Theranos' Death Rattle

[Deej 76,782]

Well, let's see...Derka considers his hand a 10, so everything else is a 6.5.

[Incredulity 11,671]

Just watched the HBO doc, it’s striking to me how much her voice sounds like Zuckerberg.

 

[KaiserSoze 998]

The book and movie complemented each other well, although if a person was only going to consume one I would recommend the book.  The book actually goes into how many people and organizations walked away after they couldn't validate the tech, or weren't at all impressed by the results.  She duped a lot of people, but there were a lot who saw right through her shit too.

Agreed about them complementing each other well. I read the book a while back and one thing that you really miss from that vs. the documentary is the facial expressions and vocal inflections of the people interviewed.

 

Some of that was gold- like the Fortune writer's reaction when talking about the FDA report- that was awesome to see & hear.

 

[TwiceHorn 31,464]

35 minutes ago, KaiserSoze said:

Agreed about them complementing each other well. I read the book a while back and one thing that you really miss from that vs. the documentary is the facial expressions and vocal inflections of the people interviewed.

 

Some of that was gold- like the Fortune writer's reaction when talking about the FDA report- that was awesome to see & hear.

 

The Fortune guy and Ken Auletta came across as really credulous.  I was surprised by Auletta, he's been around the block enough to know better, but I guess everyone was fooled until young Schulz blew the whistle to Carreyrou.  Plus, they're both older dudes and she seems to be Scheherazade to them.

Edited March 20, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[Incredulity 11,671]

did I miss the explanation of the commentators half beard(left/right) or did that just go unexplained?  It’s really bothering me.

[TwiceHorn 31,464]

2 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

did I miss the explanation of the commentators half beard(left/right) or did that just go unexplained?  It’s really bothering me.

He was burned as a teen in Israel.  Pretty lucky to have lived.  He's a fairly well known behavioral economist.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Ariely

[MAUFRAIS 6,629]

I like the assumption that in any setting he should be forced to explain his fucked up appearance.

[HenryJames 66,049]

That female Stanford professor was on to her from the beginning.

[SHOOTER12 8,808]

I just got through watching part of the Theranos documentary on HBO. Lord have mercy that woman was batshit crazy.

[Biff Tannen 45,683]

Fuck her and fuck all those corrupt motherfuckers that bankrolled her.  DeVos, Murdoch, and Kraft?  YA DON'T SAY?

[TwiceHorn 31,464]

Do you ever stop cloakroaming?  Christ.

[KaiserSoze 998]

That female Stanford professor was on to her from the beginning.

I loved her statements in the doc... especially the "she wasn't listening to me so I put her in touch with someone else"- cut to Channing (old thirsty white dude who gave up a tenured position to join Theranos). Lulz.  

 

 

 

[C-Man 27,224]

I just got through watching part of the Theranos documentary on HBO. Lord have mercy that woman was batshit crazy.

Yeah, me too. She’s bananas.

[Aqua Buddha 14,596]

8 hours ago, HenryJames said:

That female Stanford professor was on to her from the beginning.

She was in the podcast as well.  Said Holmes' original idea was to put medications in an IV drip of sorts.  Professor said that's medically impossible because they're "potent."  (I don't know what that means.)  Said Holmes kept arguing with her and insisted it would work.

[CooterBrown 18,010]

There’s a pretty hot homeless chick at mopac and 2222.

Homeless 10 ... not sure what that is on the derka scale.

Haha. I see that blonde often. I’ve often wondered what her story is since she breaks that rule.

[Deej 76,782]

[Trey3216 15,346]

10 minutes ago, Deej said:

Again...for posterity

 

[TwiceHorn 31,464]

1 hour ago, Aqua Buddha said:

She was in the podcast as well.  Said Holmes' original idea was to put medications in an IV drip of sorts.  Professor said that's medically impossible because they're "potent."  (I don't know what that means.)  Said Holmes kept arguing with her and insisted it would work.

She wanted her little blood collector pod to be adhered to the skin and deliver drugs, including antibiotics, through the skin.  https://patents.google.com/patent/US7291497B2/en?oq=7%2c291%2c497 Doc says unpossible, you can't dose antibiotics in tiny quantities.  I imagine there were other things that made her skeptical, as well.

As a person who deals with inventors regularly, the doctor's opinion could pose a hard limitation or merely a hurdle.  IF you think about it, antibiotics are almost always horse pills, and long courses for severe infections are dosed by the 500 ml IV, at least, repeatedly over days.  And I suppose if they could be dosed in milligram or microgram quantities, we'd do that already. Or maybe that's another invention in the wings.

While an MD may have even superior scientific training compared to an engineer or non-degreed inventor, as a very generalized observation, they often lack that little spark of creativity, or even maybe laziness, that leads to new things.  Not universal as there are plenty of MDs that invent things (and a fair number are engineers, too).  And, there are engineers that lack the creative spark, too, probably including yours truly.

