The end of tech start ups?

mariaalice

https://www.rte.ie/news/us/2022/0104/1269683-theranos/

The end of tech start-ups or maybe just scams and hustles exposed?

steddyeddy

Well first of all that's a biotech start company, a different element to traditional IT tech companies and one that often requires much more investment to get off the ground.

I'm involved in industrial biotech through enzyme design, diagnostics and assay development. I can tell you what Elizabeth proposed shouldn't have got off the ground. It made no sense whatsoever that a diagnostic assay (even with microfluidics) could carry out multiple screening assays with the same sample. It would require detectors using multiple wavelengths as well as several different assays. Any biochemist worth their salt should and did point out the fallacy in her methods and claims. The problems is that several doctors kept jumping on the bandwagon early on and no offence meant but doctors often don't have the same level of insight into the science involved in these things as a scientist does.

Finally, biotech is far from dead e.g. the covid mRNA vaccine.

WrenBoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058225889/start-ups

She flogged a device that didn't work, scamming millions, taking advantage of ill people, endangering the lives of many, and got away with it for way longer than she should have. Hardly a heralding of the end of tech start-ups, just a scumbag getting caught.

I wonder did she even understand what she was promoting?.. thankfully when taking a sample for their test they also took extra larger volume blood samples and sent them to reputable labs for testing at the same time. I think the clinical results of the standard samples were what was provided to the clinicians. Theranos tests could never match the traditional results. I think they passed off the traditonal results as from theranos testing

mariaalice

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118417925#Comment_118417925

It more the hustle and fake it till you make aspect which is similar to a lot of start-up hundred of which fail each year.

StupidLikeAFox

I think she saw herself as building a tech company and copied their operating model, i.e. get as much investment in the door based vague promises of changing the world and work out the details later. That kind of thing can pay off if you are setting up Uber or Facebook, less so for something as highly regulated and complex as blood testing. She just ploughed on anyway, I guess hoping that the tech would catch up with her promises

Mental how she managed to rope in so many people like kissinger, Rupert Murdoch, the Walton family, the devos family etc

steddyeddy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118418176#Comment_118418176

Well as I say there is a lot of hustle in the biotech industry but believe it or not it used to be a lot worse. Previously business people or lawyers ran biotech companies and knew the lingo to attract angel investors and the right scientists. Historically the scientists in these companies began to question the directives handed down by their often clueless business leaders. As a result scientists rose to the top of these industries and now it's extremely common to see these companies run by someone with a PhD in biochemistry (or whatever) but also with business experience.

My old lecturer, Jan Rosier often said that the people running authentic and successful companies are often comfortable reading the Financial Times and The Scientific American. The aforementioned lecturer, Jan Rosier, was the vice president of Johnson and Johnson and held degrees in business and a PhD in pharmacology. He taught us about the dangers of hustlers in the biotech industry and usually they come from a position of privilege and more confidence than brains. As a daughter of the Enron vice president Elizabeth fits that portfolio. People have got to stop linking intelligence with class, the link doesn't exist and you end up putting idiots like Holmes in positions well above their paygrade. The quote below is the CV of my former lecturer, a genius in terms of biotech and business. I suggest you look up his online lecturers if you're interested as he will be consulted by the media on the Holmes case.

Professor Rosier holds both a Doctorate in Pharmaceutical Sciences (Ghent University, Belgium) and a Doctorate in Management (Cranfield School of Management, UK). He was a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University and was awarded a NATO research fellowship for research at MIT, Cambridge.

As vice president pharmaceutical drug development at Johnson & Johnson he was instrumental in the development of TIBOZOLE®, LIVOSTIN®, PREPULSID®, SPORANOX®, RISPERDAL® and ERGAMISOL® and was awarded the Johnson & Johnson Leadership Award for outstanding and exceptional contribution to the development of PREZISTA® and INTELENCE® for the treatment of AIDS. In 2009, he became Chief Executive Officer of FORMAC Pharmaceuticals NV, a high technology drug delivery spin-off from the University of Leuven that uses silica based technology to increase the performance of drugs. Jan has extensive experience in attracting venture capital for high-risk academic spin-off biotech firms. His career has continuously taken place at the interface between university and industry.

steddyeddy

That was a long winded way of me saying that biotechs are here to say but they're actively pushing the non-scientists away from positions of management.

WrenBoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118418176#Comment_118418176

Less fake it till you make it , more just fake it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgNfrDXr7uA

Kermit.de.frog

This one is about to be sentenced today. A real crafty piece of work!

Oh and she just happens to be pregnant again, just in time.

Edit: Sentenced to 11 years, 3 months and 3 years supervised release afterward.

https://twitter.com/scottbudman/status/1593729235818278912