7 ms·

She founded SiriusXM, a religion and a biotech for starters

127 points by modfodder 12y ago

zaroth 12y ago
A very interesting article, I just wish whatever ad plugins they have going didn't constantly crash Chrome. Those disembodied lungs are amazing. And incredibly creepy. The business plan -- patching up donor lungs not approved for transplant (which is most of them) and keeping them alive long enough to find a patient they can save... to the tune of perhaps 2,000 lungs and lives per year. That's pretty amazing. Approved in Canada and awaiting FDA approval as well? That's incredible. I couldn't find a news reports of their first rejuvenated lung, the article doesn't really give much detail on how the procedure went. Martine, I'm sure YC would want her at their Female Founder's Conference! ;-) Some other interesting posts I found; Martine Rothblatt - The Trans-Everything CEO http://nymag.com/news/features/martine-rothblatt-transgender-ceo/ http://nymag.com/news/features/martine-rothblatt-transgender... Book Review: Virtually Human by Martine Rothblatt http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/09/09/book-review-virtually-human-martine-rothblatt/ http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/09/09/book-review-virtually-hu... United Therapeutics Website http://www.unither.com/ http://www.unither.com/
- softdev12 12y ago
  I just finished Virtually Human and would definitely recommend it. It makes a very in depth analysis for why "conscious" computers of the future will eventually want human rights - the same way that certain minority groups fought for equal rights throughout history. The book seems to argue that the likely future scenario is for humans to replicate themselves in a separate computer entity. So people would have a duplicate robot twin. Very little mention is left to addressing the case of people actually merging with computers (so one entity and not two). I think this case is far more likely.
psygnisfive 12y ago
Oh wow, I saw the United Therapeutics HQ in Silver Spring being built, walked around it a bunch when it was done, thought it was a cool building, etc. and had no idea it was Rothblatt's company. Neat!
zanek 12y ago
I lived across the street from United Thera. a few years ago and met Rothblatt at a company party I walked into on the street. I googled her and read all the things in the article and was amazed at her life story . This happened before the party, as I was curious about the company right in front of my window. Was great to talk with her about the insane amount of hard work she had to do to save her daughter, etc. Everyone I met at UT said she was the best boss they ever had. They have a very startup type vibe at United Thera, and the buildings they constructed are amazing too ! Everytime I saw Rothblatt, there would be a circle of people waiting to talk to her, and fawning over her. Its great to see this years later on yCombinator
downandout 12y ago
"The 60-year-old grandmother and CEO of United Therapeutics, the Silver Spring-based biotech she founded to help save her younger daughter’s life, banked $38 million last year. It made her the nation’s highest-paid female executive." I find it hard to believe that $38 million made her the highest paid female executive in the US. I would be stunned if this outpaced Sheryl Sandberg. Interesting story nonetheless.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- uniformlyrandom 12y ago
  Marissa Mayer has got slightly more than 200M form Yahoo in 2013, although biggest part of this is probably her bonus, not salary.
- brandon272 12y ago
  Sheryl Sandberg earned $16M in cash and stock in 2013. More in prior years, but less than $38M.
- mikeryan 12y ago
  I believe these were 2013 numbers? (not sure might be 2014) Sheryl Sandberg made about 16M in salary and stock in 2013 however. http://qz.com/194054/mark-zuckerberg-and-sheryl-sandberg-took-huge-pay-cuts-in-2013-despite-facebooks-stunning-year/ http://qz.com/194054/mark-zuckerberg-and-sheryl-sandberg-too... Note according to this list: http://www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2013-08-19/the-15-highest-paid-female-top-executives-.html#slide15 http://www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2013-08-19/the-15-highest... Safra Catz from Oracle was the highest paid in 2013 so maybe this is a 2014 list.
- nieve 12y ago
  Bad research by the reporter, from another Washington Post article: "That figured landed her the No. 1 spot on the Capital Business ranking of best compensated executives in the Washington region, and the No. 10 slot on a New York Times list of the highest compensated executives in the nation. " http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/united-therapeutics-slashes-pay-for-ceo-martine-rothblatt-after-shareholder-vote/2014/12/17/383992a8-861e-11e4-a702-fa31ff4ae98e_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/unite... It was also a huge jump from her normal compensation due to the company doing very well under her in 2013, so the shareholders turned around and immediately penalized her for good stock performance. I can understand adjusting a bit, but if your stock has shot up that much your investments have too and slashing your CEO's options by 2/3rds sounds greedy as hell. She agreed to amend her contract, but I doubt they could have forced her to short of removing her which would almost certainly hammer the stock price and triggered a golden parachute. Really bizarre move, all and all, and I've never heard of it happening to an executive of her caliber who's company is doing incredibly well.
fit2rule 12y ago
Yikes. The creep factor is very high in this article. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the fawning over what is arguably a potentially dangerous new cult.
- enraged_camel 12y ago
  What exactly do you find creepy and what makes her religion a "cult?"
  - 01Michael10 12y ago
    I guess you didn't read the article... The Terasem Movement most certainly is creepy (aren't all religions?) but we don't have enough information to determine if it is a cult (would need actually followers). I want to guess this "religion" is really meant to be satirical.
    - easytiger 12y ago
      Even creepier robot of his wife: http://www.nytimes.com/video/science/1247468035233/interview-with-a-robot.html http://www.nytimes.com/video/science/1247468035233/interview...
      - eropple 12y ago
        Misgendering a transgendered person is being a jerk. Don't be a jerk.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
- ebbv 12y ago
  The thing that really annoys me about profiles like these is that they are about someone who was born into privilege and then lucked into wealth at a young age. Yeah, Martine was right about the future of satellite radio. But lots of people were right about a lot of things but didn't hit big paydays. When someone hits one like that, it's mostly down to luck. Leveraging that early wealth into other successful things is better than squandering it, but it's not a tale of heroism. Instead of giving me actual reasons to admire Martine, this profile is just a list of things that came from that fortunate early privilege and wealth. And yeah, the cult is an indication of some kind of mental problems to me.
bvm 12y ago
United Therapeutics are a strange company. In 2010, they released a supplement to their annual report in comic book form - http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/UTHR/1290392365x0x466310/3ac92701-7658-49b1-a31e-67693969f01f/UTAR_2010_lo-res.pdf http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/UTHR/1290392365x0x466... And the following year, released it as a musical.
- gcb0 12y ago
  i would be extremely worried if a company im investing did this. as much as it is not, it does at least seems like diversion tactics.
emocakes 12y ago
the the title is wrong, should say he
joshstrange 12y ago
Without the Oxford comma I read that as SiriusXM being "a religion and a biotech for starters", I was pretty confused until I red the article and realized my mistake.
- NotOscarWilde 12y ago
  But even with the comma there's still the intepretation of SiriusXM being a religion, right? (ESL speaker here; that's how I might interpret it.)
  - PeterWhittaker 12y ago
    Yes, that is true. Short statements inside pairs of commas are sometimes parenthetical asides, descriptions of the previous term/expression. All hail the ambiguity of the spoken word....
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      > All hail the ambiguity of the spoken word.... But this is actually about the (lesser, but still present) ambiguity of the written word.

