In Defense of Theranos

What did I just read? That a medical services company should purposefully lie about their treatment or diagnosis to obtain higher valuations?

This isn't a tech startup, it's a medical services company. The bar is, and has to be, much higher.

"Fake it 'till you make it" does not, and should not, work in healthcare, and that's the Theranos story.

No, it was being shit at what it was supposedly meant to be good at. People don't go back to Uber because it offers a good vision, they go back because its easer/cheaper/more convenient.

Charging money for blood tests that are hilariously inaccurate, and then allowing them to be used as the basis for life changing decisions is precisely why these industries are regulated.

This is so that "moron in a hurry" or "the man on the clapham omnibus" doesn't get killed because he(or she, or their health professional after some extra profit) chose the wrong service to do blood tests.

Basically what is being advocated is the pursuit of money at the expense of human life.

On a purely capitalistic level, Theranos didn't work. It's weak and therefore should be mercilessly exploited till it dies.

No. The strongest criticism has been characterizing Ms Holmes as a fraud and Theranos as a sham business that took 400 million of investor money for vaporware. I don't know if they deserve such harsh characterization but those are the accusations that have been leveled at it.

>I’d rather have Theranos and those like her out in the world solving these problems.

On the contrary, if Ms Holmes turns out to be more showman than scientist, it may prevent other investors from investing in future legitimate biotech companies. If Theranos goes down in flames, we hope that it doesn't unfairly taint other fledgling business with real products that need capital to bring them to market.

>They also reduce the price of testing dramatically and present the results in a prettier, easier to read format.[...] If all Theranos ever did was make that industry more convenient, faster, and prettier using standard tools, isn’t that impressive enough on its own?

The author is mixing up the romanticized idea of a desirable end state with the actual execution by Theranos. All media outlets are totally on board with the idea. (Who doesn't want cheap and accurate blood tests?) The WSJ and others criticize the execution.

There are serious questions about ethics at Theranos. Both ethics in science and ethics in business. The author does not address that at all. Time will tell if this criticism is unwarranted and Ms. Holmes will ultimately prove her doubters to be wrong.

So, they had blood-testing labs but what was so ground-breaking about their tech? Especially if according to WSJ report none of it was actually working as intended?

I think it's a very fitting comparison.

Uber is also a company that's notorious for ignoring the laws that concern them.

How did it get so out of hand?