The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley

[Melina22]

4 minutes ago, spaceghostess said:

Part of her sentence--if she serves one--should be having to watch a video loop of herself "dancing" and jumping in the bouncy castle with her ex.

Ha. Good plan. Although honestly, those were the only times she actually seemed human. 

[BusyOctober]

I watched the 20/20 episode and this doc.   A lot of the info on 20/20 was repeated here and expanded, but the HBO doc brought up something 20/20 didn’t cover.  The scientist that Elizabeth and Sonny used, then shut him out of the company once he got wise to the fraud committed suicide!  The poor man may have had other issues weighing on his mind, but his depression and despair over the absolute bullshit Theranos was peddling was too much for him.  And that cold cyborg bitch never offered a word of condolences or comfort to his wife.  She just demanded his confidential papers were returned to the office.  It is too bad that widow couldn’t get some compensation from this.

I am fascinated by this story, and how deluded Elizabeth Holmes is.  It is staggering that she was still pushing her fake technolog, despite being called out as a fraud.  She kept insisting the Edison machine worked as promised.  She insisted the lab work was done with her technology vs. other biotech company products or devices.  I do have to wonder what her parents are like, and what their take is on this monster they helped create.

[biakbiak]

If Henry Kissinger had dropped dead when he joked about Theranos board meetings being a “human rights violation”, I would maybe have started to believe in God.

Edited March 20, 2019 by biakbiak

[spaceghostess]

1 hour ago, Melina22 said:

Ha. Good plan. Although honestly, those were the only times she actually seemed human. 

Fair point.

[ombelico]

56 minutes ago, biakbiak said:

If Henry Kissinger had dropped dead when he joked about Theranos board meetings being a “human rights violation”, I would maybe have started to believe in God.

When he said that I immediately said, "And you would know!"

I think I first heard about Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos story when she was profiled in Fortune, or thereabouts. Immediately something didn't about the story didn't pass the smell test - a college dropout (don't care if it was from Stanford) working in biomedical "research" with no qualifications, no peer-reviewed publications, but able to start a multi-million (eventually billion) dollar company? When real scientists spend years, decades even, toiling away in courses, lab research, publishing papers, writing grants, and defending their work to a perpetually skeptical field of experts? And the idea that you could run hundreds of tests on such a small amount of blood? One test, I could maybe buy, but not that many. But I still wouldn't have conceived of the level of sociopathy and fraud involved in the story. She never had a new technology! Ever! This is really a story for the ages.

Dr. Phyllis Gardner is fantastic. I just want to travel around with her and hear her snark on pseudoscience and charlatans all day long.

[Guest]

She had the eyes of a lunatic, which, I'm sure like her voice, was a practiced art. 

Also? For all the money she had, she could have ponied up $2 for some Suave conditioner because her hair was as dry as hay.

I look forward to her eventual long prison sentence.

[biakbiak]

9 minutes ago, Giant Misfit said:

Also? For all the money she had, she could have ponied up $2 for some Suave conditioner because her hair was as dry as hay.

Not that I am suggesting she couldn’t have afforded that and a better colorist but I am curious what her actual assets/money in the bank were at the height of Theranos. Her being a “billionaire” was based only on the valuation of Theranos and owning more than 50% so it wasn’t real.

[Janc]

Loved that Stanford professor who smelled her bullshit right away.  I wish the doc had mentioned her dog ("wolf") that she'd bring into the lab... what a weirdo.  This is from the Vanity Fair article: 

"Around this same time, Holmes says that she discovered that Balto—like most huskies—had a tiny trace of wolf origin. Henceforth, she decided that Balto wasn’t really a dog, but rather a wolf. In meetings, at cafés, whenever anyone stopped to pet the pup and ask his breed, Holmes soberly replied, “He’s a wolf.” ....   "And for the rest of the day, Balto would stroll through the labs with his owner. Holmes brushed it off when the scientists protested that the dog hair could contaminate samples."

[Melina22]

30 minutes ago, Janc said:

This is from the Vanity Fair article: 

Holy cow, that article boggled my mind! So, surprise! She feels like she's the victim. She lives in a luxury apartment with a new fiancé. She appears chipper and happy. It"s like she's made of Teflon. 

She is one deeply disturbed and/or terrifying person. She seems to have the superpower of only seeing what she wants to see, and never feeling remorse. Thank goodness she never felt the need to have anyone murdered. 

Edited March 20, 2019 by Melina22

[RealReality10]

12 hours ago, spaceghostess said:

Maybe losing the voice will be part of a rebranding effort. She seems to be over the black turtlenecks (having ruined them for everybody). Does Madonna still speak with a fake British accent?

Part of her sentence--if she serves one--should be having to watch a video loop of herself "dancing" and jumping in the bouncy castle with her ex.

