Comments on: Theranos Voids Two Years of Edison Blood-Test Results

Theranos Voids Two Years of Edison Blood-Test Results

Existential Dread — Thu, 26 May 2016 11:08:51 -0800

In the continued fallout of the Wall Street Journal's expose on Theranos' struggles to deliver accurate medical test (previously), it has now been reported that Theranos is throwing out all Edison results from 2014 and 2015 (WSJ [paywalled], Reuters). The company reported completing about 890,000 tests per year, and "...has told the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that it has issued tens of thousands of corrected blood-test reports to doctors and patients, voiding some results and revising others, according to the person familiar with the matter."

The continuing woes of Theranos also impact Walgreens, who opened a number of clinics in Arizona and California to provide Theranos tests for customers. The WSJ and Consumerist report that Walgreens moved forward with the Theranos deal despite a lack of transparency.

Walgreens hired a former executive for an old-fashioned lab-testing company to check out quality control data, sending him with some of their own executives to check out the startup's results. There was test data, but nothing showed conclusively whether the tests had been run on the company's proprietary machines or on standard equipment from an outside company. "The results were actually really good, but I was never allowed to go into the lab," the retired Quest executive told the WSJ. "I have no idea that the results I saw were run on the Edison devices or not."

Theranos has now been hit with the first class-action lawsuit stemming from these recent revelations.

By: docpops

docpops — Thu, 26 May 2016 11:22:26 -0800

I wonder why this wasn't obvious as soon as you saw Holmes messianic image management and a Board of Directors with as much medical experience as a gerbil run.

By: docpops

docpops — Thu, 26 May 2016 11:25:48 -0800

Not to mention that no conscientious physician would ever base any medical decision making on labs form a place like this until it had 5+ years of data. Some of the stuff patients bring in from small labs around the country attesting to their hormone imbalances, allergies, heavy metal poisoning etc. just makes you wonder constantly how the lab industry doesn't police itself better.

By: sammyo

sammyo — Thu, 26 May 2016 11:28:11 -0800

Can the class-action lawsuit(s) go after the board of directors and investors? Could be ripples there.

By: Mitrovarr

Mitrovarr — Thu, 26 May 2016 11:36:33 -0800

Theranos as a company is obviously doomed and then some. To be honest, with the level of fraud we're seeing (and with patient health being meaningfully affected), I kind of hope we see some solid prison sentences.

By: praemunire

praemunire — Thu, 26 May 2016 11:42:25 -0800

Can the class-action lawsuit(s) go after the board of directors and investors? No.

By: j_curiouser

j_curiouser — Thu, 26 May 2016 11:43:56 -0800

Can the class-action lawsuit(s) go after the board of directors and investors? No. damn shame, that. I thought those guys were all about personal responsibility.

By: acb

acb — Thu, 26 May 2016 11:46:17 -0800

What is the likelihood of Holmes going to jail for this?

By: Lentrohamsanin

Lentrohamsanin — Thu, 26 May 2016 11:50:53 -0800

Does anybody know what the alt med/woo take on this is? Are they seeing Theranos and Holmes as martyrs being persecuted by BIG MEDICAL TESTING,or as representative of inherent problems in traditional medicine? Or is this story not even on that radar yet? Searches on Mercola.com and NaturalNews.com didn't pull back anything.

By: rtha

rtha — Thu, 26 May 2016 12:08:54 -0800

Christ, what assholes.

By: Coda Tronca

Coda Tronca — Thu, 26 May 2016 12:28:25 -0800

Well it's disruption.

By: ZeusHumms

ZeusHumms — Thu, 26 May 2016 12:54:55 -0800

So, if I know someone who works there, should I advise them to pack a parachute and jump?

By: sammyo

sammyo — Thu, 26 May 2016 12:57:17 -0800

I do remember a technews interview with Ms Holmes a couple years ago just before they began to roll out to Walgreens. She did not seem wacky or unreasonable, quite a good story. There are numerous tests on the shelves that run a medical test from a drop of blood so something is possible. Without quite specialized knowledge of specific processes it would not be surprising that some of her claims would turn out to work. The next thing I noticed was the imminent fall out and a history of grandiose claims. From a total outsider it looks to me like a science grad student saw some interesting results and got something to work in a few cases and instead of climbing on the traditional grueling phd/post-doc treadmill tried to get something to market. A single small test may have eventually worked but then it all got caught up in the Venture Capital DISRUPTION cycle. Plus lies and cheating.

