The Dropout on Hulu (Elizabeth Holmes story)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the Seimens machines. Does that mean that there was already the technology to do what she claimed she was going to do?

Both the podcast and the book (Bad Blood) gets into this much more. As others explained, the Siemens machines had been around for a while and that was the tech Theranos was trying to replace -- they were trying to create a more efficient, portable device so that people who had to have these tests wouldn't have to go to a testing facility and produce several vials of blood. If you've ever had your blood drawn for tests like this, you know what a burden it is. Whenever I have to get more than one vial drawn, I pretty much have to calculate an extra hour into the appointment because I will need to recover. It sucks.

The original idea at Theranos was actually to be able to sell these machines directly to doctor's offices or even individuals to keep in their homes if they needed blood draws a lot or had a condition that required certain tests to be run frequently. Most blood tests are sent to labs who use those Siemens machines, and this adds to the time it takes to get results, as well as cost and insurance issues because the labs will bill your insurance separately from the doctor's office where the blood was taken and sometimes the insurance company doesn't cover the particular lab... it's a mess and it actually makes sense that someone would want to find a way to make this process better.

In the podcast and book they really get into why Theranos using the Siemens machines was a huge deal. When they set up the Walgreens partnership, patients reported these weird experience with results from the pin prick tests. But then Theranos would sometimes have them do a full blood draw (not the promised pin prick) and of course patients noticed this because that was the whole point -- I don't have to sit here and wait for the person to find a vein and draw a full vial and maybe have to do a re-draw if the first vein doesn't produce enough, etc. It turns out Theranos was running these draw through the Siemens machines. And yes, it was in part as a quality control measure, but since the Theranos machines straight up did not work, the outcome was that basically they were just using the Siemens machines for the tests.

And keep in mind that the blood tests were never supposed to leave Walgreens at all. The point was that the Theranos machines were supposed to be onsite. But since those machines didn't work, Theranos would set up theses elaborate systems to send the blood to their own testing facility, or sometimes they'd even pay to send them to a 3rd party lab, and then report the results back. But it would take days, not minutes as promised.

I mean, it was just incredibly obvious from the minute they launched in Walgreens (and at that cancer facility in Arizona) that they didn't have the technology. But people cut them slack because the promise of what they were suggesting was really, really valuable to patients and doctors, and they were willing (at first) to let them "iron out the kinks". What was unforgivable is that these were not kinks, the machines never worked, they knew they never worked, and they straight up lied to sick people and their doctors in ways that were truly damaging. It's messed up.

Thank you, that is helpful. From the other PPs posts, I thought they meant that they were still taking the drop of blood and using the Seimens. But really the drop was irrelevant and it was always the vial that was needed.

I still can’t believe she was only convicted of 4 counts and it was related to money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the Seimens machines. Does that mean that there was already the technology to do what she claimed she was going to do?

Both the podcast and the book (Bad Blood) gets into this much more. As others explained, the Siemens machines had been around for a while and that was the tech Theranos was trying to replace -- they were trying to create a more efficient, portable device so that people who had to have these tests wouldn't have to go to a testing facility and produce several vials of blood. If you've ever had your blood drawn for tests like this, you know what a burden it is. Whenever I have to get more than one vial drawn, I pretty much have to calculate an extra hour into the appointment because I will need to recover. It sucks.

The original idea at Theranos was actually to be able to sell these machines directly to doctor's offices or even individuals to keep in their homes if they needed blood draws a lot or had a condition that required certain tests to be run frequently. Most blood tests are sent to labs who use those Siemens machines, and this adds to the time it takes to get results, as well as cost and insurance issues because the labs will bill your insurance separately from the doctor's office where the blood was taken and sometimes the insurance company doesn't cover the particular lab... it's a mess and it actually makes sense that someone would want to find a way to make this process better.

In the podcast and book they really get into why Theranos using the Siemens machines was a huge deal. When they set up the Walgreens partnership, patients reported these weird experience with results from the pin prick tests. But then Theranos would sometimes have them do a full blood draw (not the promised pin prick) and of course patients noticed this because that was the whole point -- I don't have to sit here and wait for the person to find a vein and draw a full vial and maybe have to do a re-draw if the first vein doesn't produce enough, etc. It turns out Theranos was running these draw through the Siemens machines. And yes, it was in part as a quality control measure, but since the Theranos machines straight up did not work, the outcome was that basically they were just using the Siemens machines for the tests.

And keep in mind that the blood tests were never supposed to leave Walgreens at all. The point was that the Theranos machines were supposed to be onsite. But since those machines didn't work, Theranos would set up theses elaborate systems to send the blood to their own testing facility, or sometimes they'd even pay to send them to a 3rd party lab, and then report the results back. But it would take days, not minutes as promised.