Spontaneously losing the voice is a tacit admission that her Barry white voice was really part of a plan to make people more amenable to her con. Madonnas silly accent could just be chalked up to some sort of artistry, however eye rolling it was.

HOWEVER, I think Elizabeth Holmes could maybe fake a long illness where she loses her voice and re-emerges with her real non robot voice.

[walnutqueen]

21 hours ago, spaceghostess said:

No doubt I'm in the minority, but in terms of comfort, I'd actually rather have a traditional blood test than the Edison. My least favorite thing about giving blood is the hemoglobin stick, which I find hurts like hell compared to a needle inserted by an experienced phlebotomist. My veins collapse sometimes, and even that's better than a hemoglobin stick for weird ol' me. The fingertips are loaded with nerve endings, after all.

21 hours ago, kathe5133 said:

And no one mentioned.  There are more nerve endings in the fingertips than just about anywhere else.  It's less painful to have blood drawn from a vein by an experienced phlebotomist than to do a finger prick!

I'd rather have a bruised and multi-punctured arm than a single finger pinprick any day.  Papercuts on my fingers are my idea of torture.

2 hours ago, Melina22 said:

She is one deeply disturbed and/or terrifying person. She seems to have the superpower of only seeing what she wants to see, and never feeling remorse. Thank goodness she never felt the need to have anyone murdered. 

That we know of ...

[hurrrz]

I do wonder if they could've made this whole testing thing work to some degree given proper development and process? I think doing 200 tests in that tiny box was clearly not possible, but I'd hope/think that some tests could be done with it, had it been developed/ R&D'd properly? Now, that'd probably cost more than the 900 Million that they spent, but it also could've turned into something good in the long run, no? 

I agree with the crazy make-up on her. That weird black eye look combined with the crazy red lips was just nuts. 

Fascinating story. 

[RealReality10]

1 hour ago, hurrrz said:

I do wonder if they could've made this whole testing thing work to some degree given proper development and process? I think doing 200 tests in that tiny box was clearly not possible, but I'd hope/think that some tests could be done with it, had it been developed/ R&D'd properly? Now, that'd probably cost more than the 900 Million that they spent, but it also could've turned into something good in the long run, no? 

I agree with the crazy make-up on her. That weird black eye look combined with the crazy red lips was just nuts. 

Fascinating story. 

So, as far as I can tell, she used commercial machines to do nearly all her testing.  Even the testing where they only collected a small amount of blood and didn't do a venous draw. So that means that someone out there is able to run some blood tests with a relatively small amount of blood.....just not her.  

Edited March 20, 2019 by RealReality10

[scrb]

What fool would be engaged to her?

She's facing 20 years of prison and years or legal bills.

[biakbiak]

1 hour ago, RealReality10 said:

So that means that someone out there is able to run some blood tests with a relatively small amount of blood.....just not her.  

But even those weren’t always accurate because the machines weren’t set up to do that and so the samples were diluted in order to go into the machines. Also, only a small number of tests could be run with that diluted blood. Add to that her goal wasn’t that you could get one test done with a tiny drop of blood, you could get a ton of tests done on that same tiny drop of blood which a lot of people don’t believe is close to being possible.

It was only touched a little on but one of the reasons she wanted it so small was so it could be used in field combat which seems sort of unnecessary since most of what you are doing is trying to stabilize until you can get them somewhere where they can be treated. Yes a small unit would be nice at a mobile hospital unit but it wouldn’t have to be as small as she kept demanding which was one of her big selling points/gimmicks. But I imagine it’s becuase she wanted to target military funding which is why she went that direction with her board.

The stories about her bringing in the dog to the laboratory setting tilts her over into not just a fake it till you make it because she didn’t care about the accuracy of results. What caused a lot of people to revolt was her trying to go live with STD testing including HIV, she was willing to risk lives and not care. Most of the other tests that they were doing were for maintenance and people’s doctors tended to follow up with additional tests at a different lab of the results were worthy of concern. Of course it also meant that people likely got “good results” that weren’t true and not followed up on but I think some employees didn’t find it as egregious for some reason as the HIV tests.  

Edited March 20, 2019 by biakbiak

[txhorns79]

On 3/19/2019 at 8:44 PM, BusyOctober said:

The poor man may have had other issues weighing on his mind, but his depression and despair over the absolute bullshit Theranos was peddling was too much for him.  And that cold cyborg bitch never offered a word of condolences or comfort to his wife.  She just demanded his confidential papers were returned to the office.  It is too bad that widow couldn’t get some compensation from this.

I think someone who commits suicide has a lot of issues going on, and while I'm sure Theranos was one of his issues, I think it's a little too easy to suggest that they drove him to suicide. 