127 points by modfodder 12y ago

A very interesting article, I just wish whatever ad plugins they have going didn't constantly crash Chrome. Those disembodied lungs are amazing. And incredibly creepy. The business plan -- patching up donor lungs not approved for transplant (which is most of them) and keeping them alive long enough to find a patient they can save... to the tune of perhaps 2,000 lungs and lives per year. That's pretty amazing. Approved in Canada and awaiting FDA approval as well? That's incredible. I couldn't find a news reports of their first rejuvenated lung, the article doesn't really give much detail on how the procedure went. Martine, I'm sure YC would want her at their Female Founder's Conference! ;-) Some other interesting posts I found; Martine Rothblatt - The Trans-Everything CEO http://nymag.com/news/features/martine-rothblatt-transgender-ceo/ http://nymag.com/news/features/martine-rothblatt-transgender... Book Review: Virtually Human by Martine Rothblatt http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/09/09/book-review-virtually-human-martine-rothblatt/ http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/09/09/book-review-virtually-hu... United Therapeutics Website http://www.unither.com/ http://www.unither.com/

softdev12 12y ago
I just finished Virtually Human and would definitely recommend it. It makes a very in depth analysis for why "conscious" computers of the future will eventually want human rights - the same way that certain minority groups fought for equal rights throughout history. The book seems to argue that the likely future scenario is for humans to replicate themselves in a separate computer entity. So people would have a duplicate robot twin. Very little mention is left to addressing the case of people actually merging with computers (so one entity and not two). I think this case is far more likely.

psygnisfive 12y ago

Oh wow, I saw the United Therapeutics HQ in Silver Spring being built, walked around it a bunch when it was done, thought it was a cool building, etc. and had no idea it was Rothblatt's company. Neat!