By: wenestvedt

wenestvedt — Thu, 26 May 2016 12:59:13 -0800

Plus lies and cheating. Yeah, I think I see the problem...

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Thu, 26 May 2016 13:01:26 -0800

From a total outsider it looks to me like a science grad student saw some interesting results and got something to work in a few cases and instead of climbing on the traditional grueling phd/post-doc treadmill tried to get something to market. She was a first-year undergrad. She had no experience in this field whatsoever.

By: bradbane

bradbane — Thu, 26 May 2016 13:03:19 -0800

I met Ms Holmes at Theranos on a contract job. I don't remember signing an NDA but I'm sure I did because that place was locked down like Fort Knox. I have been to some sensitive locations for work - research facilities, famous politician offices, the vault of a casino, the stock room of a marijuana dispensary - I have never seen security like that anywhere, not even a federal building. I would need a piece of equipment one room over and there would be six locks and multiple escorts between me and it. More than once I got trapped in hallways with auto-locking doors on both ends and would have to call for help. We all thought it was extremely weird, but these tech companies are all weird. Holmes herself came across as very strange (again, par for the course for tech CEOs) and we all joked about the ridiculous black turtleneck. Came across as trying too hard. This was before the WSJ investigation, in retrospect seems obvious they were hiding something and not just concerned about trade secrets or whatever. Best anecdote, which was outside so I guess I can say this: Holmes' parking spot was right out front. Her license plate? DAS KAPITAL

By: If only I had a penguin...

If only I had a penguin... — Thu, 26 May 2016 13:50:20 -0800

Can someone explain to the non-Americans how blood labs work in the US? In Ontario you get a form from your doc saying what tests to get and take that to any blood lab in the province and get the tests done. The labs are privately owned/operated etc. but since provincial health insurance pays for the test no matter where you go, most people just choose based on the convenience of the location. No doc has ever suggested to me that one lab might be better than another. Presumably they're all licensed/inspected or whatever. But from the "people should have known better" tone of some of these comments I'm getting that you can just set up a blood lab in the US and do whatever you want? I mean I see talk of the FDC in the articles, so there's some oversight, right? How are people supposed to guess that a blood lab is a disaster?

By: Carius

Carius — Thu, 26 May 2016 13:59:11 -0800

Reading Theranos' story, I want to know who are Ms. Holmes' parents. It's obvious her parents are politically connected but it's strange I can't find anything on news about her parents.

By: lalochezia

lalochezia — Thu, 26 May 2016 13:59:25 -0800

From the always insightful Ash Jogalekar "I was always flummoxed by Theranos since I never understood what they really did and why it was so big. It clearly seems I was not alone in thinking this way. To a large extent the Theranos story illustrates the pitfalls of young people growing up in Silicon Valley and thinking that they can revolutionize healthcare the way Jobs and Gates revolutionized software. Wetware is simply unlike software, and that's not going to change anytime soon. Elizabeth Holmes still sounds like a smart and ambitious person to me, and I hope she can get her act together (god knows we need quick and comprehensive diagnostics, especially for developing countries) but she seems to have fallen for Feynman's dictum: "The first thing is to not fool yourself, and you're the easiest person to fool." --

By: lalochezia

lalochezia — Thu, 26 May 2016 14:07:04 -0800

IMHO this was privilege at work on a grand scale. Leverage your (admittedly impressive) salesmanship, enthusiasm and connections to get powerful people involved at an early stage. The board/advisory committee that was selected: Kissinger! the CEO of Bechtel! various ex-generals! What the fuck do they have to do with science - even industrial/commercial science? IMHO this was a power play to squeeze money out of the military industrial complex quickly, and it snowballed from there to involve silicon valley. Reputation breeds reputation, but no-one looks to see that under all the eminence the empress has no scientific clothes. Whats sad about this like so many other startups - and military projects is that billions of dollars have been burned on a bad idea with no real justification. When money and power reinforce and protect each other irrespective of outcome as par for the course......this is why the real problems the world faces won't be solved by either the private sector or government anytime soon at the scale required.

