Theranos' Death Rattle

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

who could forget Jobs' creepy, clearly affected baritone speaking voice

she really nailed that one

[Parliament 14288]

I think the book mentioned employees knew how far into the Jobs biography she was by which of his affectations she had picked up that week. 

It did.

[MillerEP 30495]

Saw where it mentioned her father gave her Meditations on her way to college. As somebody who daily practices the philosophy of Stoicism, it’s clear she didn’t understand at all what Marcus Aurelius was trying to impart. It’s a shame, it happened at a pivotal moment in her development and things could’ve turned out differently. It’s like she got the Amor Fati piece and perverted it because she didn’t learn the dichotomy of control.

[Deej 76902]

[VABuckeye 2472]

On 3/20/2019 at 5:21 PM, El Diablo said:

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.

I had one for six weeks last fall. 2X daily and it was a 5 step process each time.  I had an infection on my spine in my neck.  Well, technically, cervical and not spinal.  Fotunately, the infection cleared up and all is good now.

[VABuckeye 2472]

16 hours ago, HenryJames said:

She has apparently worn them since she was five years old. 

Not according to the book.  She was wearing baggy, frumpy stuff and an employee talked her into changing her wardrobe which became black slacks and black turtlenecks.

[TwiceHorn 31533]

4 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

Sorry you went to the wrong school.  

Yeah, while that isn't true of engineering generally speaking, you don't learn shit about it in the first year.  Physics, calculus, chemistry, maybe statics and dynamics and an EE course or something rudimentary.  Not enough to even pretend you know anything.

[XYZ 2154]

Is David Boies also indicted?

[Deej 76902]

[Deej 76902]

Reminds me of the crazy Kitchen Nightmares bitch.

[GhostOfTomJoad 9350]

Did  you see the cluster fuck of a mess the machine made of the blood samples?   My gosh someone could have been exposed to no telling what and the Lab Techs said so much they were not taking standard  lab precautions when they were reaching into those machines.
 

That was one of the weak spots of the doc, imo. It was obviously cgi, because they didn't have another way to show what was supposed to be happening inside of a machine that never worked, but surely somewhere there's actual footage of Edison doing Jack shit.

[XYZ 2154]

Elizabeth Holmes reminded me of Christopher Duntsch when they said that she would finish the races dead last but wouldn’t quit.

[Deej 76902]

30 minutes ago, GhostOfTomJoad said:

That was one of the weak spots of the doc, imo. It was obviously cgi, because they didn't have another way to show what was supposed to be happening inside of a machine that never worked, but surely somewhere there's actual footage of Edison doing Jack shit.

Watching that, I'm thinking, "Wouldn't they have to replace everything inside the machine after each test?" 

Talk about contamination issues.

[XYZ 2154]

4 minutes ago, Deej said:

Watching that, I'm thinking, "Wouldn't they have to replace everything inside the machine after each test?" 

Talk about contamination issues.

Nah, chill out bro. Theranos will totally solve that problem. Later.

[TwiceHorn 31533]

I am just now finishing the doc.  That segment with Roger Parloff (Fortune) was heavy duty.  You could tell the guy was profoundly embarrassed and angry.

I'm not convinced that the lady doc really had the goods on Holmes.  Her single objection about antibiotics was probably valid, but I think the failure story is much more comprehensive:  small stick blood draws aren't suitable for many diagnostics, it's very difficult to automate diagnostics, much less on a large scale, add in the challenge of doing it on a small volume of fluid, etc. etc.  Also, if you don't think LabCorp and Quest (and Siemens, Abbott, Baxter and Coulter etc.) have tried, and to date failed, to do a lot of the work necessary to enable an Edison-type machine, you are probably not thinking right.  It's an immense project when you think about it; too big a project for an untrained neophyte and her gang of yes-people.

Edited March 22, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[Catdaddyhorn 3447]

On 3/19/2019 at 9:52 AM, Trey3216 said:

The gif of the goth kids actually became a dance move.  Kids do it all the time these days.  

