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
4 things occurred. This is mostly from the book on Theranos, *Bad Blood*
1) Investors had fomo (fear of missing out). If Theranos system actually worked. It would be completely revolutionary. And it would have been. Absolutely wild. Something that should be impossible. If it did work, you wanted in now while it was cheap because that investment would be worth so much fucking money later nothing else would matter. Or ya lose some
Money if it doesn’t. It was decent amount of money bet for a bonkers payoff.
2) Elizabeth Holmes herself was quite enthralling in meetings. Many people say they weren’t interested and thought the company was full of shit, but she would get into these meetings and they would come out of there convinced they could actually do it.
3) Theranos took huge amounts of effort to hide and manipulate what was actually happening there with nothing working as described. Including massive legal actions against some employees and others disparaging them. I have to stress how serious Theranos threatened employees and others with legal action. It was a huge deal and people were scared as hell.
4) due to #1, (and a bit of 3). Experts laughing at Theranos that it could never be done that it was totally impossible were just ignored by investors… because if it did work…
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