Topic: Theranos and the limits of Hype (Read 161 times)

I have watched the documentary - The Inventor before.
And I can say, she really did great job in attracting big investors.
If only the product was true, she would have made a difference in this world.
But I am wondering, in what stage of the product development did she honestly realize that that they don't have the product?
Maybe it was already too late for her and she only covered up and continued the pretensions to save the reputation of the company.
Sometimes if you are already in the top level, you have no idea what's going on from the ground level scenario.
But thanks to the whistleblowers, without their courage, their product may have been in this market.

Let me tell you, that trend isn't current--or at least it isn't new.  The same thing was going on over 20 years ago when the internet was starting to explode.  Everyone was throwing money at these companies that had ideas about solving problems using the internet, and it was wild.  Now that I think about it, it was almost like the ICO market.  If you had an idea, you got money showered on you.

99% ??
I don't think so!
What I do know is that the coins have their own values, the reason I joined bitcoins was not because of the hype, many people here joined it for their own reasons. It was not even popular back then! 99% of the Altcoins which are new those I do believe and then comes the manipulators like Elon musk, buying a Shiba puppy or posting on Twitter. Those are the people responsible for such things.

Good to see that at least some justice is served.

The 37-year-old Stanford University dropout was found guilty on Monday of a massive fraud at Theranos Inc., the blood-testing startup she founded, and faces as long as 20 years behind bars. But prison consultants and legal experts say that Holmes may serve as little as three years at one of the federal penal system’s less restrictive facilities for non-violent, white-collar criminals. She is likely to appeal to her conviction and could spend even less time incarcerated if she prevails.

Good to see that at least some justice is served.

In way too many instances vapourware or phantom companies that have no product are able to raise money pre-revenue. I think that is a symptom of an underlying problem, especially when most investors who put money into Theranos were large institutions with various connections.

Decentralising and democratising access to capital is absolutely crucial.

I wouldn't say it's a bad thing per se. Having very ambitious goals for a startup isn't a bad thing, because that's what some entrepreneurs try to achieve — create great products to change the world. Wishful thinking in this case, that may or may not amount to anything.

On Holmes' case, they were claiming that they can already do the blood thingy, which was obviously a lie. Quite a huge differentiating factor. And it definitely doesn't help that the media hyped her up into stardom just because she's apparently some female version of Steve Jobs or something similarly dumb.

You'll find that equity raisings rarely make any sense in terms of valuations, and it's probably worse than any crypto right now.

Accounting statements as well as the actual technology used within the company can all be forged with enough sophistication and courage, and there is certainly no shortage of bad actors looking to exploit these loopholes.

The current trend of startups seeking for funding (like in Silicon Valley) also makes it worse. You cannot just value something based on idea, the team, the cool product/prototype. "The value of a business will always about the profit aka money" - wise guy.

I find similarities between the Silicon Valley startup industry and the crypto industry(all crypto projects,DeFi,ICOs,IEOs,NFTs,etc).
Both have a really low success ratio,which is normal for high risk industries.99% of the crypto and Silicon Valley startups end up as a failure or a scam.Only 1% end up being successful and growing.
Both industries rely heavily on building hype and having lots of wild promises,in order to raise funds.
Lots of manipulative sociopaths are CEOs of both crypto and Silicon Valley startups.Elizabeth Holmes is one of them.Theranos is a total scam,nothing more and nothing less.
All those "angel" investors buying shares in startup companies know that their money will be wasted 99% of the time,but they are betting money on that 1% "Unicorn" companies,which will later turn into the new Facebook,Google or Apple.

Unfortunately, 99% of the crypto market is based on hype only! Otherwise coins like Floki Insu or Shiba Inu wouldn't get inflated to such levels. Creating hype is a marketer's job but when this hype is based on white lies, it dies a miserable death at some point in the future. It is true for both stock market and crypto market.

Probably that's the reason why many people is talking about an upcoming crypto winter where the fittest will survive and rest all will go down to drain. It's the need of the hour!

Having no supervisor might be the reason why Theranos makes such a successful fraud.

In general, I think the main reason is that people are not aware that they are too easy on any project. The only thing they believe is money. If the project has the possibility to give them income (mostly by listening to promises rather than products), they will invest without asking anything further.

While Elizabeth Holmes was a super-hyper, there is some degree of hypocrisy on the whole fraud charges as Silicon Valley is perfectly know for inflated and unjustified claims. Is there a limit between wishful thinking and plain lies?

While Elizabeth Holmes was a super-hyper, there is some degree of hypocrisy on the whole fraud charges as Silicon Valley is perfectly know for inflated and unjustified claims. Is there a limit between wishful thinking and plain lies?

While Elizabeth Holmes was a super-hyper, there is some degree of hypocrisy on the whole fraud charges as Silicon Valley is perfectly know for inflated and unjustified claims. Is there a limit between wishful thinking and plain lies?

This is not the case because blockchain technology is so fundamentally limited that it basically almost has no uses in real world. Medical records, supply chains, property rights and so on - all of that doesn't work, it has been tried and it failed. So even if the devs seriously believe in what they are doing, they are still going to fail.

For those of us who have been around in the crypto, we are well aware that everything is great when they as for you cash and most of it goes "ninja smoke bomb" the minute after they get it.

Founded in 2003 by 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes,[6] Theranos raised more than US$700 million from venture capitalists and private investors,[7] resulting in a $10 billion valuation at its peak in 2013 and 2014.[8][9]

A turning point came in 2015 when medical research professors John Ioannidis and Eleftherios Diamandis, along with investigative journalist John Carreyrou of The Wall Street Journal, questioned the validity of Theranos's technology. The company faced a string of legal and commercial challenges from medical authorities, investors, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), state attorneys general, former business partners, patients, and others.[10] By June 2016, it was estimated that Holmes's personal net worth had dropped from $4.5 billion to virtually nothing.[11] After several years of struggle, lawsuits, and sanctions from CMS, what remained of the company was dissolved on September 4, 2018.[12]

On March 14, 2018, Theranos, Holmes, and former company president Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani were charged with fraud by the SEC.[13] On June 15, 2018, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California announced the indictment of Holmes on wire fraud and conspiracy charges. Balwani was also indicted on the same charges.[14] The trial was scheduled to commence in August 2020,[15] but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Holmes's pregnancy. Holmes's trial began on August 31, 2021,[16] while Balwani's trial has been postponed until January 11, 2022.[17] Holmes was found guilty on four counts on January 3, 2022.[18]