I had listened to The Dropout, and I enjoyed the documentary.  I would love to know what was going through George Schultz's mind when his family was spending $4-500,000.00 in legal fees to defend Tyler.  Do you think that gave him pause at all about what Elizabeth was doing?     

Edited March 21, 2019 by txhorns79

[Quilt Fairy]

6 hours ago, biakbiak said:

Most of the other tests that they were doing were for maintenance and people’s doctors tended to follow up with additional tests at a different lab of the results were worthy of concern.

I read the book several months ago, but IIRC more than a few people in Arizona (during the Walgreen's rollout) were told to "DROP EVERYTHING AND GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM RIGHT NOW!!!" because the Edison results were so (erroneously) bad.   I think one woman had to cancel a long planned and fully paid for vacation at the last minute and other people had their medicine doses changed, although no one specifically died due to the testing.  Is anyone in Arizona pursuing criminal charges against her?  Because the SEC only gave her a slap on the wrist.

I found the HBO documentary somewhat unfocused and lacking a clear point of view.  I only caught part of the 20/20 show but it seemed to lay things out better.

[RealReality10]

Yeah, the battlefield testing claim was odd to me.  I figured it must make sense since everyone was so gaga over it, but what blood tests would you desperately need in the battlefield? 

You should already know blood type and most testing would likely be done at a military hospital once a patient is transported.  As @biakbiak said, the primary goal is likely just to get people patched up and ready for transport.

4 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

I think someone who commits suicide has a lot of issues going on, and while I'm sure Theranos was one of his issues, I think it's a little too easy to suggest that they drove him to suicide. 

I had listened to The Dropout, and I enjoyed the documentary.  I would love to know what was going through George Schultz's mind when his family was spending $4-500,000.00 in legal feels to defend Tyler.  Do you think that gave him pause at all about what Elizabeth was doing?     

Also, is Tyler Schultz suing Elizabeth Holmes for filing suit for things she knew were lies and bs.  It kinda burns me that these people had to Shell out half a million bucks when she knew she was lying and she gets to live luxuriously in a SF penthouse.

[biakbiak]

13 minutes ago, Quilt Fairy said:

read the book several months ago, but IIRC more than a few people in Arizona (during the Walgreen's rollout) were told to "DROP EVERYTHING AND GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM RIGHT NOW!

Thanks! I completely forgot about that but it sort of illustrates my point is that they went and verified that it was inaccurate and didn’t trust their results so yes scary but no one was trusting these tests when they were alarmingly bad but since they weren’t telling people about the issues no one was second guessing good test results like getting an HIV negative test result, a false positive would most likely lead to the person seeking out a doctor and attempting to get treatment and the doctor doing another test to confirm a false negative could lead to a lot of people getting infected.

It also illustrates why it was always doing to be ridiculous for people to have these in their home. An effective, easier and cheaper lab test in a diagnostic environment is of course a great goal but with malpractice suits and insurance companies the way they are there is no way a medical professional would take the results of an unsupervised blood test at a home as gospel which would lead to more reliable testing in traditional labs which would not translate into cheaper or more efficient testing and at the end of the day a traditional blood draw was going to be needed before they went forward with any sort of treatment on anything.

[DangerousMinds]

In her 2nd line in the documentary, Elizabeth says “less people” when she should have used “fewer.” Maybe she should have stayed in school a bit longer.🤣

[scrb]

I listened to the Slate Cultural podcast which discussed this movie.

Some of the people had read the book and seen the 20/20 show and listened to the podcast.

Criticisms of this movie included:

1.  The filmmaker seemed to operate from the thesis that Holmes wanted to help people but things went off the rails.  That is clearly erroneous, she just wanted to be a billionaire, didn't really believe in the hype herself other than as a means to get rich.

2.  Film didn't go into the affected voice at all, which is so obvious.  Apparently other sources delve into it more.

3.  Film soft-pedaled or briefly mentioned the one guy who committed suicide but other material covered it more in detail and depicted it as a significant occurrence.

4.  Film didn't show enough of her early life or background before she got to Stanford and dropped out, how she may have come to have this drive to get rich/be some big inventor or however you want to characterize this ambition.

5.  Didn't explain why the Edison device couldn't really work or the basic concept itself.  Could have elaborated it more.

One guy posited that these wise old men who served on her board were associated with the conservative/liberatarian Hoover Institution, which advocates non-governmental solutions.  So it's not surprising that these Republicans gravitated to Holmes' promise to fix or reform a big aspect of health care, usurping governmental role by a private company.  Maybe that's why they countenanced her skirting regulations and legal hoops when evidence materialized that they were engaging in legally dubious practices.

Edited March 21, 2019 by scrb

[biakbiak]

5 minutes ago, scrb said:

committed suicide but other material covered it more in detail and depicted it as a significant occurrence.

