Theranos Agrees to Pay $4.65M in Arizona Refunds
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
My prior company - who I was with from ~20 people to the current 300+ - has been going through some shakeups that make me wonder. This adds to my thinking.
I'd have thought that both were past those lines - hundreds of people, multiple offices? Seems like it'd be solid at that point.
The common factor is that both have yet to release their "flagship" product, although they've released products.
Then you can think about small products with small teams - Sidekiq, Cards Against Humanity - that achieve substantial success.
It seems like this is the most telling "filter" - did you release your core product?
Thoughts?
But if your goals are to make rockets ? well having 500+ employees and having your product fail, as it happen to spaceX in 2008, maybe not so bad ?
And it could be that for theranos, in order to sell laboratory services(assuming their competitors bundle stuff), they have to offer the whole service array , meaning thousands of tests, so it takes a lot of work for their core product - altough they did already have product based on the same tech for pharma r&d.
Plus you have to define what "core product" means. Is it the bit that makes money? A lot of startups have slotted the money making bit in later and gone alright; others never really could figure that out.
And... relatively boring companies with real business can transform themselves into "house of cards built on lies" type businesses pretty easily, too. Think about Enron, or any financial firm that went heavily in on the subprime mortgages.
Theranos was built on the promise of an amazing new tech for blood testing, not on the promise of blood testing.
By "flagship product" I mean the thing you're basing your corporate identity on. Like the stereotypical waiter in LA, they're actually an actor; their identity (flagship product) is actor, but their day job (released/core products) is something else.
It sounds like both companies were just money-burning machines, where the only thing keeping them afloat is VC funding. If you aren't selling something for more than it costs you to make (or deliver, in the case of services), you're not going to have anywhere to sit when the music stops.
The thing about Theranos was, as we found out, that they had yet to prove their fundamental thesis which was that you could do a useful number of diagnostic tests with a small amount of blood to the same confidence levels as the same test done the existing way. Fundamentally they could not show that to be true.
So in a more critical (or perhaps skeptical) investing environment, they should have stalled out several years ago when they couldn't demonstrate to new investors that they had a viable blood diagnostic process[1]. But for what ever reason that didn't happen.
[1] And yes there are stories that they simply lied about what was happening.
What's the case on Theranos? what did they do and sale? What happened?
Opened two random articles... and they were two WSJ paywalled articles. OMG.
I'm a woman. I am fine with her burning. But, geez, I hate the idea that there is lava-like splash back spattering all other women in the world who are trying to be taken seriously.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-03/how-to-ge...
Being taller is an advantage. Never mind the articles that crop up about people having plastic surgery to look younger so they have a better shot at being a CEO.
Plus I suspect there's a confounding factor in there. Here's a picture of Musk and Thiel[1] around the time Paypal was started. Its pretty clear that personal trainers, chefs, tailored clothing and whatever the hell treatment Musk got for his hair can go along way to making successful people better looking than they were when they first started earning the big bucks.
[1]https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0196/5170/files/uzn_146193...
So, one must wonder why that is. And my feeling is that it is a form of sexism and the subtext is "See, this is why you shouldn't put a woman in charge."
Also, at this point, there are six comments refuting what I said. Why is that? If I am so wrong, crazy and stupid, why do so very many people need to step up and inform me of my error? <-- Methinks thou doth protest too much.
Because it is wrong?
But, sure, I am just a vitriolic, hysterical woman who is oversensitive. I couldn't possibly have a valid point or concern.
Me recognizing that fact and not liking it is not me having a martyr complex.
Edit: If you do not have "show dead" on, you may be missing the flagged to death other comment made by their account. If so, that may be skewing your perception.
You're imposing a false dichotomy here. Being wrong doesn't include all of these offensive insults for anybody else. Why is it different for you?
But, geez, I hate the idea that there is lava-like splash back spattering all other women in the world who are trying to be taken seriously.
Why is this such a terrible thing to express that so many people need to come down on me for feeling this way? If you were, say, a black guy concerned about some black guy getting enormous bad press and how that impacts blacks, would that merit this kind of dismissive pile on and massive downvoting?
And if it did, would you think it only proved your point that racism and bad press is a real concern?
And I apologize for aiming this at you. I am doing so because you seem to have the most evenhanded reply here so far. So it isn't intended to be ugly to you per se.
If he was getting bad press because he did something stupid/unlawful/unethical/etc I would not be concerned because why in the world would I be?
It's actually racist for you to insinuate that his blackness would be a factor at all.
