I've read a lot about her, and I don't think she was a con artist. She was basically a very ambitious woman, who had one brilliant idea and wanted to change the world. She had the passion, the drive, the tenacity and the intelligence to do what she proposed, but unfortunately things didn't work out for her, because our current technology is not advanced yet for what she wanted to do, so her project simply collapsed...
shareI'm about 3/4 of the way through the book "Bad Blood" by John Carreyrou. She may have started out as an idealist, but the whole operation became a fraud much earlier than one can glean from the movie. Falsifying data, lying to investors, lying to journalists, lying to regulators, employees resigning left and right (even one suicide), firing people left and right, spying on employees, suing everyone in sight. She's nuts.
She was personally responsible for releasing the technology before it was even remotely close to being ready and as a result many people (via Walgreens, for example) got wildly inaccurate results. This is playing with people's health. But she didn't care. A dangerous zealot is she.
Steve Jobs lied a lot too. Looks like she modelled herself of him.
shareShe famously tried to model herself on him, that's been well reported. Steve Jobs did some egregious things, notably cheating Steve Wozniak out of his fair share of a pre-Apple project for Atari.
But remember that it is one thing to exaggerate or even lie to investors and the public about what you think you can achieve with computers and software (not saying Jobs did that), it's quite another in the field of medicine, when people's health and lives are at stake.
Steve is a asshole may he burn in hell
shareI can't remember Jobs ever claiming breakthroughs for technology that was actually not even near being functional.
I read his biography and yeah, the worst thing he did was lying to his friend Wozniak in order to get more money from a bonus they were promised, though Wozniak did most of the work.
In the movie Steve Jobs (2015) he literally lied to the press and all the people about his NeXT computer's capabilities.
He also wanted to cover up the EXIT signs in the building eventhough he was informed that doing so is illegal (and irresponsible, really.)
I've read his biography too. He definitely did much worse things than just double cross Woz
He was a piece of shit to his baby momma and his daughter. He was a piece of shit to many of his employees
He might not have been a criminal like Holmes, but he was a bad person
"Fake it until you make it" is normal for entrepreneurs. But even they draw the line when it comes to medical devices. She played with people's lives so she could continue her media blitz campaign. And be worshipped at events like Vanity Fair and Fortune Magazine.
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She had an idea, but ideas are cheap.
She did not have anywhere close to the technical or scientific knowledge necessary to realize that idea.
Jobs may not have been one tenth the engineer Woz was (or anyone else in Apple), but he knew what was possible and generally how to accomplish it.
Holmes had no such knowledge. All she had were her rich family's connections, giving her access to impressive board members (who likewise had no industry-relevant expertise - a BIG warning sign). She was able to leverage their influence to obtain venture funding and the Walgreens deal.
But she never had the slightest idea of how to actually MAKE the thing she was promising.
Hey, I can have an idea right now for a pill that cures every known disease. I have no idea how to make it, but I know it'd sell like crazy. Holmes's business model was essentially that.
"She had an idea, but ideas are cheap."
Yeah, but her idea was revolutionary, and no one else came up with that idea until then...
"She did not have anywhere close to the technical or scientific knowledge necessary to realize that idea."
Yes, but this didn't stop many entrepreneurs from achieving big things. You just need to hire the right people and put them do the job...
"Jobs may not have been one tenth the engineer Woz was (or anyone else in Apple), but he knew what was possible and generally how to accomplish it."
She modelled herself after Jobs, who also didn't have much technical expertise but managed to come up with incredible products just by coordinating much more skilled people who did all the hard work...
"But she never had the slightest idea of how to actually MAKE the thing she was promising."
And this is why she kept hiring and firing people who couldn't do what she asked for. Jobs did the same thing, and was very frustrated when his employees didn't live up to his expectations.
"Hey, I can have an idea right now for a pill that cures every known disease. I have no idea how to make it, but I know it'd sell like crazy. Holmes's business model was essentially that."
