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I think you ought to actually explain the conflict of interest.

I'm trying to find a clear connection between Theranos and Andreessen-related investments. I can't find evidence of an actual investment in Theranos.

I'm not trying to dismiss you -- your theory[^1] could very well be totally right and there truly was a conflict [my duck-duck-go-ing skills only go so far]. And yeah, perhaps a person married to a wealthy tech investor ought not write high-profile articles possibly related to their partner's investments, and that publishers should be more wary of publishing such articles.

Yet I do get frustrated seeing these sorts of vague cynical quips levying specific accusations based more upon a gut plausibility of a scenario rather than a clear outline of information. It's easy to throw bread crumbs into a forest and connect them to make a path, but that doesn't mean you've found a useful path.

EDIT: Here is a somewhat-arbitrarily-selected article I found which discusses this topic: https://www.vox.com/2015/10/29/11620186/nyt-public-editor-bl...

[^1]: Technically you wrote that you were sure there was no conflict of interest whatsoever, but surely that was in jest.

They said:

> writing in the New York Times Magazine about Visionary Tech Entrepreneurs with, um, no conflict of interest whatsoever I'm sure.

The only assertion is that she was married to a Visionary Tech Entrepreneur and doing puff pieces for Visionary Tech Entrepreneurs. Like seeing an article by Michelle Obama about how democratic politicians these days are great. Nothing deeper than that I think. It was an eye roll in text form.

It’s not an entirely pointless exercise, though, because people should know how powerful figures are related, and why they are motivated to do what they do. Journalists and billionaires are regular people who when exposed to a spouse’s daily ideas and reactions will soon bend in their direction. We should expect this from Laura. And we should be better equipped to dismiss it, because she was wrong.

My main point from above:

> I do get frustrated seeing these sorts of vague cynical quips levying *specific* accusations based more upon a gut plausibility of a scenario rather than a clear outline of information.

I did clarify, but I'm curious what specific accusation you read from my comment.

I re-read it a few times and I don't see one regarding Theranos other than sloppy writing. My "gut plausibility of a scenario" that the author is pumping up her husband's portfolio company in an NYT article is pretty easy to validate by reading the article itself, it just happens to not be Theranos.

Are you seeing something that's not there, or am I failing to see something that is?

Thanks!

BTW I agree with your overall sentiment. Sorry if I was too obnoxious with my post. Sometimes I overthink things (such as with the rest of this comment).

On your comment:

> > She only pauses in her work to run — seven miles a day.

> -- Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, yes that Andreessen, writing in the New York Times Magazine about Visionary Tech Entrepreneurs with, um, no conflict of interest whatsoever I'm sure.

> Turns out Palantir's Alex Karp was also "harnessing goodness through technology." No idea how she missed Adam Neumann.

> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/12/t-magazine/el...

My issue is only with the first two lines, therein I can only discern one meaningful interpretation given the context.

1. You begin with a puffy quote from the article about Elizabeth Holmes

2. You name the author and publisher

3. You commented that she was writing "with, um, no conflict of interest whatsoever I'm sure" -- which is most likely sarcasm and that you suggest the opposite is true.

Therein is a claim (or at least a stated belief): that the author had a conflict of interest when writing about Elizabeth Holmes.

The nature of the conflict wasn’t clear. I looked it up (and later posted an article which asserted such a conflict) but didn’t find any clear connections between the Andreessens and Holmes/Theranos specifically.

In your #3 you seem to have overlooked the phrase “about Visionary Tech Entrepreneurs,” which is what the eye-roll about conflict of interest pertains to.

I get what you misunderstood and I think I now get why, but I disagree that it’s what the “verbal eye roll” (love that phrase from another commenter) is actually doing on the, er, page. Guess we can summon the English teachers now, but I’m sticking to my style. Thanks for taking the time to explain.

That's fair

I edited in a response to that, to the effect that this kind of vague accusation is not that vague, people are predictable, and we should know who we get our information from.

Understood -- I can agree with that in general.

BTW I totally understand that HN is not Debate Club, and that comments aren't required to be formal, rigorous, evidence-based arguments. Occasionally I just feel compelled to point out times when beliefs about people in general are used to justify accusations against specific people in specific circumstances -- even when I can empathize with the original sentiment, as was the case with the OP.

I don't think there's a literal "conflict of interest" but there's definitely a "protect your friends" thing going on.

Laura is from the rich Stanford/Menlo Park VC/Palo Alto crowd, and that's Holmes' base of support as well.

My main point from above:

> I do get frustrated seeing these sorts of vague cynical quips levying *specific* accusations based more upon a gut plausibility of a scenario rather than a clear outline of information.

It really is amusing that you have to keep posting this comment as I don't think anyone gave you an actual answer to what you're asking for, even after you clarified that you wanted specific, concrete accusations rather than vague ones. It's like people are wanting to reply to you but keep simply glossing over what you wrote.