This all reminds me of the Erlich / Dinesh racist scene in Silicon Valley -
I'm not sure exactly how to respond to that. I'm slightly confused I guess as to why you feel people are coming down on you or dismissing you. To me, HN is a place where we all discuss our ideas about things and try to achieve a sort of collective consensus about the world. We certainly don't (and shouldn't!) all agree about everything, but we expose our ideas to one another in an attempt to improve our collective comprehension of the world around us.
When I respond to a comment like yours, i'm not (usually) intending to attack it or tear it down - at least not in an aggressive way. I thought your point of view was interesting and worth responding to with my own. By this mechanism of back and forth, ideally we'd come to a shared understanding of what's happening in this situation. I find that process to be enjoyable and enlightening, which is why I responded to your comment.
> And if it did, would you think it only proved your point that racism and bad press is a real concern?
I think sexism is absolutely real and is absolutely a real concern. It's just that I have not perceived sexism in the response to this particular situation. However, part of my reason for replying to your comment was to try to better understand why it is that you do perceive it that way. There may be some article or set of comments you've seen that I have not that might change my view. Or maybe we simply saw the same things and interpreted them differently. Either way, i'm curious to understand that divergence, and ultimately to change my own opinion if it needs changing.
The vast majority of sexism (racism, etc) is not due to blunt and obvious exclusion or targeting. It is due to this sort of pattern of behavior.
Jessica Livingston is apparently one of the two people that dreamed up YC. But she really gets not that much attention or credit. This is perhaps her being wise in service of her own goals and being pragmatic -- that she wants to accomplish a thing, whether she gets public credit or not. But the degree to which women, people of color and other groups get predominantly negative attention or get attention in a weird way related to this one trait is fundamentally part of the problem.
I do think her gender contributed to the Theranos debacle. I have commented on that before and I have blogged about it. But that aspect of how that plays out is Verboten. We cannot discuss it. This, too, is a form of sexism and is part of the problem.
I appreciate your participation here in this thread. It is a breath of fresh air amidst what is an otherwise mostly negative experience for me.
I'm curious about why you feel this way. In reading the other responses to your original comment, it is clear that most respondents disagree with you. However, just based on my own experience with HN, they don't seem particularly aggressive or dismissive in tone (relative to any other contentious HN thread).
The reason I bring this up isn't to invalidate your perception. It's because I think that, sometimes the (legitimate) feeling of persecution can lead to seeing it even where it's not, and that can be toxic, especially in an anonymous or pseudonymous environment like this. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking people here are rejecting your opinion because of your gender (in part because sometimes they are!). But it really doesn't seem to me like that's what's happening here. To the extent that people are disagreeing, they are (again, to my reading) asking you to substantiate your position - not telling you to shutup or dismissing you. They just want to know why you believe what you do.
> I do think her gender contributed to the Theranos debacle. I have commented on that before and I have blogged about it. But that aspect of how that plays out is Verboten. We cannot discuss it. This, too, is a form of sexism and is part of the problem.
But that's what we're doing here. I'm asking you to comment on it. I think that's what everyone is doing. We want to hear your opinion in its full detail. And yes, that means people will respond to it and attack it. But, speaking for myself at least, that isn't done with malice or dismissiveness, its part of the process of coming to shared understanding. I hold lots of controversial opinions, and I love to fight it out with people on HN and other places about them, because that's how I learn and develop my own ideas. I wouldn't be half as intelligent or thoughtful as I am without that dialectic. It's something I value immensely, and it's why I participate in discussions like these. But in order to glean that benefit, you have to be willing to put your opinion out there and have it torn down, sometimes even viciously so.
> I appreciate your participation here in this thread. It is a breath of fresh air amidst what is an otherwise mostly negative experience for me.
As do I yours. My hope is that you will participate in these discussions and provide your alternative viewpoint. It can be difficult if you're not emotionally oriented towards this kind of conflict[1], but I think it is essential to have differing views here. But those differing views will never truly get heard if people like you don't follow through on their expression. That is to say, if you pack up your opinion and go home, we'll just be here echoing the same view of this situation we already had. So I would encourage you to engage with everyone that's responded to you, be dismissive right back to them if you feel like it. But substantiate your position - cite articles, quote interviews, and so on. Make your case, and I think you'll find that people will be receptive to it. Or maybe you'll decide that we're right about this one, and there is no sexism here. But IMO the only losing move is not to play.
[1] This sounds like a female stereotype, so I should clarify. Certain people (like me) love argument. I am energized by it. If people are dismissive of me or think my opinion is stupid, i'm only more encouraged to make them look stupid with my airtight counterargument. This is, as far as I can tell, just an emotional orientation people have or don't have. Some people don't like this sort of conflict at all and it causes them to shut down completely. It is of course a stereotype that this is more predominant in women than men, but I certainly know women that love to argue as much as any man that I know.
