Someone with a PhD in microbiology explained to me (a layman) why what Theranos was claiming to do was impossible. She said you cannot test only a single drop of blood for certain things because what you are looking for literally may not be there. You need a full vial of blood to have a reliable chance of finding many things.
1. Is this simple but clear explanation basically correct?
2. If so, how could Theranos hoodwink investors for so long when possibly *millions* of well-educated people around the world knew that what they were claiming to do made no sense?
In: Biology
The very nature of tech startups dictates that many investors either have to stay out entirely OR accept that they’ll routinely be assessing companies via rules-of-thumb about how businesses operate in general rather than through their technical knowledge of the products the companies create. That’s part of how you sometimes hear cliches about having invested in a culture or people more than having invested in a specific product. So Theranos’ big stupid lies were obviously a huge part of their hype train but part of the magic is that once you have enough inroads established you can start marketing those relationships as the bedrock of your company as much or more than your big stupid lie of a product because there’s already people who are predisposed to largely ignore technical assessments in general. It’s thus super dumb that she was able to hype her way to public relationships with Kissinger & Co. then ride *that* hype to Walgreens and Safeway but once you have a presence with Walgreens and Safeway I definitely see how you could ride that relationship to another few waves of investors.
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