Though it all is what you can fit in. The 20/20 didn’t mention it or barely mentioned it.

I thought this got more in than the 20/20 and was better edited but neither did the story justice and could be a several part documentary.

Edited March 21, 2019 by biakbiak

[EtheltoTillie]

On 3/19/2019 at 8:30 PM, Gemma Violet said:

Very strange indeed.  

I preferred the 20/20 episode to this, although I liked this one, too.  The 20/20 one just seemed to flow better.  

I watched both and found they were useful companions. Each had different info and focus. 

[txhorns79]

5 hours ago, scrb said:

One guy posited that these wise old men who served on her board were associated with the conservative/liberatarian Hoover Institution, which advocates non-governmental solutions.  So it's not surprising that these Republicans gravitated to Holmes' promise to fix or reform a big aspect of health care, usurping governmental role by a private company.  Maybe that's why they countenanced her skirting regulations and legal hoops when evidence materialized that they were engaging in legally dubious practices.

I think they did a decent job of showing that it was a bipartisan chorus of politicians praising Elizabeth.  For example, Biden spoke at Theranos and praised their work in July 2015.  Elizabeth attended a State Dinner at the White House in April 2015, she was interviewed by Bill Clinton who praised her work, etc.  I tend to think she got people connected to the Hoover Institution due in part to her connection with Stanford. 

On 3/19/2019 at 11:32 PM, ombelico said:

I think I first heard about Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos story when she was profiled in Fortune, or thereabouts. Immediately something didn't about the story didn't pass the smell test - a college dropout (don't care if it was from Stanford) working in biomedical "research" with no qualifications, no peer-reviewed publications, but able to start a multi-million (eventually billion) dollar company? When real scientists spend years, decades even, toiling away in courses, lab research, publishing papers, writing grants, and defending their work to a perpetually skeptical field of experts? And the idea that you could run hundreds of tests on such a small amount of blood? One test, I could maybe buy, but not that many. But I still wouldn't have conceived of the level of sociopathy and fraud involved in the story. She never had a new technology! Ever! This is really a story for the ages.

In fairness, Holmes hired qualified people to design and try to make the Edison work.  She wasn't claiming to be a research scientist, or that she was the engineer who designed the Edison. 

[RealReality10]

13 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

In fairness, Holmes hired qualified people to design and try to make the Edison work.  She wasn't claiming to be a research scientist, or that she was the engineer who designed the Edison. 

And I think this is another thing that makes her more style over substance.  The people she wanted to emulate all MADE something, they invented something.  She tried to sell herself as being that person.  She was basically a glorified salesman, kinda like Kylie Jenner with the makeup thing.  But she didn't want her image to be that of a Kylie Jenner, she wanted to be Steve Jobs.

 

While I think something like the Edison could be useful in the home, it would likely be for people who potentially reoccurring or chronic conditions, so you could get a preliminary test and know if you have to urgently see your doctor.  I think it could be useful for hospitals and as someone said small mobile clinics to do preliminary on the spot testing.  I could see it as something your doctor uses for screening.  

But I don't see how the government is really much involved in any of that besides regulation.  I guess Medicare and Medicaid costs would have gone down had they gotten contracts with a number of hospitals and clinics.  But that seems like a tenuous nexus.

 

18 hours ago, biakbiak said:

Though it all is what you can fit in. The 20/20 didn’t mention it or barely mentioned it.

I thought this got more in than the 20/20 and was better edited but neither did the story justice and could be a several part documentary.

I think the drop out podcast, covers the suicide in relatively good detail.

But yeah - any documentary that starts out talking about how Elizabeth Holmes had some big desire to help people misses the point.  She said she wanted to change the world and be a billionaire.  Helping the world was nowhere in the mix.  I think she honestly maybe saw a movie about the future that had something like a patch that could scan blood and deliver medicine and she thought that could be a thing.

[ombelico]

2 hours ago, txhorns79 said:

Holmes hired qualified people to design and try to make the Edison work.  She wasn't claiming to be a research scientist, or that she was the engineer who designed the Edison. 

Fair point but the reason I'm not willing to let her (or the media) off here is that it was framed as "this revolutionary idea she came up with in her Stanford dorm room, led her to drop out of college, and create a multimillion dollar company." When a scientific finding or device moves from academia to industry, there are at least some publications or other form of evidence that the effect/tool is real, but needs the larger amounts of private/industry funding to refine the machine/tool, move the drug to clinical trials, and so on. All she ever sold was the idea, and she never had any scientific basis for what she was saying. This was what Dr. Phyllis Gardner was getting at - Holmes would get these "ideas" but they were misinformed and not scientifically sound, but Holmes wouldn't care and would go on to bulldoze anyone who didn't agree with her. There's a reason she focused on getting financial support from non-scientists - they wouldn't be able to see through the fraud. 