Anything is possible, even a pill that could cure every disease will probably be made one day - it would probably be filled with nanorobots - small, intelligent robots, that would detect what is wrong in the body and then would go and fix the problem: destroy bacteria and viruses, fix cells, remove toxins, etc.... We are probably decades away from this technology but with enough money, time and the right people to work on this project it can be done!
Cool!
Take my idea and change the world!
I won’t even claim credit
In all seriousness, though, ideas are cheap.
H.G.Wells wrote about tanks (“land ironclads"). He had the idea.
But when a guy, admittedly inspired by Wells, actually MADE tanks, Wells sued. Because it was his idea.
This is the part that will surprise you: Wells LOST.
Anyone can have an idea. A true entrepreneur does what’s necessary and LEARNS what’s necessary to make those ideas actually happen.
Holmes did none of that. She just used her family’s contacts to pull a massive con on a lot of undeservedly rich dudes who thought (and still do think) that they’re a lot smarter than they actually are.
she should never have taken the company public.
shareAnyone can have an idea. A true entrepreneur does what’s necessary and LEARNS what’s necessary to make those ideas actually happen.
Holmes did none of that. She just used her family’s contacts to pull a massive con on a lot of undeservedly rich dudes who thought (and still do think) that they’re a lot smarter than they actually are.
Whoah, you're letting her off the hook because her EMPLOYEES "failed"?
You've definitely bought into the whole corporate doublespeak that empowers people like her.
Listen, if they ALL "failed at their job," the blame falls on the "leader" who hired them and tasked them with an impossible goal. CEOs like Holmes like to blame their underlings whenever possible, but when ALL the underlings fail, there's no one else to blame but the boss.
TLDR: How is it NOT her fault?
TLDR: How is it NOT her fault?
Don't stop there! Go ahead and complete that thought ....
... all those "incompetent idiots" were hired by whom?
Honestly, what would YOU call a leader who ONLY hires "incompetent idiots"?
What word would you use to describe such a leader?
By your own reasoning, it's STILL the leader's fault. ESPECIALLY if she's "surrounded by incompetent idiots."
Bottom line, there's more to "leading" than, "I hereby hire you, now go make me this impossible thing I dreamed up"
Incidentally, Holmes TRIED to hire "competent" people, i.e., legitimate Stanford professors she'd encountered in college.
They refused. As did any investors with actual experience in science and medicine.
When the idea itself can't draw in "competent people," its proponent is ... say it with me ... "incompetent."
[and I’m starting to suspect we’re being trolled here]
When the Edison failed. When they were using old Siemens machines to do the work and not the Edisons. That is when they should have come clean and just become a mainstream lab company. But she wanted the panache of being a Silicon Valley disruptor. When she was as basic as the rest of the lab companies out there. But that doesn't get you a billion in backing. Her ego was more important than the data and peoples lives.
shareLOL at being only decades away from curing every disease. Such a naive/stupid way of looking at the world
You think that the only reason people are dying from cancer is because we don't have "nano robots" or because we haven't had the right people working on it?
You don't seem to understand the laws of the United States, much less the state of medicine
Yes, she broke the law. If you think it's ok to break the law then that's your opinion, but she did do something wrong according to the legal system that she worked under. And no, nanorobots are not going to cure every known disease with the next few decades
All the fraud and lying about the state the technology was in was not a problem for you?
shareTrolling, or do you just not know much about the case?
She claimed the technology had been tested and proven to work and ready to be put to use. Deals were made and some clinics were even opened that were supposedly relying on the cutting edge Theranos technology. It didn't work, and they knew it, though. Theranos labs ended up actually using the old technology for most tests.
Total, complete fraud. As fraudulent as you can get.
Saying she did nothing wrong is overstating the case, but she's not the monster a lot of people think she is. She honestly believed she could Fake It Before You Make It. But she was dead wrong. She should have listened to whatshername, that woman she went to for advice who tried to tell her what she wanted to do simply wasn't possible yet.
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