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Comment by jliptzin | Hacker News Reader

I don't know much about Theranos but after visiting their website (at least on my iPhone) it appears to be a great platform for Elizabeth Holmes' self-aggrandizement. The first half of the front page talks about how she's "empowering women globally to break down barriers in business," then a quote from her about a glass ceiling and some more fluff about her encouraging female entrepreneurship. And out of the 5 slides on the first page, 3 are about her personally, including the first one. If I'm a patient interesting in learning more about the quality of their lab tests, this would not be a great first impression for me. It's just bizarre.

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>> It's just bizarre.

That's what I thought about the New Yorker article about Theranos/Holmes (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/15/blood-simpler) a while back, where it was said about her: "Her home is a two-bedroom condo in Palo Alto, and she lives an austere life. Although she can quote Jane Austen by heart, she no longer devotes time to novels or friends, doesn’t date, doesn’t own a television, and hasn’t taken a vacation in ten years. Her refrigerator is all but empty, as she eats most of her meals at the office. She is a vegan, and several times a day she drinks a pulverized concoction of cucumber, parsley, kale, spinach, romaine lettuce, and celery."

Yeah, all the pictures of her in various affected poses, always in black turtleneck...She must have been on more magazine covers than most politicians or celebrities.

Such pretentiousness and in-your-face personality cult (of a freshman-year college drop-out, no less)? Perhaps to cover up lack of substance?

The website appears to exist as more of a promotional platform for the CEO's personal celebrity than it is a place to learn anything about the company or product.

Holmes is all they have: a PR-friendly cargo-cult attempted zuckalike

Sorry, but I don't buy that.

I don't care who you are, nobody could straight up dupe their way into $88M.

They must have something that works at some scale - but probably not the scale they claim. Like most unicorns that don't have valuation based on their revenue multiple.

> I don't care who you are, nobody could straight up dupe their way into $88M.

Bernie Madoff duped his way into tens of billions of dollars. His ponzi scheme worked pretty well at scale. Until it didn't.

Never underestimate what the two most powerful emotions, fear and greed, can lead even the most intelligent and sophisticated individuals to invest in.

At it relates to any specific company, assuming that there's no funny business solely on the basis that significant amounts have been invested is the product of flawed reasoning. Investors in the U.S. are defrauded to the tune of tens of dollars every year. Annual fraud related to penny stocks alone amounts to a billion-plus dollars[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securities_fraud#Pervasiveness...

Again, that's not the whole story.

Madoff had an incredibly successful and well run OTC trading platform that was a backbone for NASDAQ. His fraud was done outside of the primary business lines - so it wasn't just straight up selling just himself, he had an auditable track record.

Thank you. You have refuted your own argument ("nobody could straight up dupe their way...").

Folks like Madoff are successful because they take advantage of fear and greed.

An "auditable track record" helps but is not required. See http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/10/follieri200810 for an example.

That's not a straight up dupe - like the OP claimed about Holmes:

Holmes is all they have: a PR-friendly cargo-cult attempted zuckalike

She has no record.

People are straight-up duped all the time. Just read the Vanity Fair link I posted. You can find countless other stories like this.

Again, investors in the U.S. are defrauded to the tune of tens of billions of dollars every year. Do you honestly believe that all the perps have stellar track records?

As it relates to Holmes and Theranos, it should first be noted that nobody really knows what's happening, so I don't think anybody can legitimately claim that Theranos is a scam at this point. But to say that Holmes has "no record" is silly. One might have good reason to question how meaningful her accomplishments are and her qualifications to run a business like Theranos, but she comes from a politically-connected family, attended an elite prep school and was a President's Scholar at Stanford. Before she ever reached the age of 20 she had access to, and could command the attention of, powerful and influential people most of us will realistically never be able to call on.

Have we already forgotten the $41M VCs put into Color, which literally had nothing going for it but personality?

I feel like Color gets shit on unnecessarily because they raised a lot of money. The founders had an incredible track record and they actually had a product that a lot of people used 1MM downloads at one point.

I agree that they got too much money for their traction, but it's all Sunday morning quarterbacking.

Same with Clinkle, at first blush it seems like vaporware, but according to some of the insiders they had some hardcore tech that they could never get legally cleared to use.

I think the key thing though is that these companies have something real, but that they can't execute on it at scale.

> Same with Clinkle, at first blush it seems like vaporware, but according to some of the insiders they had some hardcore tech that they could never get legally cleared to use.

I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

> I don't care who you are, nobody could straight up dupe their way into $88M.

Maybe the investors thought the same in earlier rounds?

Never underestimate the powerful combination of pedigree and self-promotion. Rich/important, well-connected family, the right prep school, Ivy League/Stanford education, government industry contacts, etc. This class of people are essentially created in a lab for the sole purpose of succeeding. Combine that with relentless self-promotion and grooming of their own personal brand/celebrity-- they're essentially money-attracting magnets.

Reminds me of this story:

http://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-pla...

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