zanek 12y ago

I lived across the street from United Thera. a few years ago and met Rothblatt at a company party I walked into on the street. I googled her and read all the things in the article and was amazed at her life story . This happened before the party, as I was curious about the company right in front of my window. Was great to talk with her about the insane amount of hard work she had to do to save her daughter, etc. Everyone I met at UT said she was the best boss they ever had. They have a very startup type vibe at United Thera, and the buildings they constructed are amazing too ! Everytime I saw Rothblatt, there would be a circle of people waiting to talk to her, and fawning over her. Its great to see this years later on yCombinator

downandout 12y ago

"The 60-year-old grandmother and CEO of United Therapeutics, the Silver Spring-based biotech she founded to help save her younger daughter’s life, banked $38 million last year. It made her the nation’s highest-paid female executive." I find it hard to believe that $38 million made her the highest paid female executive in the US. I would be stunned if this outpaced Sheryl Sandberg. Interesting story nonetheless.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
uniformlyrandom 12y ago
Marissa Mayer has got slightly more than 200M form Yahoo in 2013, although biggest part of this is probably her bonus, not salary.
brandon272 12y ago
Sheryl Sandberg earned $16M in cash and stock in 2013. More in prior years, but less than $38M.
mikeryan 12y ago
I believe these were 2013 numbers? (not sure might be 2014) Sheryl Sandberg made about 16M in salary and stock in 2013 however. http://qz.com/194054/mark-zuckerberg-and-sheryl-sandberg-took-huge-pay-cuts-in-2013-despite-facebooks-stunning-year/ http://qz.com/194054/mark-zuckerberg-and-sheryl-sandberg-too... Note according to this list: http://www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2013-08-19/the-15-highest-paid-female-top-executives-.html#slide15 http://www.bloomberg.com/slideshow/2013-08-19/the-15-highest... Safra Catz from Oracle was the highest paid in 2013 so maybe this is a 2014 list.
nieve 12y ago
Bad research by the reporter, from another Washington Post article: "That figured landed her the No. 1 spot on the Capital Business ranking of best compensated executives in the Washington region, and the No. 10 slot on a New York Times list of the highest compensated executives in the nation. " http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/united-therapeutics-slashes-pay-for-ceo-martine-rothblatt-after-shareholder-vote/2014/12/17/383992a8-861e-11e4-a702-fa31ff4ae98e_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/capitalbusiness/unite... It was also a huge jump from her normal compensation due to the company doing very well under her in 2013, so the shareholders turned around and immediately penalized her for good stock performance. I can understand adjusting a bit, but if your stock has shot up that much your investments have too and slashing your CEO's options by 2/3rds sounds greedy as hell. She agreed to amend her contract, but I doubt they could have forced her to short of removing her which would almost certainly hammer the stock price and triggered a golden parachute. Really bizarre move, all and all, and I've never heard of it happening to an executive of her caliber who's company is doing incredibly well.

fit2rule 12y ago

Yikes. The creep factor is very high in this article. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the fawning over what is arguably a potentially dangerous new cult.

enraged_camel 12y ago
What exactly do you find creepy and what makes her religion a "cult?"
- 01Michael10 12y ago
  I guess you didn't read the article... The Terasem Movement most certainly is creepy (aren't all religions?) but we don't have enough information to determine if it is a cult (would need actually followers). I want to guess this "religion" is really meant to be satirical.
  - easytiger 12y ago
    Even creepier robot of his wife: http://www.nytimes.com/video/science/1247468035233/interview-with-a-robot.html http://www.nytimes.com/video/science/1247468035233/interview...
    - eropple 12y ago
      Misgendering a transgendered person is being a jerk. Don't be a jerk.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
ebbv 12y ago
The thing that really annoys me about profiles like these is that they are about someone who was born into privilege and then lucked into wealth at a young age. Yeah, Martine was right about the future of satellite radio. But lots of people were right about a lot of things but didn't hit big paydays. When someone hits one like that, it's mostly down to luck. Leveraging that early wealth into other successful things is better than squandering it, but it's not a tale of heroism. Instead of giving me actual reasons to admire Martine, this profile is just a list of things that came from that fortunate early privilege and wealth. And yeah, the cult is an indication of some kind of mental problems to me.

bvm 12y ago

United Therapeutics are a strange company. In 2010, they released a supplement to their annual report in comic book form - http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/UTHR/1290392365x0x466310/3ac92701-7658-49b1-a31e-67693969f01f/UTAR_2010_lo-res.pdf http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/UTHR/1290392365x0x466... And the following year, released it as a musical.

gcb0 12y ago
i would be extremely worried if a company im investing did this. as much as it is not, it does at least seems like diversion tactics.

emocakes 12y ago

the the title is wrong, should say he

joshstrange 12y ago

Without the Oxford comma I read that as SiriusXM being "a religion and a biotech for starters", I was pretty confused until I red the article and realized my mistake.

NotOscarWilde 12y ago
But even with the comma there's still the intepretation of SiriusXM being a religion, right? (ESL speaker here; that's how I might interpret it.)
- PeterWhittaker 12y ago
  Yes, that is true. Short statements inside pairs of commas are sometimes parenthetical asides, descriptions of the previous term/expression. All hail the ambiguity of the spoken word....
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > All hail the ambiguity of the spoken word.... But this is actually about the (lesser, but still present) ambiguity of the written word.