollars and use that experience to self-promote (and possibly raise for a new venture down the road), you don't get to try to bury your failure. If your name is in the press release about raising the money, it's totally reasonable for it to be in the press release about how you lost it all. Encouraging people to benefit from their successes and hide their failures is how we get clowns like Emad Mostaque[1] who fail upward at the expense of more qualified and ethical people. 1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2023/06/04/stable-diffusion-emad-mostaque-stability-ai-exaggeration/?sh=66edfee575c5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2023/06/04/stable-di...

gkoberger 3y ago
I'm all for accountability, but no investor is going to source information from Failory. They do no investigation and offer no unique insight; it's just clickbait blog spam. The same exact article gets posted ever few months here. VCs expect a majority of their investments to fail. On a long enough timeline, all companies eventually will fail. A company not working out isn't necessarily a disqualifying event, and your comment confused generic failure and intentional fraud.

causality0 3y ago

But this site just feels like it's picking on people. I'm not sure that's fair, considering how light-touch all the criticisms are. For example, it takes a pretty even hand to lay out what uBiome did without calling them a bunch of exploitative fraudster assholes whose entire company strategy relied on purposefully hanging yet another albatross around the neck of the already-beleaguered American healthcare industry.

Fnoord 3y ago

I don't see a definition of failure being mentioned. In my world, success isn't getting acquired. That's just short-term success for the founders and early investors. But putting such value on short-term success is... well, short-sighted. Long-term success is about developing a concept into something valuable (ie. a product). Its about attracting customers, and retaining them. Its about profit, and retaining profit. You don't need to get acquired for such. I agree that cherry picking examples without in-depth analysis isn't worthwhile. If you want to learn from other's mistakes, you need to go in-depth instead of shallow. Also, there's nothing wrong with failing itself. It can be important to note such, the why. For example, its important to note the founder of Discord previously had a startup where data gathering was part of the profit model. Because that tells us something about where his moral values lie. And that is where mentioning Theranos or uBiome is worthwhile. I don't know about uBiome, but with regards to Theranos it took too long for the fraud to be exposed. Many people got hurt. Mostly financially, but also via fraudulent results, and at least one employer committed suicide. I don't know anything about uBiome but that they got raided by FBI is noteworthy. I know another startup who've acted fraudulently, deleting evidence via FDE in their remote office in Brussels: Uber. Yes, these events are important to note if your subject is failed startups. Although as mentioned fail should be clearly defined.