[Incredulity 11683]

21 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I am just now finishing the doc.  That segment with Roger Parloff (Fortune) was heavy duty.  You could tell the guy was profoundly embarrassed and angry.

I'm not convinced that the lady doc really had the goods on Holmes.  Her single objection about antibiotics was probably valid, but I think the failure story is much more comprehensive:  small stick blood draws aren't suitable for many diagnostics, it's very difficult to automate diagnostics, much less on a large scale, add in the challenge of doing it on a small volume of fluid, etc. etc.  Also, if you don't think LabCorp and Quest (and Siemens, Abbott, Baxter and Coulter etc.) have tried, and to date failed, to do a lot of the work necessary to enable an Edison-type machine, you are probably not thinking right.  It's an immense project when you think about it; too big a project for an untrained neophyte and her gang of yes-people.

No defense of Theranos/Holmes. Faking till you make it with blood tests is criminal.

There is a lot of truth in the fake it till you make it.  Get the job figure the details later is very common.  Also, don’t overestimate the capability of large organizations like Siemens, Abbot.... they rarely are able to execute much innovation due to the scale and bureaucracy of their organizations.

 

[HenryJames 66164]

On 3/20/2019 at 7:12 AM, Deej said:

[TwiceHorn 31533]

12 hours ago, Incredulity said:

No defense of Theranos/Holmes. Faking till you make it with blood tests is criminal.

There is a lot of truth in the fake it till you make it.  Get the job figure the details later is very common.  Also, don’t overestimate the capability of large organizations like Siemens, Abbot.... they rarely are able to execute much innovation due to the scale and bureaucracy of their organizations.

 

Thoroughly disagree here, although I guess we can quibble about the meaning of "execute much innovation."

Yes, there are often details to be worked out in any kind of invention.  But the scale of what Holmes proposed was pretty huge in terms of number of required innovations to execute to make it work. 

One way to gauge the likelihood of success of an invention is to look at the competitive landscape.  Is it full of well-capitalized companies with R&D departments that pump out new/improved products at a healthy clip?  If so, it's pretty likely that they are either working on the same type of things (as reflected by their patent filings) or have failed in their efforts because the "invention" is impractical.

Holmes' idea wasn't that ground breaking.  It was essentially do it faster and cheaper with less blood.  I suspect every company in the diagnostic space is working on innovations in that area.

[XYZ 2154]

12 hours ago, Incredulity said:

Also, don’t overestimate the capability of large organizations like Siemens, Abbot.... they rarely are able to execute much innovation due to the scale and bureaucracy of their organizations.

I agree with this comment. I work for one of those companies. They prefer to acquire the technology rather than develop it.

[Incredulity 11683]

30 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

 

Holmes' idea wasn't that ground breaking.  It was essentially do it faster and cheaper with less blood.  I suspect every company in the diagnostic space is working on innovations in that area.

I have personally experienced a number of occasions where large companies did everything in their power to stop innovations because they had such a vested interest in the status quo.

Also, even if the culture of the company is to innovate getting an innovation implimented past the 14 senior VP's is a monumental task.  The VP's motivation,  very often, is to keep the train on the tracks till they can retire.   Not burn the thing to the ground so the consumer can get 200 blood tests in real time.

 

P.S. the above isn't an anti-capitalism rant.  Actually the exact opposite.  The most common mechanism that allows new innovation to see the light of day is start-ups and smaller organizations.

[HouTex 1890]

3 minutes ago, XYZ said:

I agree with this comment. I work for one of those companies. They prefer to acquire the technology rather than develop it.

Agreed.  Many companies simply don't innovate even when the innovation would seem obvious.  You'd have thought Yellow Cab could have easily developed something like Uber.  They already had a network of drivers and a brand.