1 hour ago, RealReality10 said:

And I think this is another thing that makes her more style over substance.  The people she wanted to emulate all MADE something, they invented something.  She tried to sell herself as being that person.  She was basically a glorified salesman, kinda like Kylie Jenner with the makeup thing.  But she didn't want her image to be that of a Kylie Jenner, she wanted to be Steve Jobs.

Right - she sold it as her idea and "vision", and even though she hired scientists to implement it, when they would come back and tell her it wouldn't work, she didn't take their expertise and experience into account, she just narcissistically said that they weren't committed enough to the "vision" and fired them. She had/has no real respect for science and technology, but she wanted to be seen as the Steve Jobs of biomedical research.

[emma675]

Quote

In fairness, Holmes hired qualified people to design and try to make the Edison work.  She wasn't claiming to be a research scientist, or that she was the engineer who designed the Edison. 

But she did put her name on a majority of the patents for the Edison and other things Theranos filed for, so she was trying to take credit for a lot of it. 

Quote

While I think something like the Edison could be useful in the home, it would likely be for people who potentially reoccurring or chronic conditions, so you could get a preliminary test and know if you have to urgently see your doctor.  I think it could be useful for hospitals and as someone said small mobile clinics to do preliminary on the spot testing.  I could see it as something your doctor uses for screening. 

In the book, it talked a bit about how the Edison would be helpful in the homes of patients who were being treated for medical conditions that required a lot of blood work to determine dosage changes for their meds. Instead of having to go to the lab, have blood drawn, have the results take days to come back, have the doctor review the results, then call the pharmacy with the dose change, they were trying to push the idea that the Edison would "beam" the results to directly to the doctor and cut down on the timing of things. Not that any of this ever worked since it was all a fraud, mind you.

[freeser]

On 3/20/2019 at 6:34 AM, Giant Misfit said:

Also? For all the money she had, she could have ponied up $2 for some Suave conditioner because her hair was as dry as hay.

I'm glad someone else mentioned her hair!  I admit it is a very 'nit-picky' thing to bring up  considering her overall awfulness.  But I just could not stop focusing on how terrible her hair looked in almost every scene.  Not only did it look dry as hay, but the ends were all raggedy and scraggly like she never had it cut properly.  I am sure if it would ever had been mentioned to her, she would have said that all of her time was spent on the company and she did not care about something as insignificant as her hair.  But no matter, it still looked like cr*p.  

[doodlebug]

5 hours ago, ombelico said:

Fair point but the reason I'm not willing to let her (or the media) off here is that it was framed as "this revolutionary idea she came up with in her Stanford dorm room, led her to drop out of college, and create a multimillion dollar company." When a scientific finding or device moves from academia to industry, there are at least some publications or other form of evidence that the effect/tool is real, but needs the larger amounts of private/industry funding to refine the machine/tool, move the drug to clinical trials, and so on. All she ever sold was the idea, and she never had any scientific basis for what she was saying. This was what Dr. Phyllis Gardner was getting at - Holmes would get these "ideas" but they were misinformed and not scientifically sound, but Holmes wouldn't care and would go on to bulldoze anyone who didn't agree with her. There's a reason she focused on getting financial support from non-scientists - they wouldn't be able to see through the fraud. 

Right - she sold it as her idea and "vision", and even though she hired scientists to implement it, when they would come back and tell her it wouldn't work, she didn't take their expertise and experience into account, she just narcissistically said that they weren't committed enough to the "vision" and fired them. She had/has no real respect for science and technology, but she wanted to be seen as the Steve Jobs of biomedical research.

Exactly!  Anyone can come up with an idea, but when that idea has absolutely science to back it up, it is science fiction.  I could claim to have an idea for time travel or reverse aging, but, without any basis to get it done, it is not going to be realized.  Holmes is a modern day snake oil salesman; she came up with an idea and convinced a bunch of ill-informed rich people to hand her money for it.  Meanwhile, she had no idea what sort of technology would be needed or how long or how it might be to develop it.  I could announce today that I have an idea to cure cancer, but it isn't worth a dime if I don't know the subject well enough to know what is currently feasible and what isn't.  The Edison may at some point be a viable product, but there are so many intermediate steps between it and today's lab technology, that it is not on the horizon.  Gates, Jobs et al knew the industry and the technology they were dealing with, knew the steps that needed to happen even if they didn't have the ability to do that work themselves and had a reasonable expectation that it could be done in timely fashion.  Holmes had none of this.  She had two years at Stanford where she apparently talked her way into a couple of graduate level engineering courses; but we don't know how she did in those classes and we do know that she had never been a researcher, had never developed a product for the market and didn't understand the technology she wanted to use.  She then deliberately avoided involving anyone who did know what the obstacles were.