No, I do not believe most comments here are inviting me to substantiate anything. A few are, but most actually are dismissive. That is the entire point: I am a woman with an opinion and that can't be allowed. It is a threat to the status quo.
It is one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't things. There is no winning move. You either don't express your opinion at all, or you tread incredibly lightly and worry vastly more about the overwhelming majority male POV lest you draw this kind of pile on, or you speak your mind and draw this kind of pile on and get downvoted to hell and then have to worry if you will be rate limited or banned or something for what amounts to merely being female.
I am fine with debating people. I rather enjoy that. That mostly isn't what happens though when a woman expresses herself.
I have blogged about how I think Holmes' gender helped create the Theranos debacle (http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/05/theranos-cul...). But, I do not know how nor understand why I need to "back up" my concern that the enormous negative press here has a potential serious downside for women generally. I also do not know how on earth to get past or around the very obvious "People are being disrespectful and dismissive of me in a way that looks like sexism at work and it looks to me like proof of the very thing that worries me and... Why am I being asked to give evidence amidst this that this exact sort of thing is a problem for women?
I sincerely do not know how on earth to deal with that.
You may be totally right about why that is, but just as a counterpoint, I get rate limited all the time too :). Maybe we're both fighty.
> No, I do not believe most comments here are inviting me to substantiate anything. A few are, but most actually are dismissive. That is the entire point: I am a woman with an opinion and that can't be allowed. It is a threat to the status quo.
I respectfully disagree with that view. This is a difficult question to resolve in either direction, but I think its worth pursuing. Would you mind citing one or two particular comments you find to be dismissive?
> I have blogged about how I think her gender helped create this debacle (http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/05/theranos-cul...). But, I do not know how nor understand why I need to "back up" my concern that the enormous negative press here has a potential serious downside for women generally
Firstly, thanks for the link. Secondly, I don't think you have to backup the claim that it could have negative impacts for women. I think the possibility of that happening is obvious. What does require some backup is the positive assertion that people out in the world are blaming Theranos' failure on Elizabeth Holmes' gender. Personally, I have not seen evidence of that happening, but i'd be happy to be corrected on that front.
> I also do not know how on earth to get past or around the very obvious "People are being disrespectful and dismissive of me in a way that looks like sexism at work and it looks to me like proof of the very thing that worries me and... Why am I being asked to give evidence amidst this that this exact sort of thing is a problem for women?
I don't think most people here doubt that this sort of sexism happens. And that sexism exists and is harmful to women. Obviously I can't comment on your particular work situation either except to say that i'm sorry you feel that way. But I think everyone here would be interested to see if that is indeed happening in the case of Theranos. If it is happening, that's a good thing to know and to combat. But if it's not, then it's just another failed SV startup and we can all go about our day.
It is a little like arguments I have heard that black Americans who sound obviously black can't qualify for a job because they aren't articulate enough and it isn't racism. My response to that is "George W. Bush."
Maybe not hiring "inarticulate" blacks isn't racism. But why can an inarticulate white guy get a high ranking job if being articulate is so freaking critical?
There is always some excuse or justification for an overall pattern of behavior. Yet, the pattern persists and trying to point out the pattern gets dismissed for various reasons. It is a real life version of the trope Status Quo is God.
I don't disagree with you there. Some of these things are perniciously difficult to substantiate. However, in the case you just mentioned, I think you did a decent job of substantiating it. George Bush is indeed contrary evidence to the assertion that people don't hire blacks due to inarticulateness.
Some things for sure are really difficult to substantiate though. But what is the alternative? Ultimately, to enact change, you need to convince some portion of the culture that it's the right thing to do, or that there's a problem in the first place. I think there's a lot of evidence that efforts like that have been successful over the long term in a number of different areas.
Odds are good, you won't get credit. If you try to take credit, people will claim you are crazy, that isn't how it happened.
Sometimes, you need to decide what you want more: To make a thing happen or to get credit for making a thing happen.
Then you sit around wondering: if a tree falls in the forest surrounded by a crowd of onlookers who all vehemently deny its very existence, did it really fall? When you look again, will it be the same as it always was?
Also, "Silicon Valley unicorn is essentially a fraud" is inherently more interesting (in a click-bait / gossipy kind of way), then just a random success story. Rajat Gupta is one of the few Goldman Sachs partners I'm aware of, and it's because he went to jail.