By: Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The

Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The — Thu, 26 May 2016 14:07:11 -0800

I don't hope she gets her act together. She sounds like a scumbag. I hope she gets sued for everything she's got, blackballed from ever holding a position of greater authority than assistant night manager at a convenience store, does some soul searching, stops being a scumbag, and settles down to have a nice quiet, normal life somewhere where she can't hurt anyone and is never in the news again. If she had her act together, she'd be even more dangerous than she already is. Good grief.

By: w0mbat

w0mbat — Thu, 26 May 2016 14:25:13 -0800

So happy I ignored their recruiter a year ago.

By: JoeZydeco

JoeZydeco — Thu, 26 May 2016 14:28:07 -0800

It's obvious her parents are politically connected but it's strange I can't find anything on news about her parents. There's obvious biography about her father, but I'm also really curious how that got parlayed into getting Henry Freaking Kissinger on their board. Is USAID some kind of cover organization for CIA spooks or something? Maybe?

By: TheWhiteSkull

TheWhiteSkull — Thu, 26 May 2016 14:32:34 -0800

Her license plate? DAS KAPITAL Maybe she's a clandestine accelerationist?

By: praemunire

praemunire — Thu, 26 May 2016 14:33:48 -0800

Can someone explain to the non-Americans how blood labs work in the US? Most blood draws are done in the doctor's office or the hospital lab. You don't usually control which lab your samples get sent to. (Which is interesting from a legal point of view, because it makes it harder to prove that you relied on any representation of the lab in giving them your business.) I think there are some standalone testing centers, but, again, unless the same company runs the center and does the analysis (I think one or two companies do do this), you're not choosing who does the analysis.

By: If only I had a penguin...

If only I had a penguin... — Thu, 26 May 2016 15:08:04 -0800

I swear I read TFAs. I even looked at the previous post. I did not listen to the podcast cause I'm just not a podcast person. Why wasn't it obviously relatively immediately that their tests didn't work? I mean sure, if somebody tells that your cholestoral is X and they're way off, there's no way for you to know that. But not every test is like that, some tests would be pretty obviously wrong, I would think. Pregnancy tests would be known to be wrong within a few months. Clotting tests would also seem to have some clear signs of wrongness. I'm sure there are others. It seems like this shouldn't have taken an investigation to figure out. Doctors and hospitals should have noticed the frequency of obviously wrong results. Also, I see nothing in the articles about the number of people consistently wrong blood test results could obviously kill. How many people were misdiagnosed and not treated or given dangeerous treatments unnecessarily? Even the class action suit doesn't seem to address those likely consequences.

By: sammyo

sammyo — Thu, 26 May 2016 15:43:12 -0800

It turns out they bought some competitors equipment for comparison/validation and used that equipment until the disruptive devices came online. Well or just made up lies as it turned out.

By: Ralston McTodd

Ralston McTodd — Thu, 26 May 2016 15:52:00 -0800

Man, I really, really wanted Theranos not to be a disaster/hoax. Mainly because it would both shut up the "her company only got attention because she's a woman" crowd and the "we need less medical testing" crowd (as someone in Maryland who would like BRCA testing, I'm running up against this.) And also because if Theranos really did what it claimed, it would be a truly new technology, not another me-too Tinder/Twitter/Tumblr social app like so many startups. But of course none of this actually makes their technology any good. Sigh. What I don't understand is that it seems like a lot of people were really rooting for Theranos to fail. I mean, more than the average overhyped tech startup. Can someone explain their motivations to me?

By: thefoxgod

thefoxgod — Thu, 26 May 2016 15:52:22 -0800

Most blood draws are done in the doctor's office or the hospital lab. You don't usually control which lab your samples get sent to. Huh, is that true? I've always had the doctor give me a lab order which I can take to any lab/processing center (in the US). I have used Quest Diagnostics a lot, and sometimes hospital labs. But its true there's no clear/obvious separation between "place where I get the blood drawn" and "place where the analysis happens". What I think of in my head as the "lab" is actually the former, which may or may not have the same name/company as the latter.

