This is very cool.
That said, the fact that Theranos is in here without any commentary puts me off a bit. That's not a pitch deck, it's a fraud deck.
This is like putting Al Capone in a list of "inspiring stories about hardball entrepreneurs".
That said, the fact that Theranos is in here without any commentary puts me off a bit. That's not a pitch deck, it's a fraud deck.
This is like putting Al Capone in a list of "inspiring stories about hardball entrepreneurs".
No, I don't think it's nice to do what they've done (or smart, for that matter). But you want to see both ends of a spectrum, otherwise we'll fall prey to the survivorship bias. Hence, we've put up the "failed" category and didn't really want to give Theranos a category in itself called "fraud".
Again, controversy aside, I think there are lessons to be learned from them. People can misinterpret what I'm saying here and say I'm pushing them to commit fraud, but from my end it's more of a "This is how you should not do it"
We need to know both ends of an interval
This is supposed to be a curated list of VC pitches. I honestly don't understand how Theranos, a company that raised and grew solely by spreading lies and then covering them up, can end up in a list like that, except if the authors of said list think that this is a good way to raise money.
I don't understand how it is that everybody agrees that stealing a painting from a museum is bad, but when you steal billions (!) from investors then suddenly it's "inspiration".
EDIT: I hadn't yet realized you're the author.
> but from my end it's more of a "This is how you should not do it"
This is a good point, and with that I think it makes more sense. But IMO it needs a much bigger "fraud alert! don't do this, these people are evil" note :-)
Elizabeth Holmes was the child of a well-heeled, well-connected family. Bill Gates' mom sat on the board of United Way with an IBM bigwig, with whom she set up a meeting for her kid to pitch to him.
The decks themselves are pretty boring and lack detail. It'd be much more helpful to figure out the network these people had that connected them to the money men.