You're putting words into peoples' mouths - no one has called you crazy or stupid.
In fact, most people are not even saying you are wrong, hence that they are prefacing their responses with "Really?" or "Interesting..." because their experiences have been different.
Frankly, human nature: https://xkcd.com/386/
You can't just decide to put reprehensible words in someones mouth and accuse them of bad behavior based on what you (wrongly) assume is in their head. I think you would protest if someone did that to you, no?
Also, nobody called you crazy or stupid. Telling someone that they are wrong is not telling them that they are crazy or stupid.
That company just doesn't get covered without people talking about how Elizabeth Holmes is, in fact, a woman, and how she tries to channel a Steve Jobs persona, and how it's not working.
If Travis Kaladick or whatever his name is were running the company, the narrative would be very different.
I don't know how or if there is splashback against women trying to be taken seriously. But if there is, I wish you the best.
"If Travis Kaladick or whatever his name is were running the company, the narrative would be very different."
Now, given that Uber and Travis have been disparaged by both the press and HN on a regular basis, how would the narrative be different if he was running Theranos?
Do you actually believe that if Travis was in Elizabeth's shoes, we would speak more positively about the general situation?
I don't see how that's true, given that we speak very negatively about him already, and what he has done (behaved like a douche, promoted a bad culture) is, arguably, less egregious than what she has done (committed outright fraud, stolen investors money, possibly killed or at very least jeopardized peoples' health).
Well, of course they do - there are many more men founding startups overall, so they'll get most of the press even if the publications were actually more likely to report women's accomplishments.
With less than 20% of startups having one woman founder (Crunchbase, 2014), what do you expect the press to do?
It is a little like that. It isn't proportional.
Jessica Livingston is one of the two people who dreamed up YC. Paul Graham soon wrangled his previous confounders in on it. I hear vastly more about the three male cofounders than I do about the one female cofounder. Nor do I ever here her get credit proportional to PG. He was the front man. He was replaced by Sam Altman. Sam now gets most of the press.
Maybe this is Jessica being savvy and sidestepping the sexist bs in the world by trying to avoid press. Maybe she is way smarter than me. But I think YC is probably more "her baby" than Paul's or Sam's, yet I never see it framed that way.
If women are 2% of founders and get 1% of the credit, they are still being shorted.
For example, you say that "I hear vastly more about the three male cofounders than I do about the one female cofounder."
I believe you - you hear what you hear. That said, I've been around HN for a while, yet I had to look up who the other male cofounders even were. Doing a search by their names, Jessica has easily three times more submissions about her than either Trevor or Robert.
And so when our perception is so different, many people will simply incorrectly assume dishonesty, because that's easier to picture. I find it unfortunate, but I don't think it can be avoided unless one's willing to be very detailed about the priors that led one to a certain conclusion rather than just state it and hope people will see it the same way.
She and Paul apparently cooked this idea up together. But it took forever for that detail to come out. For the longest time, my impression was that this was Paul's baby. I vaguely knew there was a female cofounder. It was much later that I heard that, really, this idea was her and Paul, not him and his prior cofounders.
The stories about sexism at Uber are couched in the overall story about a great company doing great things, led by a great leader, and this is a setback that needs to be dealt with.
Look at any of the recent stories about Theranos. It's a bad company doing bad things, and Holmes is probably a criminal.
And if you don't think that irresponsibly deploying unlicensed driverless cars is as bad as outsourcing your tests because you aren't quite there yet with your technology, I beg you to reconsider.
One of those is worse than the other. To my knowledge so far, Holmes is not responsible for acts that genuinely put people's lives in danger. Uber is.
You think a glorified taxi company has put more peoples' lives in danger than a company that knowingly sold, deployed, and signed off on an health instrument and lab work that simply did not work?
An instrument and lab work that people relied on to accurately assess the contents of their blood?
An instrument and lab work that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services said "did not comply with certificate requirements and performance standards"
and deemed a:
"immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety"
The reason that the stories about Theranos are about a "bad company doing bad things and Holmes is probably a criminal" is because they are exactly that!
Uber is a taxi company that most people enjoy using, has not fraudulently screwed people over, has at least on a surface level removed a level of racism (my roommate no longer has to ask me to flag a cab down for him btw), and can be linked to a reduction in drunk driving. Yes, their CEO is a douche, and they have a horrible company culture, but they are not systemically screwing people over like Theranos was.
But if you say you've encountered it, I'm inclined to believe you. Which websites do you see this sentiment in? HN? Reddit? FB comments? WSJ comments? Or do you see it in the workplace?