By: bradbane

bradbane — Thu, 26 May 2016 15:57:07 -0800

Can someone explain their motivations to me? The black turtleneck is so eye rolly I can't even

By: docpops

docpops — Thu, 26 May 2016 16:14:43 -0800

I suspect the draw of Theranos is one of convenience and anxiety-reduction, and perhaps somewhat of a cost metric as well. In my practice, a typical appointment might require 2 or 3 standard surveillance tests done at a 6 month interval for diabetes or perhaps for monitoring a medication. Maybe you mention you have been exhausted for the last month, and after we talk some more it seems prudent to make sure your thyroid and a couple other things aren't out of whack. Maybe it's been a couple years since anyone checked your cholesterol. So in the Theranos model you would walk into their kiosk and all these tests would be drawn from a single finger stick, and somehow those lab reports would reach your doctor. In my office you go to the lab, they perform a venipuncture and over the next several days the labs roll in as expected. In most cases currently, 'roll in' means they show up right in your chart in the electronic record, so there is zero chance that they can be misplaced, or not acknowledged and addressed, whereas with paper copies of outside labs it's relatively easy for someone to throw a set of initials on them at light speed as they are going through a stack of 100 consult reports, faxes from nursing homes on someone's stool patterns, friendly reminders from an insurance company to consider changing therapy on 20 of your patients to save them money, etc., and the patient may never hear the result (and many people still treat no news as good news). My limited understanding from the start was that Theranos was looking to solve a problem that didn't really exist in the scope they imagined. For some people blood draws are anxiety-provoking, but then for quite a few of those folks even a finger stick might be an ordeal as well. The bigger thing, and something she could have been told if she had asked anyone who actually took care of an actual patient instead of a bunch of superannuated titans of industry, is that you still need those tests to go to a doctor, expediently and safely, and then be interpreted. The difference in patient safety and speed between an on-site lab and sending them out can be significant, thought that mostly depends on the practice. If I see an outside lab result it's like spotting a unicorn and I have my staff spend the next ten minutes trying to uncover its provenance so I can tell if it's actually my job to contact the patient, or as is often the case it was ordered by an outside doc from a small shop and I'm getting a courtesy copy. She had to have known she was completely full of shit, and that even in the wildest scenario her business model was not suddenly going to upend the existing lab-testing infrastructure.

By: Bwithh

Bwithh — Thu, 26 May 2016 16:14:50 -0800

I wonder if she had to work flat out all the time to keep the scam / facade going or did she actually secretly have a lot of downtime behind locked doors which she filled playing video games and watching TV show marathons

By: Existential Dread

Existential Dread — Thu, 26 May 2016 16:22:58 -0800

What I don't understand is that it seems like a lot of people were really rooting for Theranos to fail. I mean, more than the average overhyped tech startup. Can someone explain their motivations to me? I don't think this is true, really. I think that when the WSJ published their first piece exposing the fraud, the house of cards began to fall so fast and so quickly it stunned everyone. Still, in my opinion they didn't fail fast enough, because they did a sizable volume of fraudulent tests, putting real people's lives at risk on unproven science. I want anyone who thinks they can just handwave a medical test into existence, bypassing all consumer protections and federal regulations, to fail. I was happy when 23andme got slapped by the FDA, as well. Those regulations exist for a reason. I think they can stand to be streamlined, reevaluated, and modernized, but I want anyone who thinks they can just blithely waltz into the market and treat people with no oversight to learn that, no, really, you have to PROVE that this fucking works first.

By: Westringia F.