> Laura is from the rich Stanford/Menlo Park VC/Palo Alto crowd, and that's Holmes' base of support as well.

What support did Holmes have in SV?

Yes, Draper put in some early money and Ellison put in some money, but the vast majority of Theranos' money seems to have come from outside the valley. (Yes, George Schultz lives in SV, but he's part of the SV investor "scene.")

You're thinking of the Sand Hill Road VCs, I guess. You're right: not much if any.

However, Schultz was in the Hoover Institute (on the Stanford campus), and he introduced her to lots of other government / defense heavyweights. James Mattis actually testified at the trial, for instance. Once you have a prestigious backer, the others fall in line like sheep.

I actually met Laura once, before she married Marc. Those people all know each other, believe me (I'm not one of them, in case you were wondering; it was some charitable thing).

Yes, Schultz introduced Theranos to "not SV" people, such as Mattis and the Walmart heirs.

How does that make Theranos part of the "Stanford/Menlo Park VC/Palo Alto" crowd?

>based more upon a gut plausibility of a scenario rather than a clear outline of information.

What meets your threshold for a conflict of interest? Maybe I'm being too harsh, but this seems to meet my personal threshold.

It's like if a politician heads a committee that has large sway in government contracts and they are close to someone who happens to invest in companies that bid on those contracts. It's easy to see a conflict exists even if a straight-line to a crime does not. Ethics often boils down to managing these conflicts so there isn't even a perceived avenue for impropriety. A politician breaches ethical boundaries irrespective if there’s unequivocal evidence they let the relationship impact their decision. There does not need to be a smoking gun.

I'm sure the author has no business relationship at all with Theranos and merely knows her socially.

Plausible deniability is useful in this kind of situation.

My main point from above:

> I do get frustrated seeing these sorts of vague cynical quips levying *specific* accusations based more upon a gut plausibility of a scenario rather than a clear outline of information.

We got it and I couldn’t possibly agree more if you didn’t obnoxiously cut and pasted the same criticism for every subsequent message that failed to satisfy your standards. Sometimes people don’t get our point, so we just move on

Understood. I admittedly got slightly miffed when the first few replies I received in a short time were conjecture.

As an aside, one reply had mentioned plausible deniability… perhaps ‘plausible accusability’ also exists, wherein any hypothetical crime one can imagine is presumed to have factually occurred unless 100% disproven.

This reads like a PR release:

> By breaking down barriers to testing, she’s paving the way for a scalable approach to early diagnosis and therefore lower-cost, less invasive treatments. And by standing up to lawmakers and entities with vested interests for individuals’ fundamental right to access their health care information, Holmes may be doing more than running one of the world’s most successful start-ups — she may be starting a movement to change the health care paradigm as we know it.

A16z didn't invest in Theranos, did Marc personally invest or what is the conflict?

The article hypes five founders, one definitely was funded by A16Z, the others I think were not but I'm not sure.

I don't know anything about the Andreessens' personal investments but just as a general rule you might question the propriety of someone that close to the VC money using your storied newspaper to promote startup founders. I'm not going to hold up the NYT as some bastion of journalistic ethics, but still.

https://a16z.com/2011/07/24/meet-our-newest-portfolio-compan...

Hyping founders you _didn't_ invest in is sort of the opposite of nepotism though.

I disagree. It's a small VC world. I'm not going to assume the author was rooting for the failure of the other four operations. One of them even was interviewed on the A16Z podcast later (the one who tragically died). If you had a graph of all the people who contributed to Palantir's success and all the ones who have made money for A16Z, I bet you'd see a lot of overlap.

Consider I have five artists in my collection, and I write an article about five artists but four of them are not in my collection. If I were to write about only the five in my collection, I might be called on it. By writing about the others I'm making it seem like the one in my collection just belongs in the group; and maybe the group will elevate my artist by association.

I might actually like all five of the artists I write about! They might be true visionaries and altruists besides! They might paint all the time except when they are running!

(Actually this kind of thing happens all the time in the art world, which makes my analogy a little depressing when I think about it...)

Sure, if you hype your own investment and add 4 more as decoy then you are hyping your own company, so that would be self serving.

The Arrillaga family fortune goes up any time the value of "SV" as a brand (or concrete asset) goes up. It's a nice trick to not have a formal COI while still closely and actively managing your interests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arrillaga

Interesting, I had no idea.

I think that Fox news has been around enough that people really don't expect any media to be neutral anymore. It just seems natural and normal for any media outlet to be vertically integrated into something. Washington Post seems to be anti union and against billionaires being taxed? Whatever.

when fox news came out, most news agencies (maybe all) were already left, so it choose to do something different and liberals have been bemoaning that ever since.

Adam, or Alfred E...?