As for Holmes, I see people like this all the time in business.  They are very smart and driven.  They think that sheer will power can overcome the technical problems with their idea. I have seen several smart oil and gas CEO's with similar personality traits during the latest oil bust--during the earlier one's as well. Their businesses failed not because they bet wrong on oil and gas prices and/or their assets sucked, and/or they simply had too much debt.  Their execution was brilliant.  It was someone else's fault--the Saudis were a prime target--it's easy to blame them.     

Another thing about people like Holmes.  Investors/employees/the public often fall for smart, articulate people.  Especially the articulate ones.  Carnival barkers did well because they were great speakers.  And when the barker is smart, they can really do some damage if they have no scruples. 

Holmes dismissed out of hand the negative comments to her patch idea by the Stanford professor.  In her mind, because it's her idea and because she's the smartest person in the room, she can make it happen.  I'm sure she will tell a convincing lie in her criminal trial.  She's charming enough that she just might get off saying that she thought it could work and never knew it couldn't.  

[Pato del Muerto 52572]

She and her boyfriend seem to be all in on the “our lab people said things were great and we chose to believe them” defense. Seems there might be some evidence to the contrary there with firings, resignations, and hopefully emails like what Schultz sent and has. 

If she told grandad Schultz and others that there were Edisons on medivac aircraft and other places when there were not, that’s a problem for her. She can’t pass the buck on that, though I’m sure she will try. 

There was obviously a point at which theranos as a company went from saying in development to saying functional technology. Need to prove that was malicious, and where were the federal regulators in all of this?

[Trey3216 15355]

25 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

I have personally experienced a number of occasions where large companies did everything in their power to stop innovations because they had such a vested interest in the status quo.

Also, even if the culture of the company is to innovate getting an innovation implimented past the 14 senior VP's is a monumental task.  The VP's motivation,  very often, is to keep the train on the tracks till they can retire.   Not burn the thing to the ground so the consumer can get 200 blood tests in real time.

 

P.S. the above isn't an anti-capitalism rant.  Actually the exact opposite.  The most common mechanism that allows new innovation to see the light of day is start-ups and smaller organizations.

Yep.  A lot of huge companies will buy smaller startups just to halt innovation and hold the new technologies until they can strike with it at the proper time.  

[SpiralOut 1818]

You gotta admire the confidence of sociopaths. 

Me, as a normal, sane person might think about ways to make myself look/seem more professional and in charge.  Thinking about wearing black turtlenecks so I seem more like Steve Jobs?  The first thing that would go through my brain is "No, dummy.  They'll see right through that shit.  You'll look ridiculous and people will laugh at you."  Changing my voice?  "No, you fucking idiot.  That will never work!"  This gal just says fuck it, rolls with it, and people actually buy that shit. 

Not to mention the absolute balls of having no way to actually deliver on what you're promising and bilking a bunch of rich and powerful people out of hundreds of millions of dollars.  Bald face lying to people like Warren Buffet, Henry Kissinger, etc.?  I'd have never had the stones to get the damn thing off the ground, much less getting it to a point where I had all these ultra-rich dumbfucks begging to give me all their money.  Of course, I'd also not be looking at 20 years in prison for fraud.

[PilotsError 2318]

She had professors and friends at Stanford who later joined her at Theranos.  I wonder what they thought of her voice change?  Or was she doing it at Stanford?

[SwanderedTalent 5761]

13 hours ago, Incredulity said:

No defense of Theranos/Holmes. Faking till you make it with blood tests is criminal.

The book make a great point of analogizing some of Oracle's early behavior re: shipping with bugs and how you COULD get away with that in software versus Theranos doing it and how "are you fucking kidding me no way" with clinical lab equipment. Ellison was an investor and she took some managerial cues from him, and for a blood-testing product like Edison, you couldn't pick many worse role models. Maybe Dracula.