Westringia F. — Thu, 26 May 2016 16:25:42 -0800

> What I don't understand is that it seems like a lot of people were really rooting for Theranos to fail. I mean, more than the average overhyped tech startup. Can someone explain their motivations to me? The easy, obvious answer: because Holmes is a woman & people are sexist. And also because she was young & inexperienced, which made Theranos smell not unlike a snake-oil. ... I will say that momentarily self-censored and thought twice about posting this (c'mon, Westringia, don't be so glib) but then we got this reply: The black turtleneck is so eye rolly I can't even posted by bradbane at 5:57 PM on May 26 [2 favorites +] [!] Frankly, if any part of the theory is that people were rooting for Theranos to fail because of the founder's fashion choices, then yeah: I'm gonna have to go with sexism playing a role.

By: docpops

docpops — Thu, 26 May 2016 16:33:27 -0800

No, eye-rolling over the black turtleneck isn't sexism. It was a completely ridiculous clothing choice for someone who should have known that presenting yourself as a Steve Jobs simulacrum was an unnecessary distraction and was one thing out of many that didn't pass the smell test. I hope we don't dilute the seriousness of her bullshit by tying this to sexism. If a guy had come onstage wearing that same choice he would have been openly mocked.

By: docpops

docpops — Thu, 26 May 2016 16:39:52 -0800

From the first linked article: A particular failing was a blood-clotting test that placed patients in "immediate jeopardy." A biochemist who was part of the development team allegedly bemoaned the failures of the technology before committing suicide in 2013, the WSJ adds. This was news to me, and I appreciate the link and extra information. She has no business being in any industry that involves anyone's safety. You don't fuck-up an INR for someone on a blood thinner more than once without a full top-to-bottom evaluation of your methodology.

By: rdr

rdr — Thu, 26 May 2016 16:48:39 -0800

That whole having a doctor to interpet results model, that's what Theranos was out to disrupt. Here's a press release from Theranos celebrating a new Arizona law allowing "direct access testing".

By: ArbitraryAndCapricious

ArbitraryAndCapricious — Thu, 26 May 2016 16:56:11 -0800

I wouldn't totally write off sexism, but I think a lot of the reason people are gunning for Holmes is because of Theranos's association with high-profile conservative politicians, which gives the whole "disrupting medicine" thing a particularly sinister cast. I don't want Henry Kissinger disrupting anything that matters to me.

By: docpops

docpops — Thu, 26 May 2016 17:14:27 -0800

That whole having a doctor to interpet results model, that's what Theranos was out to disrupt. Here's a press release from Theranos celebrating a new Arizona law allowing "direct access testing". posted by rdr at 4:48 PM on May 26 [+] [!] and again, what she could have garnered from a 5 minute conversation with any primary care doctor is how ridiculous this idea of 'more information=better health outcomes' is. Any testing scenario she voices that sounds like a breakthrough is just so much garbage. If you were born in the US, you are at risk for diabetes and heart disease. If your blood test says you might be at risk for heart disease, or alzheimer's, or ALS or MS, now what? I guess if a blood test is going to finally get you to take care of yourself then that's great, but in practical usage this idea of blood testing as a means to better health doesn't hold water. It appeals to a certain demographic, I think, who is constantly railing against the aging process because they feel their socioeconomic status gives them a pass. For 99% of the populace, health isn't some elusive noble gas. We know what health is, we just have a lot of trouble putting it into practice because we are human and life throws obstacles to taking care of one's self at every turn. And if it finds something more pedestrian, say an abnormal thyroid, cholesterol, etc, you still have to pay a doctor to guide you on how to manage that information, which is never a straightforward endeavor.

By: praemunire

praemunire — Thu, 26 May 2016 17:22:21 -0800

I've always had the doctor give me a lab order which I can take to any lab/processing center (in the US). In that scenario you don't really have an assurance that the company that hired the person who does the draw is the same company that analyzes the results, is what I was trying to say. (I don't think I've ever, in my adult life, gone to a freestanding lab for a blood draw. But I know some people do.)

