Questions about Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos

[Renew Deal]

I watched the documentary about Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos situation. The entire story is crazy and I have some question.

Holmes was an "inventor" that attempted to model Steve Jobs. She ran a company that was trying to build a machine that would run instant blood tests for 200+ conditions. Things didn't go well.

Here are my questions...

When did she realize the idea wasn't going to work? Was it a scam all along? If not, when did she realize it wasn't going to work?

She had an ongoing sexual relationship with the COO of the company. Was the relationship based on convenience (he was closest person that she trusted) or of control (sex was her way to keep him loyal)?

[dawg day]

1. I got the idea that she assumed the idea would work--

but that she didn't want to be skeptical and make certain that she was right.

At some point, after she got to be famous and got all those investors, I think it ceased to matter whether it worked or not, and the real goal became keeping the company afloat. That meant lying and forging evidence. She was really good at that.

As for the sexual relationship, I don't know. It seemed pretty "businesslike".

It's embarrassing how many presumably smart and savvy businesspeople (mostly businessMEN) were fooled by her and her cool Steve-Jobs imitation.

Did they really think someone that young and uneducated would discover this sort of medical advance? I guess so.

[Renew Deal]

2. Was it a medical advance?

It was a known thing done more efficiently. It's not like she made some scientific discovery. But you bring up good points.

It reminded me of wrestling. All of a sudden it was like "ha ha, this isn't real."

I wonder if it could have worked in a larger form factor. They tried to cram everything into that one box. I'm guessing no, since it would have been invented by someone by now if it worked.

[hatrack]

10. Read "Bad Blood" by John Carreyou (WSJ reporter who broke the story)

The idiocy was deep at Theranos, and her basic premise was just wrong - there was no way that they could do all they claimed with such tiny blood samples.

Beyond that, the biggest problem in medicine is . . . needles? As core problems go, she didn't exactly pick a biggie.

. . . but Holmes' ostensible "hypnotic" personality was enough to ensnare "worldly" types like George Schultz, James Mattis and David Boies. Go figure.

[RobinA]

5. Read the Book

Bad Blood about the whole scam. It is jaw dropping to me the way bigwigs fell for it. She was attractive, she was cunning and most of her board knew squat about blood testing.

[Renew Deal]

9. The board had some big names.

Kissinger, Schultz, Boies, Mattis

[Sgent]

15. Not a one of them

an expert in healthcare or medical research. Same with the venture capital funds that funded her -- she got funding from tech funds, not biotech, medicine, or anything related.

[Yavin4]

3. She was following the Steve Jobs model.

Pressure subordinates into doing the work, and fire them if they fail. Steal tech from other researchers.

Jobs did not code.

[dawg day]

4. "Vaporware"-- announce the revolutionary product, then tell the workers to produce it.

Jobs could succeed at that most of the time. But probably no one else has that sort of personal power.

[RobinA]

7. Jobs Also

came with one or two really successful products, which gave him some room to fail now and then.

[Renew Deal]

8. Apple didn't announce things before they were ready.

The iMac, iPhone, Apple Watch were all big splashes. Especially the iPhone.

[Renew Deal]

6. But he succeeded

It can be argued that his ideas were more feasible, but he successfully executed what she could not. Maybe that's why she modeled Jobs. He took something that existed and made it smaller and more efficient. She couldn't do it.

[Yavin4]

11. He's the lottery winner.

Many others tried to follow his model and failed like Elizabeth did. We don't hear about the failures.

[Renew Deal]

12. I agree

[judeling]

16. That was not Jobs strength and he never pretended it was

Jobs was an integrator who had a vision of the place of tech. He was more concerned with de-geeking tech and getting it to the masses then having the geekiest machines on the market first.

Although the Lisa and especially Next were some of the best.

[Sewa]

13. How about the deposition video

Man was that cringe worthy. That’s one creepy woman.

[NNadir]

14. As a scientist who is very familiar with bioanalytical methods and who just finished "Bad Blood..."

I really can't understand how anyone believed this would work.

Even today, a nanoflow high resolution LC/MS/MS is challenged with measuring multiple analytes simultaneously. It can be done, but the instrument is much larger than Ms. Holmes computer sized black box, and the software must do a lot of work accurately. Recently various types of multiplex immunoassays have been developed, but to say that a kid in the early 2000's had this wired, is, on inspection, positively absurd.

It was a clear case of the now famous (with Trump being the avatar) of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

She did hire some real scientists, but refused to accept what they had to say about her device. One of the Ian Gibbons committed suicide.

My son's senior project is to work with a start up developing point of care devices for rural areas in impoverished countries, HIV tests being the first target. The owner of the start up, as a thank you to the students completing the fist of two semesters on the project, bought all of the student partners a copy of "Bad Blood."

I borrowed and read it. It astounds me that she was able to raise this much money for a project that any serious bioanalytical scientist could dismiss on small reflection. She must have been a hell of a saleslady. An unethical saleslady, but a Trump-league scammer.

While she had the likes of Henry Kissinger and George Schultz and General Mattis on her board, she also raised money for Hillary Clinton, was friends with Chelsea Clinton and was praised by Barack Obama.

She didn't, however, have major scientists on her board.

[Dem2theMax]

17. Two words.

She cray.

[appalachiablue]

18. Pure evil, scary sociopath whose cool tech scam,

I mean work is mainly covered rather than the sickness and deception.

Given all the print media about Holmes con, I was surprised by the lack of articles here.