Real science is too messy to be able to compete with a press release from a sufficiently motivated huckster -- and investors love a huckster in lab coat.
Don't worry. Theranos failed even some of the simplest tests so how is that going to raise the bar at all? Work safety should not be a casual business gesture. It is as if you expect you raise money and you don't provide some insurance for your startup hires. No way. Anyone doing laboratory work should be careful with regulations. Wearing goggles and no smoking in the lab should be really basic. I don't expect anyone following the whole manual, but common sense yes. Simple tests, yes. Standard procedures should still be practiced.
https://twitter.com/williamalden/status/658705178523258880
Plenty of investors were straight up reaching for the conspiracy theory handbook. They did outright accuse the media of a smear campaign and suggested it was some greater corrupt conspiracy.
Silicon Valley has a very hard time accepting the possibility (nay, certainty) that there are some bad actors in our midst (even well-meaning bad actors). A very large portion of the scene seem to respond to accusation of malfeasance with hostility.
A certain amount of skepticism against claims of malfeasance, sure, but in Theranos' case there were a lot of comments not unlike Dave Morin's.
Theranos is done, for all intents and purposes: no proven new technology and nothing interesting at all on the business execution side. Just pure founder ambition and aggressive PR/marketing. Not enough to string things along too much.
You're aware that you're accusing the editors and reporters at the WSJ with a massive violation of professional ethics right? Is that your intent?
Therano's problems neither indicate a "startup bubble" exists nor would it pop it if there was a bubble. The bay area economy is larger than the economies many countries and one company that doesn't yet have significant revenues doesn't have make much of an impact. Theranos isn't the Bear Sterns of San Francisco. The problem many troubled unicorns face is that they guaranteed results to get high valuations in their late stage investor financing. Their problems are exactly that, just their problems.
I think most people had already concluded that the company, if not outright fraudulent, was being very careful to hide a number of negative facts about their product's deficiencies. At this point nearly every scientist I know thinks their tech doesn't really work as well as they claimed, so it seems unlikely the company should have the valuation it does.
The remaining sections cited are requirements on the staff operating the lab. The letter infers that the staff do not conform to regulatory requirements. Again, this is not surprising given that the function of the enterprise is to remove humans from the process.
I find the outrage a bit outrageous.
I will note that I placed a caveat that I didn't know the magnitude of the violations, but be aware, this is an extremely serious problem for Theranos, they have no excuses, they would have known what to do ahead of time, and they certainly wouldn't use the reasoning that their lab is partially automated so they don't need to comply with manual procedure requirements.
I see the part below that makes it sound like just a plan has to be filed, but I interpreted the text above as meaning they needed to comply within 10 days to even file the form. My interpretation may be wrong.