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.
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...
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.
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.
Holmes is all they have: a PR-friendly cargo-cult attempted zuckalike
She has no record.
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.
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.
I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
Maybe the investors thought the same in earlier rounds?
http://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-pla...