I know very little about analytical chemistries, but I did go to medical school and I interpret lab work all the time.  I remember seeing Holmes on TV years ago and wondering how it was that she was going to be able to run 200 tests within 4 hours on a single drop of blood.  None of the big labs are anywhere close to doing that and there are dozens of steps needed to get there.  Then, the price would have to be competitive enough to make it available to everyone.  I remember wondering how it was that this was possible.  It wasn't. 

I also didn't understand the idea that giving people a home lab kit and letting them do a bunch of blood work on themselves was somehow going to contribute to better health let alone save lives, nor how the uncle with skin cancer might not have died if only he'd had a blood test despite the fact that skin cancer is not diagnosed with bloodwork.

[biakbiak]

6 minutes ago, doodlebug said:

nor how the uncle with skin cancer might not have died if only he'd had a blood test despite the fact that skin cancer is not diagnosed with bloodwork.

Like everything with Holmes the uncle story was not really true. She did have an uncle who died of skin cancer but she wasn’t close to him and he died several years after she started Theranos so he wasn’t her inspiration.

Edited March 21, 2019 by biakbiak

[kathe5133]

3 hours ago, biakbiak said:

Like everything with Holmes the uncle story was not really true. She did have an uncle who died of skin cancer but she wasn’t close to him and he died several years after she started Theranos so he wasn’t her inspiration.

Well, I was right.  She's a piece of shit!!  I wonder who the loser is who put a ring on her finger?  She's just so horrible. 

[emma675]

Here's some info on her fiance: https://heavy.com/news/2019/03/elizabeth-holmes-boyfriend-fiance-william-evans/

He's younger than her and the heir to some kind of hotel fortune that his family has owned since the 1950s. Apparently they were partying at Burning Man while Theranos was being officially disbanded. 

[scrb]

The other thing is, supposedly this doc underplayed the role of Sunny.

Once he came on board, it was a more paranoid place.  That's when they started monitoring what the employees were doing, including logging keystrokes.

Oh and of course it didn't even mention that there's a feature film being developed with Jennifer Lawrence likely playing Holmes.  Holy cow, they're going to glam up her image to have probably the biggest female movie star play her.

[ombelico]

6 hours ago, freeser said:

I'm glad someone else mentioned her hair!  I admit it is a very 'nit-picky' thing to bring up  considering her overall awfulness.  But I just could not stop focusing on how terrible her hair looked in almost every scene.  Not only did it look dry as hay, but the ends were all raggedy and scraggly like she never had it cut properly.  I am sure if it would ever had been mentioned to her, she would have said that all of her time was spent on the company and she did not care about something as insignificant as her hair.  But no matter, it still looked like cr*p.  

The hair and makeup are one thing, and even the voice is admittedly weird, but for me it's the bugging out eyes and the unblinking stare that are the most profoundly bizarre aspects of her appearance. Coupled with the description of her sleeping 4 hours a night, I would not be shocked at all if she was on cocaine or some other stimulant.

[txhorns79]

4 hours ago, doodlebug said:

Exactly!  Anyone can come up with an idea, but when that idea has absolutely science to back it up, it is science fiction.  I could claim to have an idea for time travel or reverse aging, but, without any basis to get it done, it is not going to be realized.  Holmes is a modern day snake oil salesman; she came up with an idea and convinced a bunch of ill-informed rich people to hand her money for it.  Meanwhile, she had no idea what sort of technology would be needed or how long or how it might be to develop it.  I could announce today that I have an idea to cure cancer, but it isn't worth a dime if I don't know the subject well enough to know what is currently feasible and what isn't.  The Edison may at some point be a viable product, but there are so many intermediate steps between it and today's lab technology, that it is not on the horizon.  Gates, Jobs et al knew the industry and the technology they were dealing with, knew the steps that needed to happen even if they didn't have the ability to do that work themselves and had a reasonable expectation that it could be done in timely fashion.  Holmes had none of this.  She had two years at Stanford where she apparently talked her way into a couple of graduate level engineering courses; but we don't know how she did in those classes and we do know that she had never been a researcher, had never developed a product for the market and didn't understand the technology she wanted to use.  She then deliberately avoided involving anyone who did know what the obstacles were. 

My understanding was that she involved people who did know what the obstacles were, but failed to listen to them when they pointed out the technology was not working.  I don't think it's a fair comparison to suggest her idea was on par with someone claiming to invent time travel or to reverse aging.  And don't get me wrong, when the Edison failed, that should have been the end of it.  That she decided the best solution to her problem was to trick people, lie and commit fraud was a reflection of her character and showed why she should never have been trusted with any type of responsibility for anything.  My main point is that it did seem to me she started off with a legitimate idea and tried to make it work using people who potentially had the know how to make it happen.  She didn't start off intentionally trying to con people.  It just turned into that when the technology failed and she refused to accept this particular defeat.      