[XYZ 2154]

The more I think about it, the more similar Holmes’ and Duntsch’s pathologies look like to me. Both wanted to achieve greatness. Both obsessively driven. Both would dismiss any kind of obstacle as “noise” and were convinced that their genius and tenacity would overcome every problem. Both would ruthlessly attack anybody who stood in their way. Both exhibited zero capability of retrospection, self-criticism, remorse, etc. During his trial, Duntsch, when confronted with the mountain of evidence pointing out the fact that he was a terrible surgeon, would methodically continue to explain away every single thing he did. Never did it occur to him that he fucked up. In his mind, he had zero culpability. I bet Holmes feels the same at this point. Probably planning her next great thing. These people are utterly incapable of feeling guilt.

[TonyTexas 10524]

Jennifer Lawrence will play Holmes in upcoming movie titled Bad Blood. Good choice.

[bschoolprof 6271]

1 hour ago, PilotsError said:

She had professors and friends at Stanford who later joined her at Theranos.  I wonder what they thought of her voice change?  Or was she doing it at Stanford?

On The Dropout podcast, they interviewed a Stanford med prof who met Holmes when she was a Freshman. The prof said a) she told Holmes (at the time) her ideas were full of shit and would never work, and b) Holmes had a normal voice back then.  This prof saw Holmes a few years later at an event with her fake voice and was appalled.  

[hayden_horn 11365]

2 hours ago, HouTex said:

Agreed.  Many companies simply don't innovate even when the innovation would seem obvious.  You'd have thought Yellow Cab could have easily developed something like Uber.  They already had a network of drivers and a brand.

yeah, this is off topic, but even after uber started, the cabs had a chance to react. they chose to entrench. it's bizarrely anachronistic behavior.

see also: sears. started off as a catalog mail order delivery distributor, changed to big box store, ironically destroyed because of a mail order delivery distributor.

[Mojo Hand 4580]

Total sociopath.  The Israeli guy has her wrong when he describes her as overconfident with good intentions. Her bad intentions became clear the moment she let it go live in Walgreens to be used on real people.  There was never any technological advance at the core of her company.  She didn't start Theranos in good faith based on some new hi-tech breakthrough she made in analyzing blood samples.  She just figured she could repurpose existing technology to automate the process and do more with less blood.  And she wasn't slaving away to make it work; all she cared about was selling the fraud and being lauded as a genius.

[TwiceHorn 31533]

4 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

On The Dropout podcast, they interviewed a Stanford med prof who met Holmes when she was a Freshman. The prof said a) she told Holmes (at the time) her ideas were full of shit and would never work, and b) Holmes had a normal voice back then.  This prof saw Holmes a few years later at an event with her fake voice and was appalled.  

She's featured in the HBO doc.  Phyllis Gardner.  In the doc, she acted like she "saw through everything," but the only thing she articulated is that you cant administer antibiotics through the skin because the dosage requirements are too high.  That was an aspect of Holmes' earliest conception of her invention, but formed no real part of Theranos.  She didn't for instance, point out that skin prick sampling is always going to be highly problematic because of contamination on the skin and by the puncture, and the low volume sample that doesn't dilute that contamination.  And it just goes downhill, technically, from there.

[Steel Shank 9430]

Any chance Holmes does porn somewhere down the road?

[ajax 2620]

4 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

yeah, this is off topic, but even after uber started, the cabs had a chance to react. they chose to entrench. it's bizarrely anachronistic behavior.

see also: sears. started off as a catalog mail order delivery distributor, changed to big box store, ironically destroyed because of a mail order delivery distributor.

Or the fact that Blockbuster had a chance to buy Netflix and said no thanks. Or when AT&T sold off their mobile business because McKinsey told them there was no future in mobile. 

[TwiceHorn 31533]

2 hours ago, Incredulity said:

I have personally experienced a number of occasions where large companies did everything in their power to stop innovations because they had such a vested interest in the status quo.

Also, even if the culture of the company is to innovate getting an innovation implimented past the 14 senior VP's is a monumental task.  The VP's motivation,  very often, is to keep the train on the tracks till they can retire.   Not burn the thing to the ground so the consumer can get 200 blood tests in real time.

 

P.S. the above isn't an anti-capitalism rant.  Actually the exact opposite.  The most common mechanism that allows new innovation to see the light of day is start-ups and smaller organizations.

