My prior company - who I was with from ~20 people to the current 300+ - has been going through some shakeups that make me wonder. This adds to my thinking.
I'd have thought that both were past those lines - hundreds of people, multiple offices? Seems like it'd be solid at that point.
The common factor is that both have yet to release their "flagship" product, although they've released products.
Then you can think about small products with small teams - Sidekiq, Cards Against Humanity - that achieve substantial success.
It seems like this is the most telling "filter" - did you release your core product?
Thoughts?
The thing about Theranos was, as we found out, that they had yet to prove their fundamental thesis which was that you could do a useful number of diagnostic tests with a small amount of blood to the same confidence levels as the same test done the existing way. Fundamentally they could not show that to be true.
So in a more critical (or perhaps skeptical) investing environment, they should have stalled out several years ago when they couldn't demonstrate to new investors that they had a viable blood diagnostic process[1]. But for what ever reason that didn't happen.
[1] And yes there are stories that they simply lied about what was happening.
Plus you have to define what "core product" means. Is it the bit that makes money? A lot of startups have slotted the money making bit in later and gone alright; others never really could figure that out.
And... relatively boring companies with real business can transform themselves into "house of cards built on lies" type businesses pretty easily, too. Think about Enron, or any financial firm that went heavily in on the subprime mortgages.
Theranos was built on the promise of an amazing new tech for blood testing, not on the promise of blood testing.
By "flagship product" I mean the thing you're basing your corporate identity on. Like the stereotypical waiter in LA, they're actually an actor; their identity (flagship product) is actor, but their day job (released/core products) is something else.
But if your goals are to make rockets ? well having 500+ employees and having your product fail, as it happen to spaceX in 2008, maybe not so bad ?
And it could be that for theranos, in order to sell laboratory services(assuming their competitors bundle stuff), they have to offer the whole service array , meaning thousands of tests, so it takes a lot of work for their core product - altough they did already have product based on the same tech for pharma r&d.
It sounds like both companies were just money-burning machines, where the only thing keeping them afloat is VC funding. If you aren't selling something for more than it costs you to make (or deliver, in the case of services), you're not going to have anywhere to sit when the music stops.
What's the case on Theranos? what did they do and sale? What happened?
Opened two random articles... and they were two WSJ paywalled articles. OMG.
I'm a woman. I am fine with her burning. But, geez, I hate the idea that there is lava-like splash back spattering all other women in the world who are trying to be taken seriously.
As for the sexism, I felt like it was more of a backlash against the unrelenting positive press Holmes received for years, right or not partly due to her gender. Every time someone commented on why they thought something was wrong with Theranos they were drowned out by voices telling them to stop being sexist and you want her to fail due to her gender. Justified or not, plenty were happy to see her fail after all the praise she had recieved and I am not surprised at all if some of the blowback was sexist.
That being said, the majority of the discussion was anti-Theranos though I do agree with you there were a fair bit of anti-woman backlash though like I said much of it I feel was prompted by the positive praise she received.
This is just stupid.
Are you saying that Theranos was over-hyped?
If that's what you mean then just say it.
This is really survivor bias talking. If something actually succeeds at delivering the moon, then there's no unrelenting positive press. There was an accurate depiction of what was going on. It's only in hindsight that you can call it hype or unrelenting.
And the schadenfreude is doubletime now because not only did the hype fail, but she was also a woman.
So, one must wonder why that is. And my feeling is that it is a form of sexism and the subtext is "See, this is why you shouldn't put a woman in charge."
Also, at this point, there are six comments refuting what I said. Why is that? If I am so wrong, crazy and stupid, why do so very many people need to step up and inform me of my error? <-- Methinks thou doth protest too much.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-05-03/how-to-ge...
Now, a lot of people feel validated that it was snake oil so yea they will dump on the company, but IMO it has little to do with the founder. It's their board that I found really suspicious.
But if you say you've encountered it, I'm inclined to believe you. Which websites do you see this sentiment in? HN? Reddit? FB comments? WSJ comments? Or do you see it in the workplace?
Theranos tries to apply the same kinds of tactics, and people are literally calling for Holmes to go to jail.
If you don't think there's a gender variable about how this is reported and perceived, you're nuts.
Most of you in this thread are approaching this the same way my ancient dad talks about women getting involved in the war effort during WW2.
Are women able to be as good at being men as men are? No? Then they have no place in x.
The conversation typically ends there because we have all these set phrases that we use to protect ourselves from our biases. "Decisions are decisions. Doesn't matter who makes them." Yeah right. It does matter who makes them, fellas. Marissa Mayer eliminates work from home at yahoo. The world freaks out. Jeff Bezos does the same thing at amazon: he's smart. This is good for the culture.
Or people say, "Code doesn't care who you are. It's either good or it's not. Doesn't matter who wrote it." Which is also bullshit because whether or not it compiles is the bare minimum for getting code into a review to begin with. It's everything after it compiles that's subjective.
The problem here is the implicit standard we have ingrained in us. When we interview a guy, it makes sense. Are you as good at being me as I am? Yes? Great. Hired.
The issue should be obvious by now, but I'll make clear: if you only hire people exactly like you, you only get products that are exactly like what you want.
Diversity in the workplace isn't about diversity because it's fair. It's because we need it to produce real products that people want to use. It's because being a man in the world isn't the only thing worth doing, and we need to have our minds changed and our perspectives altered some times.
We are refusing to value anything different from ourselves. Which stupid. The idea that any of us really know it all is really fucked in the head.
I currently work at a company with a female CEO. She makes different decisions and places priorities than any male I've ever met would.
And I could not be happier. It's totally different from any job I've ever had in the tech world, and it's fantastic.
you people downvoting the thread need to grow up and take a closer look at yourselves and your lives. You are a big part of the problem with gender and racial bias in our industry.
The difference is Holmes was endangering people's health and lives.
<Marissa Mayer eliminates work from home at yahoo. The world freaks out. Jeff Bezos does the same thing at amazon: he's smart. This is good for the culture.
Didn't Mayer build a nursery next to her office?
>you people downvoting the thread need to grow up and take a closer look at yourselves and your lives. You are a big part of the problem with gender and racial bias in our industry.
Seriously? Calling out people as sexist when it's not there doesn't help.
That company just doesn't get covered without people talking about how Elizabeth Holmes is, in fact, a woman, and how she tries to channel a Steve Jobs persona, and how it's not working.
If Travis Kaladick or whatever his name is were running the company, the narrative would be very different.
I don't know how or if there is splashback against women trying to be taken seriously. But if there is, I wish you the best.