By: impishoptimist

impishoptimist — Thu, 26 May 2016 17:22:23 -0800

Speaking as a medical lab scientist, a lot of us in the lab industry were skeptical early on because she was claiming her tests were better than the establishment, but refused to publish any comparison studies or discuss her methodology in any way. The technology for the small sample sizes exists to some extent in point of care devices and microfluidics, but so far the results are much less reliable than the full-size instruments we use in hospitals and reference labs. Also fingerstick samples are really not ideal. It's easy to hemolyze the sample, which bursts the red blood cells and changes the makeup of the sample, or to dilute the blood with tissue fluid from the soft tissue. So there were concerns from many lab people right from the start. A lot of the things she said were dismissive of the lab industry, too, which rubbed people the wrong way. She wasn't interested in working with the existing tech to improve things, she wanted to make us irrelevant. Labs in the United States are very highly regulated, with inspections a minimum of once every 2 years. There are hundreds of federal regulations under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of '88, which control educational requirements for lab staff at all levels up to director, minimum standards for quality assurance, storage of reagents, checking automatic calculations, confirming the accuracy of the testing, etc. Most labs actually go above and beyond the CLIA regulations and are accredited by another agency such as CAP or COLA, which have even more strict guidelines. Theranos was apparently totally unprepared and unconcerned about meeting these standards. Their list of deficiencies was extensive, and included five condition-level deficiencies, which is "so bad you are risking patient death or injury." That is unheard of. The deficiencies listed in the CMS survey (warning: 147 page pdf) show they do not understand the standards for validation, quality control, proficiency testing, education, the list goes on. They should have involved certified medical laboratory personnel from the start. Those regulations exist for a reason. There are not a lot of tears being shed for Elizabeth Holmes over here.

By: MikeKD

MikeKD — Thu, 26 May 2016 17:24:15 -0800

From a total outsider it looks to me like a science grad student Not even; she's an undergrad dropout. But it was Stanford, so (eyeroll).

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Thu, 26 May 2016 17:27:28 -0800

To extend on what impishoptimist said above, those of us with experience in microfluidic diagnostics were immediately doubtful because we knew the state-of-the art technology couldn't support what Theranos was claiming and they had yet to demonstrate any new technology, or even to identify broadly what such new technology might be.

By: MikeKD

MikeKD — Thu, 26 May 2016 17:29:03 -0800

Speaking as a medical lab scientist, a lot of us in the lab industry were skeptical early on because she was claiming her tests were better than the establishment, but refused to publish any comparison studies or discuss her methodology in any way. Yeah, this is where I feel legitimate criticism (vs. criticism from misogynistic Dark Enlightenment assholes) came from; extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence. (Plus some eyeroll regarding too-typical SV DISRUPTION!!!)

By: dragoon

dragoon — Thu, 26 May 2016 18:20:26 -0800

Her license plate? DAS KAPITAL Just out of curiosity, what state issues 10 character license plates?

By: Sticherbeast

Sticherbeast — Thu, 26 May 2016 18:21:22 -0800

I, too, wanted Theranos to fail when I heard about its cagey, nigh-impossible promises. I had no idea who or what had been behind the company itself until months later - there is no reason to assume that Holmes is any more or less of a narcissist/sociopath/whatever than any other fraudulent CEO of a would-be unicorn. Also, LOL at people whose most visceral response is not to the massive fraud, but rather to the mere presence of Henry Kissinger! I have no love for HK, but c'mon.

By: ArbitraryAndCapricious

ArbitraryAndCapricious — Thu, 26 May 2016 19:15:52 -0800

I'm not saying that's the anyone's most visceral response. I think that's the reason that many people hoped Theranos would fail, even before it became clear that there was fraud, probably going back to that New Yorker article.

By: Halloween Jack

Halloween Jack — Thu, 26 May 2016 19:26:21 -0800

It's very likely that at least some of the criticism of Holmes is because of her gender, and I agree that the thing about the black turtleneck is a dumb derail. (If she was really trying to imitate Steve Jobs, she wouldn't wear a jacket over it, and a simple GIS will show that she has other things in her wardrobe.) But I think that the real reaction here, and I'm projecting my own reaction, has to do with how much lots of people depend on blood work to monitor their health, especially with regards to not just general health markers like blood glucose and cholesterol and whatnot, but how their body is reacting to drugs that are used to treat various conditions. I could have a drug that's very good at controlling my hypertension, but could possibly damage my liver, and therefore I really, really want to track those liver markers. If I were having to pay for the costs of some of these tests out of my pocket, I'd be really happy about a low-cost alternative, and subsequently really unhappy when they turned out to be bogus. And, hey, if I were one of the people who wanted to see more women get into STEM fields in general, and become entrepreneurs and CEOs, I'd be really pissed at someone who let down the side in such spectacular fashion. This isn't Uber dropping the ball when you're trying to get somewhere, or some crowdsourced restaurant review app that's easily gamed. This is something much more vital in just about every aspect.

