A Marriage Gone Bad: Walgreens Struggles to Shake Off Theranos
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
now if John Carreyrou had been conducting the interview, that would be another thing but I get the feeling that he would never be granted an interview simply because he is much more qualified in terms of competency in Theranos and its history and science relative to Shriver that they would see him as a threat
Shriver on the other hand probably came across as a 'safe' interview to the company, which it was
real journalism is so hard to find these days, sigh
"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations." George Orwell
Let's hope Theranos acts as a warning to VCs, and not as an indication of things to come…
In all news, you get what you paid for. If you didn't pay for it, it probably isn't that credible.
When the Chicago Tribune posted an article on how they started a lawsuit for Rahm's email/text records, I almost immediately called them to tell them about the lawsuit I'd filed for his phone records about a month prior after a year long battle with FOIA/IL's Attorney General.
You'd think the person writing the article would have cared about the subject. Nope. He was just doing his job. He forwarded me to the person who did the research/foia. Left a voicemail, sent him emails.. nothin'. No response.
I then called the journalist from the reader who did the red light camera work to see if they would be interested in it. The guy was completely turned off by the fact that the answer to his, "What's making you do this?" was more or less, "It's the principal of the entire matter." and ended the call about 20 seconds later. Bah humbug, I say.
Thats not a humbug fact though, because finding someone who isn't going through the motions can be explosively good. It's like, a gold mine digs up a lot of dirt, but boy is it worth it when they hit a lode.
The things I've seen and heard, the people I've met and the ungodly amount of hand typed data I've had to go through... it's nuts out there and the rabbit holes always go deep.
Not an ad hominem or personal attack, purely curiosity.
If you look there are plenty of articles about Steve Jobs clothing, and about Mark Zuckerberg hoodies.
what men wear at work is a frequent and unending topic of discussion, but you probably don't notice, because it doesn't fit your worldview.
... and if this hn thread were about that link, you'd probably be the person complaining that it focuses too much on men, and not enough on women. unfortunately, i don't have a quantum time machine, so we'll never really know.
The polo + khaki uniform of SV tech is an exception, but still pretty constrained compared to the options that exist for women.
I don't know if that's as true as it used to be. Business casual has pretty much taken over most of corporate America by now. True, you might not be able to roll into work at a non-tech Fortune 500 company wearing a hoodie and jeans -- but you aren't expected to wear a suit, generally speaking, unless you're in the C-suite or in a high-profile, externally facing role (investor relations, BD/CD, etc.).
Suits are generally relegated to the professions these days: big law firms, banks, and what have you. I'm sure there's the occasional company (F500 or otherwise) that mandates suits for cultural or traditional reasons, but such a company is likelier to be the exception than the rule in 2016.
You haven't been anywhere near any sort of technology company in Seattle in the past 10 years, have you?
Are we on the same planet?
So when men, or women, change their appearance in dress, its generally considered a "communication" of some sort. Sometimes its obvious like the difference between dress uniforms and fatigues in the service, and sometimes less so.
It's pretty clear that Theranos is under fire and I agree with the GP that the change in garb and styling of the CEO was part of the message she was trying to communicate. Without specific guidance on that, we are left to speculate.
You mean like Steve Jobs' wardrobe choices?
I still don't know of a convincing explanation for all of it, but it reminds me of some first and second-hand experiences I've heard about other, much smaller startups, in deep deep states of denial while the company is literally falling down around the CEOs head.
So in a way, it can be seen as a good and necessary thing that expectations are brought back to match reality.
Or is Walgreens just trying to get from under the weight of theranos's bad publicity at this point?
Except the pain factor. Finger pricks are actually more painful, particularly when you have to draw more than a single drop of blood. Your fingers have more nerve endings than your upper arm. Also, you tend to use your fingers more than you apply pressure to your upper arm (e.g., typing, using your phone, playing the guitar - all of those require applying pressure to your fingertips, which will hurt).
Even diabetics oftentimes prefer to use the arm pricks, and they need to draw a lot less blood than more elaborate tests need. (Not all diabetics, but enough that there are literally blood glucose monitors that advertise this as a specific feature).
It certainly opens the possibility of self administration up a lot more than a needle.
Bit of a moot point until it comes along, though.
But... I grew up absolutely fearing and hating the finger prick thing the pediatrician would use. I remember getting all sorts of other scrapes and cuts that bled and wondering why they hurt so much less than that thing. From a practical perspective, if I knew a test involved that (rather than an arm draw), I'd delay and avoid it because of the pain.
I don't know what they're screening for, exactly, but there are people who live remote without immediate access to medical care. If they could do this prior to an office visit that may help. It opens possibilities that aren't already, and that's just in the context of the US. Think aid workers around the world, that would have to be easier than maintaining needle hygiene.
The problem want the finger prick itself. The problem was that the nanotainer isn't that small and that they had to squeeze REALLY FUCKING HARD for quite a while to extract enough blood. It hurt for a while afterwards, too. And it was slow.