 

2 hours ago, HouTex said:

Agreed.  Many companies simply don't innovate even when the innovation would seem obvious.  You'd have thought Yellow Cab could have easily developed something like Uber.  They already had a network of drivers and a brand.

As for Holmes, I see people like this all the time in business.  They are very smart and driven.  They think that sheer will power can overcome the technical problems with their idea. I have seen several smart oil and gas CEO's with similar personality traits during the latest oil bust--during the earlier one's as well. Their businesses failed not because they bet wrong on oil and gas prices and/or their assets sucked, and/or they simply had too much debt.  Their execution was brilliant.  It was someone else's fault--the Saudis were a prime target--it's easy to blame them.     

Another thing about people like Holmes.  Investors/employees/the public often fall for smart, articulate people.  Especially the articulate ones.  Carnival barkers did well because they were great speakers.  And when the barker is smart, they can really do some damage if they have no scruples. 

Holmes dismissed out of hand the negative comments to her patch idea by the Stanford professor.  In her mind, because it's her idea and because she's the smartest person in the room, she can make it happen.  I'm sure she will tell a convincing lie in her criminal trial.  She's charming enough that she just might get off saying that she thought it could work and never knew it couldn't.  

I don't doubt that these companies exist, but they don't live and die by research and product development like Abbott, Beckmann Coulter, Siemens and others in this "space."

Most smart companies know that you can't bury an idea forever and doubly or triply so if it has entered the patent system.  It's going to get out and you are going to have to compete with it at some point. So you get busy livin or get busy dyin.

Cab companies are a great example.  Never known for innovation, they blew it off and are busy dyin.

Edited March 22, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[Chewbacca 7783]

19 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

On The Dropout podcast, they interviewed a Stanford med prof who met Holmes when she was a Freshman. The prof said a) she told Holmes (at the time) her ideas were full of shit and would never work, and b) Holmes had a normal voice back then.  This prof saw Holmes a few years later at an event with her fake voice and was appalled.  

Wasn't that the same one that was on the HBO doc?

 

Edit:  Yes, it was.

Edited March 22, 2019 by Chewbacca

[Chewbacca 7783]

7 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

She's featured in the HBO doc.  Phyllis Gardner.  In the doc, she acted like she "saw through everything," but the only thing she articulated is that you cant administer antibiotics through the skin because the dosage requirements are too high.  That was an aspect of Holmes' earliest conception of her invention, but formed no real part of Theranos.  She didn't for instance, point out that skin prick sampling is always going to be highly problematic because of contamination on the skin and by the puncture, and the low volume sample that doesn't dilute that contamination.  And it just goes downhill, technically, from there.

In the podcast, she got more into why she thought Holmes was full of shit.  Primarily, she had been at Stanford for one semester and was an engineering student.  She didn't know jack shit about medicine or blood testing.  Gardner saw that what Holmes wanted was a quick path to greatness and wealth and that's when she pawned her off on the other Stanford professor that Holmes snowed.

[PilotsError 2318]

I wonder if Holmes even has sex.  She spends 16-20 hours a day at the office, four at home just to sleep.  Nothing but bottled water in the fridge and clearly weird as hell.  Dated a guy most women would find repulsive, even with the money.  Wouldn't shock me if she just didn't fuck.   

[HouTex 1890]

So which voice does she use at the criminal trial?  I see downsides either way.

[Chewbacca 7783]

8 minutes ago, Steel Shank said:

Any chance Holmes does porn somewhere down the road?

I hope not.  She's nowhere near hot enough for that.  

[TwiceHorn 31533]

2 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

In the podcast, she got more into why she thought Holmes was full of shit.  Primarily, she had been at Stanford for one semester and was an engineering student.  She didn't know jack shit about medicine or blood testing.  Gardner saw that what Holmes wanted was a quick path to greatness and wealth and that's when she pawned her off on the other Stanford professor that Holmes snowed.