Edited March 20, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[SwanderedTalent 5,761]

11 hours ago, MAUFRAIS said:

I like the assumption that in any setting he should be forced to explain his fucked up appearance.

"Before we get into Theranos, for our viewers at home.... what's wrong with your FACE?"

[babysdaddy 2,724]

10 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

Fuck her and fuck all those corrupt motherfuckers that bankrolled her.  DeVos, Murdoch, and Kraft?  YA DON'T SAY?

Donny....

[MrBig 5,398]

11 hours ago, HenryJames said:

That female Stanford professor was on to her from the beginning.

 

11 hours ago, KaiserSoze said:

I loved her statements in the doc... especially the "she wasn't listening to me so I put her in touch with someone else"- cut to Channing (old thirsty white dude who gave up a tenured position to join Theranos). Lulz.  

 

 

 

Women can tell when other women are batshit crazy and what their intentions usually are.

[Reagan1k 3,024]

The medical community already sends people home with intravenous anti-biotics In bags to combat lingering infections and prevent things like sepsis following an appendicitis rupture.  There are plenty of people walking around with bags of bug poison metering into them.  

Were it practical or possible to do so in these micro does she proposed it would already have been done.  She’d have had to 1st create an entirely new class of antibiotics that were effective in micro- doses before the dosing apparatus would be viable.  

She was raising money on the promise of building a cart before god ever created the horse.

[Pato del Muerto 52,497]

I think the Stanford professor’s biggest hangup with her patch idea was that skin is a barrier for lots of things, by design.  There’s a reason that many things are administered via oral suspension or subcutaneous injection. 

[TwiceHorn 31,464]

3 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

I think the Stanford professor’s biggest hangup with her patch idea was that skin is a barrier for lots of things, by design.  There’s a reason that many things are administered via oral suspension or subcutaneous injection. 

I think the same limitation applies with respect to cutaneous sampling.  There are just too many contaminants on the skin to permit a tiny prick sample to give accurate analysis, even if the instruments could do it.  That was alluded to in the book.

[HenryJames 66,049]

 

1 hour ago, Deej said:

That was worse than the fraud.

[Aqua Buddha 14,596]

Also, her solution of cheap and easy blood tests was for a problem that is not that big of a problem.  Traditional blood tests aren't that expensive or hard to do.  (God knows there are labs everywhere.)  Only hurdle is that some people don't like needles but that's not that big of a hurdle.  It's basically a solution to something that's not a problem.

[Incredulity 11,671]

12 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

He was burned as a teen in Israel.  Pretty lucky to have lived.  He's a fairly well known behavioral economist.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Ariely

Thank you. Guess I should have googled him.

I honestly couldn't tell if it was some sort of a hipster put on or not.   He talked out of the side of his mouth, but some people who haven't suffered any trauma do as well.

[Chewbacca 7,777]

13 hours ago, MAUFRAIS said:

I like the assumption that in any setting he should be forced to explain his fucked up appearance.

I thought it might be something like that and I think a beard is a strange choice when you can only grow one on half of your face.

[Reagan1k 3,024]

That's still better than some of my own shaving efforts when I was coming off a bender back in my drinking days.

[MAUFRAIS 6,629]

Maybe it’s a test to see how people react.

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

30 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Also, her solution of cheap and easy blood tests was for a problem that is not that big of a problem.  Traditional blood tests aren't that expensive or hard to do.  (God knows there are labs everywhere.)  Only hurdle is that some people don't like needles but that's not that big of a hurdle.  It's basically a solution to something that's not a problem.

Yeah.  Don't get me wrong, I hate LabCorp and Quest because they tend to treat every "patient" as if they were some shithead there for court-mandated drug testing.  But I was more uncomfortable watching the repeated phlebotomy scenes than I am actually getting a blood draw.  Also, lancet finger pricks hurt about as much as an actual venous draw.  I would know; I have both done to me when I donate platelets every 5ish weeks.

If they want to actually lower the cost of blood tests to increase accessibility, then maybe they should work on dismantling our bullshit health insurance industry that does nothing more than bloat costs and obfuscate pricing.  Wouldn't hurt for congress to address the essential monopoly that two companies have over an entire industry as well.  I'd think so anti-trust laws might be in breach.

[PilotsError 2,287]

Congress gave them those monopolies.  That's what regulation does.  But yeah, let's get Congress involved.

[J.R. Juniors Junior Jr. 1,084]

1 hour ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Also, her solution of cheap and easy blood tests was for a problem that is not that big of a problem.  Traditional blood tests aren't that expensive or hard to do.  (God knows there are labs everywhere.)  Only hurdle is that some people don't like needles but that's not that big of a hurdle.  It's basically a solution to something that's not a problem.

I swear 90% of the use those labs get is for pre-employment drug tests.

Edited March 20, 2019 by J.R. Juniors Junior Jr.

[hopkinsnhorns 533]

You'd be surprised how many tests are done as terms of probation.  I think it's probably more like 50% pre-employment, 40% court mandated, 10% medical use.