By: Sticherbeast

Sticherbeast — Thu, 26 May 2016 21:12:36 -0800

I had no idea that Kissinger was involved until reading this thread today. Until a few weeks ago, all I had known about Theranos was that it was transparently a shitshow: promises from the clouds, delivered by cagey people who clearly have no idea what they're talking about. I can't possibly be alone here. Reading the New Yorker article now, it's very difficult to imagine that anybody serious could have taken this company seriously. "Some observers are troubled by Theranos's secrecy; its blood tests may well turn out to be groundbreaking, but the company has published little data in peer-reviewed journals describing how its devices work or attesting to the quality of the results." Hmm, yes, that is rather suspicious, isn't it? I also like how the tests' groundbreaking-osity is something that the sentence is willing to allow, whereas actual professors of medicine are relegated to mere "observers". The article takes its sweet time before it actually consults anybody who knows anything about blood testing. It has the strange habit of highlighting upfront the unimportant, while leaving Theranos itself to twist in the wind as an afterthought. It rhapsodizes about how Holmes had drawn up plans for a time machine as a child - in other words, she was once a child - while burying towards the end the parade of actual experts talking about how there was little to no evidence that Theranos created any benefit to anybody. Then again, it is worthwhile for unintentionally(?) hilarious quotes like this: "Holmes says she is acutely aware that technology could disrupt Theranos. 'We focus all the time on disrupting ourselves, and that's one of the core tenets in the way we operate," she said. "Silicon Valley is a great symbol of disruptive technology being able to, one, change the world, and, two, obsolete itself.'"

By: Mitrovarr

Mitrovarr — Thu, 26 May 2016 21:37:36 -0800

Sticherbeast: Reading the New Yorker article now, it's very difficult to imagine that anybody serious could have taken this company seriously. "Some observers are troubled by Theranos's secrecy; its blood tests may well turn out to be groundbreaking, but the company has published little data in peer-reviewed journals describing how its devices work or attesting to the quality of the results." Yeah, that's a strong sign. Companies with real new technology demonstrate it as early and often as possible, so they can bring in investor money. Not wanting to publicly demonstrate the technology, or allow professional analysis, is an incredibly bad sign.

By: bradbane

bradbane — Thu, 26 May 2016 21:41:09 -0800

Frankly, if any part of the theory is that people were rooting for Theranos to fail because of the founder's fashion choices, then yeah: I'm gonna have to go with sexism playing a role. The cultivated eccentric fashion choice is definitely a thing among the billionaires of Silicon Valley. Zuckerberg has the hoodie, another guy I met recently was all about the track pants as his signature. Can't eye roll hard enough for all of them. This is the place where venture capitalists boast that they'll give money to anyone who looks like The Zuck.The context of the job I worked was PR related so image was not an accidental consideration. It was just a weird experience that stood out to me, even weirder to read about how it was all basically a giant scam.

By: Tandem Affinity

Tandem Affinity — Thu, 26 May 2016 21:48:31 -0800

I just saw the Elizabeth Holmes will present in a special session at the upcoming AACC meeting https://www.aacc.org/media/press-release-archive/2016/april/elizabeth-holmes-to-present-research-on-theranos-technologies-at-aacc-2016. I expect it will be dramatic if they allow questions....

By: acb

acb — Fri, 27 May 2016 02:14:54 -0800

Zuckerberg has the hoodie, another guy I met recently was all about the track pants as his signature. Can't eye roll hard enough for all of them. This is the place where venture capitalists boast that they'll give money to anyone who looks like The Zuck. Executive hoodies are now A Thing. Apparently that's how the Great Men dress in the corridors of power in Galt's Bay.