Wrt. the interview - if it were a public co. which i had stock of and i saw that moment at 0:22 - Shriver: "Do you think your company will survive?" Holmes: "Absolutely!" - i'd immediately sold it all. The delay and smile on Shriver's face when she in turn responds to question whether she believes Holmes is also telling :)
Walgreens i can guess is feeling how trial lawyers are gearing up for a class action on behalf of the customers who have had the testing done there.
(I have no idea whether that suggestion is accurate.)
It's almost as if they intentionally stacked it with senators, govenrnment, and military guys. This is not a typical board, especially for a medical company.
Theranos probably has no product.
//EDIT: which is very sad to see because in many ways it seemed like the CEO was behind it with a lot passion and no ill intentions.
We live in a society where CEOs are lionized for success, but often seem to escape responsibility for failure. Frankly, I don't care either way if we consider them to be the true guiding hand or not, I just want us to be consistent one way or the other.
That does not really make sense, a priori prescribing how we want things to be. Assume a model of the world where the CEO always did something special to make their companies succeed, and where the failure of companies is always not due to the CEO, but due to the mediocrity of the other employees. That model makes about as much sense as each of the two other models you are proposing.
If we want to look at this formally, we see he is stating three things:
1. That we seem to apply inconsistent standards of responsibility to CEOs. Are they ultimately responsible for the outcomes of the companies they lead, for good or for bad? In current practice, we seem to selectively apply praise and eschew blame. He wants to point this out.
2. He personally believes the CEO is ultimately responsible; however...
3. At the end of the day, he just wants society to apply a consistent standard, one way or the other: either the CEO is the ultimate point of accountability for all things, or she's not. He almost "doesn't care" which one we choose, so long as we choose one.
Now, you're free to criticize the dichotomy he raises in those points. Maybe you find it overly reductive or absolutist. If so, fair.
(Personally speaking, I believe the buck should stop at the CEO, insofar as she is the chief executive of the company, tasked with understanding and directing all of its actions. If she took deliberate part in any alleged deceptions, that's certainly worse than if she negligently allowed the deceptions to take place. But in either case, she bears some responsibility. Not the same degree of blame, but the same mantle of responsibility. It's her company, and whether she deliberately misguided it or was simply asleep at the wheel, those are both derelictions of the CEO's responsibilities. Sure, the BOD outranks the CEO, but the CEO has a much closer relationship with the day-to-day operations of the company.)
1. We are currently living in a world without the constraint I propose, in which CEO comp is often a pro-factum given and attribution of blame almost unheard of. I do not pretend that the system I propose will _always be correct_, but I do believe it would motivate better behavior, as tighter accountability often does in other systems even if it doesn't necessarily "make sense".
2. Given the innate ambiguity of most of these situations, who gets to make that call anyway? (fault of failure). Is it even possible to make? My bet would be in many situations, difficult at best; but there is a massive power discrepancy currently at play, where executives have significantly more control over message/direction/response than those they can saddle with blame, so I suggest structuring systems in ways that help offset that imbalance. Does this put more duress on CEOs to take responsibility for their employees? Yes, and despite what I conceded above re: "making sense" not being necessary, I truly do think that sort of responsibility does "make sense" especially in a world where as CEO you take a massive percent share of those employees value. To coopt an old turn of phrase, "No free lunches."
In my mind it's just a sad development from that perspective. Something I would not have wished on anyone.
My commentary is this,
The quantification of the relationship between her leadership role and the direct effectiveness of the product is quite different than many other successful founder/CEOs. It is that which blinded her from either pivoting or acknowledging the reality of low effectiveness. A circumstance which to others would be justification to shutdown.
Unless this was all well understood and then that would enter into discussions of willful negligence. A characteristic that has consequences as people's livelihood were expected to be affected.
The spectacle is negatively impact ing startup partnerships. The result is either more due diligence with all parties, which either translates to more funding and a longer IPO journey, or cutting off these less mature startups at the knees early from funding until "results" are evident.
Another question is will this situation coupled with general lack luster equity market enthusiasm be incorrect fodder for "bubble" talk (barring this a straw on camel back scenario - doubt it).
Theranos got way too far without having to prove their science.
For VC firms that are experienced in the biomedical space, Theranos changes nothing because they were already suspicious of Theranos.
For firms that are inexperienced in the biomedical space, they have hopefully learned that growth cannot compensate for flaws in science or technology. If they continue to invest in biomedical, they will be much more careful in their DD; or perhaps they lose their appetite for biomedical and leave entirely.
I don't think things have changed for biomedical startups that are based on good science and technology and have an experienced team.
What would be wonderful is if the media learned a lesson from this mess. As I see it, they were a passenger in the Theranos hype machine.
They weren't patenting nor licensing any exciting technology. They had no groundbreaking presentations of their technology. They had no experts in the field working at the company or on the board....