[SwanderedTalent 5,761]

22 minutes ago, J.R. Juniors Junior Jr. said:

I swear 90% of the use those labs get is for pre-employment drug tests.

I bet those labs are pretty anti-legalization of marijuana

[Beau Vine 54,225]

1 hour ago, MAUFRAIS said:

Maybe it’s a test to see how people react.

He is a behavioral economist.  He's going to write it up and get 7 different papers about it published.

[Aqua Buddha 14,596]

If you get a hefty life insurance policy, they'll make you do extensive blood work.  It really isn't that big of a deal unless you're scared of needles, which she claimed to be.

She makes it out to sound like the current process for blood testing is this huge roadblock to health care.  Never mind these places are everywhere.  She also made it sound like her uncle or whoever that died of cancer would have survived if a blood test told him years in advance that he would have cancer.  I could be mistaken but blood tests don't tell you that, regardless of where they're done.

[El Diablo 4,232]

6 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

She wanted her little blood collector pod to be adhered to the skin and deliver drugs, including antibiotics, through the skin.  https://patents.google.com/patent/US7291497B2/en?oq=7%2c291%2c497 Doc says unpossible, you can't dose antibiotics in tiny quantities.  I imagine there were other things that made her skeptical, as well.

As a person who deals with inventors regularly, the doctor's opinion could pose a hard limitation or merely a hurdle.  IF you think about it, antibiotics are almost always horse pills, and long courses for severe infections are dosed by the 500 ml IV, at least, repeatedly over days.  And I suppose if they could be dosed in milligram or microgram quantities, we'd do that already. Or maybe that's another invention in the wings.

While an MD may have even superior scientific training compared to an engineer or non-degreed inventor, as a very generalized observation, they often lack that little spark of creativity, or even maybe laziness, that leads to new things.  Not universal as there are plenty of MDs that invent things (and a fair number are engineers, too).  And, there are engineers that lack the creative spark, too, probably including yours truly.

I had a PIC line installed preceding my gut surgery a couple years back. I'd give myself IV's of antibiotics once a day. Big honking tennis ball sized gizmo, stuff had to be kept refrigerated too.

[SHOOTER12 8,808]

7 hours ago, Deej said:

 

5 hours ago, HenryJames said:

 

That was worse than the fraud.

Truth...this made me want to destroy televisions.

[HiggyBaby 2,529]

Just watched the HBO doc, it’s striking to me how much her voice sounds like Zuckerberg.
 

I get more of a Romy White vibe.

[Chewbacca 7,777]

After watching the HBO movie last night, I have zero doubt that in her mind she didn't do anything wrong.  She just ran out of time.

 

She's fucking nuts.  And not in the fun way.  She hurt an awful lot of people (not talking about investors, I'm talking about employees) and ruthlessly fucked some of them over.  Loved the little squeal of joy from the one that submitted the whistleblower complaint that ultimately got them shut down.

[C-Man 27,224]

I mean shouldn't everybody's sirens been going off when she started wearing the Steve Jobs' black turtlenecks all the time?

[TwiceHorn 31,464]

I noticed in a lot of her "company" speeches a disproportionate number of Asians.  Is that the way it is in SV?  I think we established that Balwani liked to hire inexperienced PhDs, and it seemed most of those were Indian.  I wonder if that was something deliberate?  It is fairly stereotypical that Asians are very deferential to management.

[Incredulity 11,671]

32 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I noticed in a lot of her "company" speeches a disproportionate number of Asians.  Is that the way it is in SV?  I think we established that Balwani liked to hire inexperienced PhDs, and it seemed most of those were Indian.  I wonder if that was something deliberate?  It is fairly stereotypical that Asians are very deferential to management.

Quick google search indicates University of California Berkley is 35% Asian.  My anecdotal experience on campuses in the UC system would have made me guess even higher.

[Sbbruin 21,853]

19 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Quick google search indicates University of California Berkley is 35% Asian.  My anecdotal experience on campuses in the UC system would have made me guess even higher.

 

Edited March 20, 2019 by Sbbruin

[Dbeasy 15,050]

Just a few chapters into the book. She’s a psychopath.

[tbone_ 14,123]

I mean shouldn't everybody's sirens been going off when she started wearing the Steve Jobs' black turtlenecks all the time?

I want to be a better guitar player so I think I’m just going to start dressing like Stevie Ray all the time from now on.

[Deej 76,782]

How does someone whose company is valued at nine billion not be able to afford some leave-in conditioner?

Edited March 21, 2019 by Deej

[CooterBrown 18,010]

I want to be a better guitar player so I think I’m just going to start dressing like Stevie Ray all the time from now on.

The gay Zorro look has only been pulled off successfully by SRV. Good luck.

[SHOOTER12 8,808]

Okay, I caught a little bit more of the documentary on HBO tonight. I have a ridiculous question, that who is the freak with the accent that appears to be wearing 1/2 of a beard? As in beard on one side with mustache and nothing on the other.