That I can definitely buy.  She came off as a little smug in the HBO doc, but that could have just been editing.

Edited March 22, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[Mojo Hand 4580]

1 hour ago, SpiralOut said:

You gotta admire the confidence of sociopaths. 

Me, as a normal, sane person might think about ways to make myself look/seem more professional and in charge.  Thinking about wearing black turtlenecks so I seem more like Steve Jobs?  The first thing that would go through my brain is "No, dummy.  They'll see right through that shit.  You'll look ridiculous and people will laugh at you."  Changing my voice?  "No, you fucking idiot.  That will never work!"  This gal just says fuck it, rolls with it, and people actually buy that shit. 

Not to mention the absolute balls of having no way to actually deliver on what you're promising and bilking a bunch of rich and powerful people out of hundreds of millions of dollars.  Bald face lying to people like Warren Buffet, Henry Kissinger, etc.?  I'd have never had the stones to get the damn thing off the ground, much less getting it to a point where I had all these ultra-rich dumbfucks begging to give me all their money.  Of course, I'd also not be looking at 20 years in prison for fraud.

It's not that you don't have the stones.  It's that you have a conscience.  Sociopaths literally don't have a conscious.  It didn't take guts for her to do all of that shit because she didn't have to overcome anything inside that might stop the rest of us.   The only thing she was "concerned" with was getting exposed, which is why all of her efforts were aimed at that, not trying to get the tech to work. 

[Chewbacca 7783]

1 minute ago, TwiceHorn said:

That I can definitely buy.  She came off as a little smug in the HBO doc.

You would be too if you knew she was full of shit and you were vindicated years later.  I'm sure she took a lot of heat over the years over that stance.

[BearSchlong 8110]

8 minutes ago, PilotsError said:

I wonder if Holmes even has sex.  She spends 16-20 hours a day at the office, four at home just to sleep.  Nothing but bottled water in the fridge and clearly weird as hell.  Dated a guy most women would find repulsive, even with the money.  Wouldn't shock me if she just didn't fuck.   

Plus if she was passing out handys to those old rich dudes that she snowed it probably would have come out.

[TwiceHorn 31533]

1 minute ago, Chewbacca said:

You would be too if you knew she was full of shit and you were vindicated years later.  I'm sure she took a lot of heat over the years over that stance.

Eh, "everyone's a critic."  I don't think she took any heat because I don't think she was public with it. She's barely mentioned in Carreyrou's book (he apparently considered and rejected her as a source) and I've never seen anything that indicated that she was the great doomsayer of Theranos.  She is also associated loosely in the book with that maniac Fuisz, who seems to be a narcissistic headcase in his own right, although clearly coming in second to Lizzie.

[Steel Shank 9430]

2 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

I hope not.  She's nowhere near hot enough for that.  

Not even if the angry hoodwinked investors hold her in a dungeon? With latex and donkeys?

[ABSR 5323]

48 minutes ago, Steel Shank said:

Not even if the angry hoodwinked investors hold her in a dungeon? With latex and donkeys?

Could the they be latex donkeys?

[ajax 2620]

She seems like she has some kind of mild, or maybe not so mild, autism. There's just something off about her. Andshe walks like she just had a stroke too.

[Nueces River Rat 5539]

6 hours ago, Incredulity said:

I have personally experienced a number of occasions where large companies did everything in their power to stop innovations because they had such a vested interest in the status quo.

Also, even if the culture of the company is to innovate getting an innovation implimented past the 14 senior VP's is a monumental task.  The VP's motivation,  very often, is to keep the train on the tracks till they can retire.   Not burn the thing to the ground so the consumer can get 200 blood tests in real time.

 

P.S. the above isn't an anti-capitalism rant.  Actually the exact opposite.  The most common mechanism that allows new innovation to see the light of day is start-ups and smaller organizations.

Yep......The American auto industry until bankruptcy in the case of GM and Chrysler and a near bankruptcy at Ford made them change their ways.   Although it still might be questionable at GM if they learned their lesson.