Now, a lot of people feel validated that it was snake oil so yea they will dump on the company, but IMO it has little to do with the founder. It's their board that I found really suspicious.
As for the sexism, I felt like it was more of a backlash against the unrelenting positive press Holmes received for years, right or not partly due to her gender. Every time someone commented on why they thought something was wrong with Theranos they were drowned out by voices telling them to stop being sexist and you want her to fail due to her gender. Justified or not, plenty were happy to see her fail after all the praise she had recieved and I am not surprised at all if some of the blowback was sexist.
That being said, the majority of the discussion was anti-Theranos though I do agree with you there were a fair bit of anti-woman backlash though like I said much of it I feel was prompted by the positive praise she received.
This is just stupid.
Are you saying that Theranos was over-hyped?
If that's what you mean then just say it.
This is really survivor bias talking. If something actually succeeds at delivering the moon, then there's no unrelenting positive press. There was an accurate depiction of what was going on. It's only in hindsight that you can call it hype or unrelenting.
And the schadenfreude is doubletime now because not only did the hype fail, but she was also a woman.
It's also the result of being around highly technocentric where we've erroneously optimized for logic as the driver in all debates. Unfortunately, dialectics aren't very popular.
For example, I regularly see transphobic statements that simply go undownvoted/unflagged on HN. I was even downvoted for adding Chelsea Manning, a transgender whistleblower, had full rights to be the correct gender because it was a human right.
Ever since Trump got elected, I find HN picked up a bit of intolerance.
In my experience, people often have a (completely understandable and human) selective view of downvoting and flagging activity. There's a wide variety of opinions and perspectives on HN and I've seen all of them downvoted or flagged at one time or another, just as I've seen commenters of all persuasions be civil, well-reasoned, and, unfortunately, egregiously trollish and ranty.
Theranos tries to apply the same kinds of tactics, and people are literally calling for Holmes to go to jail.
If you don't think there's a gender variable about how this is reported and perceived, you're nuts.
Most of you in this thread are approaching this the same way my ancient dad talks about women getting involved in the war effort during WW2.
Are women able to be as good at being men as men are? No? Then they have no place in x.
The conversation typically ends there because we have all these set phrases that we use to protect ourselves from our biases. "Decisions are decisions. Doesn't matter who makes them." Yeah right. It does matter who makes them, fellas. Marissa Mayer eliminates work from home at yahoo. The world freaks out. Jeff Bezos does the same thing at amazon: he's smart. This is good for the culture.
Or people say, "Code doesn't care who you are. It's either good or it's not. Doesn't matter who wrote it." Which is also bullshit because whether or not it compiles is the bare minimum for getting code into a review to begin with. It's everything after it compiles that's subjective.
The problem here is the implicit standard we have ingrained in us. When we interview a guy, it makes sense. Are you as good at being me as I am? Yes? Great. Hired.
The issue should be obvious by now, but I'll make clear: if you only hire people exactly like you, you only get products that are exactly like what you want.
Diversity in the workplace isn't about diversity because it's fair. It's because we need it to produce real products that people want to use. It's because being a man in the world isn't the only thing worth doing, and we need to have our minds changed and our perspectives altered some times.
We are refusing to value anything different from ourselves. Which stupid. The idea that any of us really know it all is really fucked in the head.
I currently work at a company with a female CEO. She makes different decisions and places priorities than any male I've ever met would.
And I could not be happier. It's totally different from any job I've ever had in the tech world, and it's fantastic.
you people downvoting the thread need to grow up and take a closer look at yourselves and your lives. You are a big part of the problem with gender and racial bias in our industry.
The difference is Holmes was endangering people's health and lives.
<Marissa Mayer eliminates work from home at yahoo. The world freaks out. Jeff Bezos does the same thing at amazon: he's smart. This is good for the culture.
Didn't Mayer build a nursery next to her office?
>you people downvoting the thread need to grow up and take a closer look at yourselves and your lives. You are a big part of the problem with gender and racial bias in our industry.
Seriously? Calling out people as sexist when it's not there doesn't help.
Maybe back up on that endangering people's lives, or--if I'm wrong about Theranos--at least place them as equals.
Does it matter that Mayer built a nursery? I can't see how that's not a total non sequitur.
Calling out latent sexism where people think they are being completely normal--because sexism is completely normalized in the tech community right now is exactly what I will keep doing.
Her employees can't work from home and be with their young children while she gets an in office nursery.
In any case, it's absurd to compare the CEO. Do Amazon employees get to ride on Bezos' jet to get home faster? It's just a vastly different position.