[doodlebug]

29 minutes ago, txhorns79 said:

My understanding was that she involved people who did know what the obstacles were, but failed to listen to them when they pointed out the technology was not working.  I don't think it's a fair comparison to suggest her idea was on par with someone claiming to invent time travel or to reverse aging.  And don't get me wrong, when the Edison failed, that should have been the end of it.  That she decided the best solution to her problem was to trick people, lie and commit fraud was a reflection of her character and showed why she should never have been trusted with any type of responsibility for anything.  My main point is that it did seem to me she started off with a legitimate idea and tried to make it work using people who potentially had the know how to make it happen.  She didn't start off intentionally trying to con people.  It just turned into that when the technology failed and she refused to accept this particular defeat.      

I agree she tried to hire people who could potentially have solved the problems with the technology, but she also approached real experts in the field, even before she dropped out of Stanford, people with vast experience in the area of medical technology, like the physician on faculty there, who told her the idea was not practical and was likely to result in failure.  From watching the documentary as well as the 20/20 special, it appeared to me that she implied to the new hires that she (or others working with her) had a clear vision and plan and understood how to solve the problems and achieve the goal.  It seemed that whenever anyone asked for specifics, she claimed that it was proprietary info and a trade secret, when, in fact, there never was a viable strategy to make Edison work.

[biakbiak]

6 minutes ago, doodlebug said:

people with vast experience in the area of medical technology, like the physician on faculty there, who told her the idea was not practical and was likely to result in failure.  F

Yeah it’s also why she targeted VC firms and other investors who did not have experience in medical or healthcare startups which should have been a crazy red flag for investors. 

[RealReality10]

7 hours ago, freeser said:

I'm glad someone else mentioned her hair!  I admit it is a very 'nit-picky' thing to bring up  considering her overall awfulness.  But I just could not stop focusing on how terrible her hair looked in almost every scene.  Not only did it look dry as hay, but the ends were all raggedy and scraggly like she never had it cut properly.  I am sure if it would ever had been mentioned to her, she would have said that all of her time was spent on the company and she did not care about something as insignificant as her hair.  But no matter, it still looked like cr*p.  

....if only Steve jobs had used suave conditoner...or if someone had told her he did.....

[blixie]

Quote

'd imagine that the speed and low cost of the Edison would be the draw (ahem, sorry) and certainly was the selling point, rather than "Oooh, it's so terrible to have that big, creepy needle!", etc.

Apologies if this was addressed up thread but my sense was those machines HAVE to have a lot of blood and it takes a lot of time and money to run the tests, her whole angle was nanotech/minaturization of the machines. But like every one with actual engineering and med science tech experience had told her what she wanted to do was not physically possible. But yeah even in needle averse people I don't  think they think their fear is this enormous pressing problem in medicine/health care that MUST BE SOLVED. But I'm also in the group who thinks finger sticks hurt way more than the venous draws. The finger stick angle was just for Wallgreens to sell to the patients, and clearly she never gave two thoughts to the patients as the market.

I am so glad to hear the uncle story was bs, I kept waiting for Gibney to drop that bomb that he was alive or that she was gilding the lily, but he just kind of left it there.

I was so confused why gay Anthony Michael Hall was working for Theranos. 

I have no doubt this woman is an intentional liar but also that she is deluded enough to not see her lies as lies, and that like the social economist or whatever was right as long as she could tell herself she was doing it for the good of all she could justify doing anything to further that goal, which is why I think she kept going into the breach when the jig was all but up. 

[biakbiak]

5 minutes ago, blixie said:

finger stick angle was just for Wallgreens to sell to the patients, and clearly she never gave two thoughts to the patients as the market.


This was her main point years before Walgreens was ever in the picture. 

[txhorns79]

Quote

I agree she tried to hire people who could potentially have solved the problems with the technology, but she also approached real experts in the field, even before she dropped out of Stanford, people with vast experience in the area of medical technology, like the physician on faculty there, who told her the idea was not practical and was likely to result in failure. 

From what Phyllis Gardner has said, Holmes approached her with an idea for a patch that might test a wearer for a specific issue and release antibiotics as needed.  That was the idea Gardner told Holmes wouldn't work.  I don't know that they ever discussed Holmes' idea about testing smaller blood draws.  

[Quilt Fairy]

I just re-watched the last hour of the documentary and I think the director gives way too much credit to Holmes as being idealistic but misguided.  It's one thing to keep working on something that no one thinks will ever work, it's another to present that thing as functional, misrepresent it to investors and regulators and use it on patients. 

