Problems Found at Theranos Lab

Well they are the ones being disrupted currently. They did it in the 80s and 90s to Sears and the rest.

you are going to have a much harder time making the case that Theranos isn't trying to be novel.

I actually think Theranos is trying to be novel, my initial response was that maximizing value isn't something new in the valley. I have no clue on whether they are or not in reality, but they portray themselves as actually making new technology - my guess is that they just can't do it and are trying to buy time.

Though I'm also unsurprised that looks are mentioned about when males talk about female founders. I don't think it's meant maliciously, it's an error of habit. There's probably a purpose built part of my brain just of evaluating womens looks, and that bubbles up. But calling it out seems appropriate, it has little to do with the discussion.

But investors investing less into female founders despite them being less likely to be swindlers/more likely to be better founders is a very interesting topic. That goes against their stated purpose, why would they do that?

My personal hunch is that it's that bit of gut feeling that fills in the blanks when metrics run out that is screwing over female founders. When faced with a decision we have insufficient knowledge on, our minds extrapolate from past experience. We look at past events or knowledge that may be applicable, things we've heard, come up with a heuristic answer.

Now the thing is, investors don't know of that many successful female founders, matter of fact, neither do I, at least nowhere close to the number of successful male founders I know of. Those mental queries that would otherwise inspire confidence come up blank, the tally gets taken, and for reasons that don't really matter, the female founder gets short charged.

By the way, this process also works against other social groups and in other situations. Name 10 successful black founders off the top of your head. Chinese-american CEOs (ayy bamboo ceiling). What's your opinion on stay-at-home dads and male nurses? It's insidious, isn't it?

Really, there's only so much we can do against it though. One is being aware of such biases in ourselves and pushing against them, and the other much slower long term solution, adjusting people's mental databases to better reflect modern realities. I guess we need stronger role models for women in technology, ones that do stand against long held beliefs.

After all, female pilots don't seem strange (given Erhard), female programmers don't seem that strange (because of Hopper and other very talented women), female CEOs seem a lot less strange nowadays (example that pops in my mind is Marissa Meyer), but female tech founders still do. But we'll fix that in due time.