By: aspersioncast

aspersioncast — Fri, 27 May 2016 05:09:18 -0800

"Just out of curiosity, what state issues 10 character license plates?" Good point, the answer is none. It probably just said "CAPITAL," maybe with a K, just an innocent self-referential pun because it was all written in capital letters, not yet further indictment of a privileged person's confused worldview?

By: aspersioncast

aspersioncast — Fri, 27 May 2016 05:10:49 -0800

(since the 'privilege' seal was already broken above, I'm just gonna go ahead and leave that there.)

By: Existential Dread

Existential Dread — Fri, 27 May 2016 09:39:03 -0800

I just saw the Elizabeth Holmes will present in a special session at the upcoming AACC meeting /readies popcorn Also, global VC investment is slowing down (CB Insights; Haggerston Times; WSJ) Today I also learned the phrase 'unicorpse'

By: bradbane

bradbane — Fri, 27 May 2016 11:29:18 -0800

Good point, the answer is none. DASKPTL or whatever this was a while ago. She checked all the founder genius myths: undergrad drop out, the neat personal story eureka moment, the disruptive technology, the obsessive attention to public image. Makes you wonder if this was all a scam from the beginning or if it was just not a good technology and it got out of control. All these capitalists, famous important people, and even Walgreens bought it hook line and sinker. $9 billion valuation, that would be quite the con.

By: JackFlash

JackFlash — Fri, 27 May 2016 17:28:01 -0800

Makes you wonder if this was all a scam from the beginning. For me there was no doubt when I first looked into the company a couple of years ago and saw the board of directors. Henry Kissinger George Schultz Sam Nunn Bill Frist William J. Perry Gen. James "Mad Dog" Mattis Admiral Gary Roughead Giant Fortune 500 companies might add one of these purely symbolic prestige figures to their boards, but to see the entire board of a small startup packed with nothing but cosmetic fluff indicated that this was a Potemkin village with a cardboard facade. It was a scam from day one.

By: stoneweaver

stoneweaver — Fri, 27 May 2016 19:34:14 -0800

I can't help but feel like she was the sacrificial lamb here. Like she's the figurehead and maybe doesn't even realize it. With that board it just screams front. Like all that money was going into some kind of research, and there's some good reason that the company needs to fail. Probably because I enjoy cheesy action movies.

By: JackFlash

JackFlash — Fri, 27 May 2016 20:01:38 -0800

I can't help but feel like she was the sacrificial lamb here. Sacrificial lamb? She was the mastermind. She was the control freak at the center. She was the one going to TED talks dishing out lies to feed the hype. She strikes me as the stereotypical sociopathic con man. Someone who can lie convincingly with straight-faced conviction.

By: ArbitraryAndCapricious

ArbitraryAndCapricious — Fri, 27 May 2016 20:03:51 -0800

Who knows: maybe Peter Thiel is behind this, too, and she's just a convincing front-person. But I'm not going to assume that she's taking the fall for someone else unless there's some evidence.

By: feckless fecal fear mongering

feckless fecal fear mongering — Sat, 28 May 2016 08:39:25 -0800

With that board it just screams front. Like all that money was going into some kind of research, and there's some good reason that the company needs to fail. Probably because I enjoy cheesy action movies. I must watch the same movies because I spun up a plot in my head that involves the ostensible reason for Theranos' existence is just a front for shoveling a lot of money at another research project and providing a compelling reason to not investigate where the money went.

By: Sticherbeast

Sticherbeast — Sat, 28 May 2016 11:41:16 -0800

Yeah, $9 billion fraud featuring public, actively-promoted associations with highly-known people as well as multiple overlapping criminal investigations, class action suits, and regulatory banhammers is a really good way to disguise a transaction. The epitome of stealth. It's always good to get the SEC to take the extremely rare step of intervening into a VC-backed private-held company. That's how you know it's secret.

By: aspersioncast

aspersioncast — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 12:13:47 -0800

Of interest to anyone still following this thread: Walgreens has terminated its partnership with Theranos.