It's hard to believe that this is the same guy who made one of my favorite documentaries, Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room.

[questionfear]

On 3/20/2019 at 8:59 PM, txhorns79 said:

I think someone who commits suicide has a lot of issues going on, and while I'm sure Theranos was one of his issues, I think it's a little too easy to suggest that they drove him to suicide. 

I had listened to The Dropout, and I enjoyed the documentary.  I would love to know what was going through George Schultz's mind when his family was spending $4-500,000.00 in legal fees to defend Tyler.  Do you think that gave him pause at all about what Elizabeth was doing?     

I agree that suicide is an indicator of some serious issues underneath, BUT I think Theranos was a nasty and abusive place to work. And if you consider that Tyler Schultz had to spend a half a million dollars to defend himself, how much more would Ian Gibbons have had to pay to extricate himself? The man's entire career was basically ruined because if he left they would have gone after him with a million NDAs and probably badmouthed him to discredit him as damage control. So yea, I would blame them, because their behavior probably drove him over the edge. 

[qtpye]

11 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

I just re-watched the last hour of the documentary and I think the director gives way too much credit to Holmes as being idealistic but misguided.  It's one thing to keep working on something that no one thinks will ever work, it's another to present that thing as functional, misrepresent it to investors and regulators and use it on patients. 

It's hard to believe that this is the same guy who made one of my favorite documentaries, Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room.

It’s like the director was also fooled by her dangerously charismatic personality. The director honestly thinks she meant well and her early motives came from a good place.

[Melina22]

2 minutes ago, qtpye said:

It’s like the director was also fooled by her dangerously charismatic personality. The director honestly thinks she meant well and her early motives came from a good place.

That's the whole story in a nutshell, isn't it? Her dangerously charismatic personality? It's pretty effective on TV. I can only imagine how effective it is in person. I don't doubt that she's one of a kind, and could probably fool most of us for a while, even if we think we'd be immune. 

[biakbiak]

8 minutes ago, qtpye said:

It’s like the director was also fooled by her dangerously charismatic personality. The director honestly thinks she meant well and her early motives came from a good place.

Yeah I don’t think either doc really hit on how crazy intensely paranoid the work environment was particularly after Sunny showed up. It’s not that unusual in tech startups but Theranos seemed to take it to an insane level and neither doc really touched on it. 

[Quilt Fairy]

7 hours ago, biakbiak said:

Yeah I don’t think either doc really hit on how crazy intensely paranoid the work environment was particularly after Sunny showed up. It’s not that unusual in tech startups but Theranos seemed to take it to an insane level and neither doc really touched on it. 

Yes, it seemed like Sunny was her hatchet-man, bouncer, and general all-around thug.  This was highlighted in the book, but this doc never even touched on it.  One thing I don't understand, however, was why they implied that she and Sunny were remiss in not revealing their relationship to investors. Why should that matter?

[biakbiak]

2 minutes ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Yes, it seemed like Sunny was her hatchet-man, bouncer, and general all-around thug.  This was highlighted in the book, but this doc never even touched on it.  One thing I don't understand, however, was why they implied that she and Sunny were remiss in not revealing their relationship to investors. Why should that matter?

She was his immediate superior and such relationships are usually disclosed at least to the board due to potential lawsuits/conflict of interest and in this case they lied to the board about it..

[RealReality10]

2 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Yes, it seemed like Sunny was her hatchet-man, bouncer, and general all-around thug.  This was highlighted in the book, but this doc never even touched on it.  One thing I don't understand, however, was why they implied that she and Sunny were remiss in not revealing their relationship to investors. Why should that matter?

It may not functionally matter that much, but I'm sure her board of old creepy dudes preferred to think she was single.  Because guys like that never lack confidence!

[maggiegil]

I think she wanted the finished product without any of the steps to get there, if you think of all the steps involved in getting the personal computer to stage its at now, it would be a bit like if Alan Turing wanted to invent the Macbook back in the 1940's.

I wonder what could have been achieved if she hadn't been so set on the idea of a tabletop machine that only tested a drop of blood. A larger machine that tests a vial or two wouldn't have been as impressive but it would have been a hell of a lot more impressive than what the Edison ended up being.

It would be interesting to find out what the people who worked on the design learned and if they now think its possible to do a pared back but bigger version of the machine or if its just impossible. I would have liked to have heard more from the guy that wanted to make it bigger than tabletop.

I agree with what others have said, I don't think she had altruistic motives in having a healthcare company, I think she just saw it as an industry with a lot of money to be made.

I had heard of her before the scandal went down but only in print media and described as an impressive businesswoman. Shes the kind of person I would love to meet/watch something on before a scandal breaks just to see would I have been taken in by her or seen through the veneer.

Edited March 23, 2019 by maggiegil