Sad Postmortem on Theranos Inc.

[dd564]

It's not surprising to see the VC $$$ dumped into it.

They do due-diligence, but only after they are sold on the idea. And once they are sold, they don't really want to find anything bad because they are already believers.

Many think VC'ers are a sort of another check and balance for a corporation. Like they need to worry about whether they will please the VC. But once the VC firm has bought in, they are all aboard the hype train until it's completely obvious it's a failure.

The VC wants to pump it up and start trading out of shares.

They care very little about how the company is actually doing. Just what hype can be sold to gain more positive attention. (increase stock price).

 

[Sojourner]

The entire story is fascinating, especially the aspects having to do with Elizabeth Holmes' persona, both genuine (ruthless, amoral ambition and greed) and invented (genius visionary ala Steve Jobs). She seems to be much like a younger, female version of Bernie Madoff.

I've been listening to a very good podcast about the whole sordid affair. It's called The Dropout (alluding to the fact the she dropped out of Stanford after only 1½ years to found Theranos). Highly recommended listening for anyone following this thread.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dropout/id1449500734?mt=2

 

[ERD50]

In the many depositions she has given, " I don't know " was a good answer for most questions.

One youtube comment posted :

Question in deposition " Do you swear under penalty perjury that the testimony you will be giving today will be truthful and complete " -

Holmes answer: " I Don't Know "

Not to defend her, it sure seems like she was a fraud, but...

I know some engineers/managers who were called into depositions (patent cases, anti-trade practices, etc). They were instructed by our MegaCorp lawyers to never lie, but also never expand on anything, and if they had any doubt at all about their memory of an event, to answer "I don't know", or "I don't recall". One of them related that the opposing lawyer at one point said something like "Wow, for a bunch of super bright engineers at the top of their field, they sure don't know very much!".

I'm sure she will end up with a wonderful career in politics.

Did you notice their list of investors was almost entirely ex-government ex-military people? The people who are supposed to use our tax dollars wisely?

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

The entire story is fascinating, especially the aspects having to do with Elizabeth Holmes' persona, both genuine (ruthless, amoral ambition and greed) and invented (genius visionary ala Steve Jobs). She seems to be much like a younger, female version of Bernie Madoff.

I've been listening to a very good podcast about the whole sordid affair. It's called The Dropout (alluding to the fact the she dropped out of Stanford after only 1½ years to found Theranos). Highly recommended listening for anyone following this thread.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-dropout/id1449500734?mt=2

I just finished the youtube links, I'll listen to the podcast next. But a sad thing in all this, is she had to be an extremely bright person. It's not easy to pull off a fraud at that level. What a shame she didn't channel it in a more positive direction.

-ERD50