I mean, it's amazing they raised money to begin with
Exactly, which will result in essentially a return to the status quo. The investors who understand the complexities and models of the various biomedical industries will continue to invest as they always have. The carpetbaggers will fold up their tents and move on. The result is less likely to be systemic taint or damage to biotech startups as a whole -- though this may happen in the short term -- and more likely to be a reduction in fly-by-night or sketchy biotech startups for lack of funding.
"I don't think things have changed for biomedical startups that are based on good science and technology and have an experienced team."
Yes. To paraphrase Buffett, the tide will go out, and we'll see who's been swimming naked -- but the people who've been wearing swimsuits will be just fine.
"What would be wonderful is if the media learned a lesson from this mess. As I see it, they were a passenger in the Theranos hype machine."
The media hype surrounding Theranos was truly spectacular to behold. One day, nobody's ever heard of this company that's been stealthily chugging along for nearly a decade and raising heroic amounts of capital. The next day, Holmes is on the cover of every business magazine, in full Steve Jobs attire and disposition. (I'm pretty sure one or two breathless headlines actually called her "The next Steve Jobs.") Soon she's headlining the lecture circuit and racking up more puff pieces and cover stories.
It's as if nobody took a critical eye to any of this hype, other than the WSJ. No doubt a confluence of factors was at play here: A desire to fill the "Great Tech Visionary" vibe left vacant by Steve Jobs's death. A desire to find the next great female role model. A desire to cover "hard tech," and not just the Nth food-delivery app of the week. And then there's just good old-fashioned me-tooism, which routinely plagues the business press: "Everyone else is covering this, so it must be a Thing, and now that it's a Thing, we have to cover it!"
Walgreens appears to have taken a cautious approach toward terminating the relationship, perhaps preferring to wait until federal regulators impose penalties or the criminal investigation yields formal charges, either of which would strengthen Walgreens’s hand.
Essentially, Walgreens is playing the wait-and-see game before making their decision.
We're here and reading but just like HN quality level to stay where it is. :)
It'll be great to have another role model in tech for young women, but incidents like this do more harm than good…
There are some exceptions to this pattern though, like Jan Koum and Andy Grove. We desperately need more of them in today's tech environment.
If you're a highly driven and entrepreneurial individual, are you going to stick around for 4+ years of enforced pace higher education?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limor_Fried
She is a great tech role model that built a thriving maker business from scratch. She didn't have the connections to drop out of school so she finished her BS and MS at MIT.
There are plenty of phenomenal female role models out there. I had three women on my committee in grad school. One co-directing a major research center. One a successful entrepreneur and one a new upcoming research associate.
Anyone looking for strong female role models just needs to open their eyes.
Enron -> wow, Ken Lay sucks.
Theranos -> wow, women founders suck.
I think there's a huge difference between the two. Sure, Ms. Meyer floundered running a big (struggling) company, especially when so much was made about "Female CEO!" But really, her "failure" is pretty average when it comes to corporate executive misadventure; nothing she did makes her unworthy of being a role-model.
Ms. Holmes, on the other hand, may have overseen a massive fraud.
I'd go as far as to say that if Meyer at least manages to unwind Yahoo gracefully, she may move on to greater success in the future in a similar position.
That's how I look at it. I'm still a fan of Meyer due to the great work she did at Google. That's where she showed her talents. Yahoo was a terrible situation... aimed at the ground calling for "Ludicrous Speed!"... and she failed on an attempt to turn it into a winner. Maybe wasn't greedy enough for shareholders or something. They'll make less money than they wanted to. (shrugs)
Honestly, of the various failures, that's the kind that bothers me the least. People tried to do something good for all parties but screwed up. Least they tried and didn't just suck wealth out of the company while setting it up to fail. Like recent IBM CEO did and similarly left mess in hands of a woman who will take fall if she can't 180 it. Actually, I haven't even looked at that story in a while so I don't know if she's even still there haha.
Anyway, I'll judge Meyer on her next play as Yahoo is an outlier.
Just got her a boost in my mind. From another perspective, it might have been easy for her if she was a non-geek with the ability to drill through people's BS. They'd have a disadvantage against her that people at C-level or non-geek management might not have. That's another angle I thought about.
The mischaracterization of women sucks, don't get me wrong.
But there are so many other things wrong going on here that this comment really confused me.
in fact I think that the current pending implosion of Theranos is making a good role model of her in a way she probably never intended or desired. she is a role model of what not to do: rely on insider connections to carry a fundamentally flawed (and possibly fraudulent) business plan.
a cautionary tale if ever there was one.
Wouldn't a better role model be any ethical person on the planet?
What a bizarre comment.
Yeah, if only she had succeeded rather than running a company which may have fraudulently deceived investors and is now under criminal investigation. So, she's pretty much the opposite of a "terrific role model", no? If this wasn't a SV darling, I'm quite sure this community would be calling for her head.