I mean, it was just incredibly obvious from the minute they launched in Walgreens (and at that cancer facility in Arizona) that they didn't have the technology. But people cut them slack because the promise of what they were suggesting was really, really valuable to patients and doctors, and they were willing (at first) to let them "iron out the kinks". What was unforgivable is that these were not kinks, the machines never worked, they knew they never worked, and they straight up lied to sick people and their doctors in ways that were truly damaging. It's messed up.

Thank you, that is helpful. From the other PPs posts, I thought they meant that they were still taking the drop of blood and using the Seimens. But really the drop was irrelevant and it was always the vial that was needed.

I still can’t believe she was only convicted of 4 counts and it was related to money.

Not the PP, but I think in some instances they were taking a drop and diluting it to create a larger sample to run through the Siemens machines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK but did Elizabeth have a scientific concept to support the ability to do this?

Anything more than- wouldn't it be cool if it was one drop of a blood into a machine that super analyzed it immediately?

If Siemens could shrink and speed up their machines, they would have. What was the breakthough she was bringing to the table?

I feel like my 9 year old could come up with the concept. I realize I'm being snarky here but really I'm totally ignorant about all of this I just don't get it.

I don't believe she ever had anything other than the idea. With her first cohort of scientists, the promise was, "I'll get the funding to develop this." The most relevant breakthrough was microfluidics, but she had nothing specific to blood testing.

[Anonymous]

I still can’t believe she was found not guilty on the charges related to the patients.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK but did Elizabeth have a scientific concept to support the ability to do this?

Anything more than- wouldn't it be cool if it was one drop of a blood into a machine that super analyzed it immediately?

If Siemens could shrink and speed up their machines, they would have. What was the breakthough she was bringing to the table?

I feel like my 9 year old could come up with the concept. I realize I'm being snarky here but really I'm totally ignorant about all of this I just don't get it.

I don't believe she ever had anything other than the idea. With her first cohort of scientists, the promise was, "I'll get the funding to develop this." The most relevant breakthrough was microfluidics, but she had nothing specific to blood testing.

She attached her name to all of Ian Gibbons’ patents but she actually did no work on them. They were all Ian’s work. And he knew exactly the limitations of those patents and how they were not ready for prime time. When he tried to tell her they didn’t work well enough to go in Walgreens, she demoted him to a glorified HR person and stripped him of his lab role. He killed himself the day before his deposition to testify on how they didn’t work for what she intended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK but did Elizabeth have a scientific concept to support the ability to do this?

Anything more than- wouldn't it be cool if it was one drop of a blood into a machine that super analyzed it immediately?

If Siemens could shrink and speed up their machines, they would have. What was the breakthough she was bringing to the table?

I feel like my 9 year old could come up with the concept. I realize I'm being snarky here but really I'm totally ignorant about all of this I just don't get it.

The impression I get from the show (and I listened to the podcast and saw the HBO show, but long ago), was that her credibility was a house of cards that started with her using her little bit of knowledge and charm to get in on that chem lab at Stanford, then when she had her idea, she used her relationships there to start Theranos. Then the Stanford people's involvement in her company gave credibility to initial investors, which gave credibility to big tech names, high profile investors, and so on. IOW, she used every relationship/investment/PR bit to snag the next bigger/higher profile thing. It's really pretty breathtaking when you see it all laid out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK but did Elizabeth have a scientific concept to support the ability to do this?

Anything more than- wouldn't it be cool if it was one drop of a blood into a machine that super analyzed it immediately?

If Siemens could shrink and speed up their machines, they would have. What was the breakthough she was bringing to the table?

I feel like my 9 year old could come up with the concept. I realize I'm being snarky here but really I'm totally ignorant about all of this I just don't get it.

Nothing. They had nothing. She knew they had nothing and hoped they'd come up with something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK but did Elizabeth have a scientific concept to support the ability to do this?

Anything more than- wouldn't it be cool if it was one drop of a blood into a machine that super analyzed it immediately?

If Siemens could shrink and speed up their machines, they would have. What was the breakthough she was bringing to the table?

I feel like my 9 year old could come up with the concept. I realize I'm being snarky here but really I'm totally ignorant about all of this I just don't get it.

The impression I get from the show (and I listened to the podcast and saw the HBO show, but long ago), was that her credibility was a house of cards that started with her using her little bit of knowledge and charm to get in on that chem lab at Stanford, then when she had her idea, she used her relationships there to start Theranos. Then the Stanford people's involvement in her company gave credibility to initial investors, which gave credibility to big tech names, high profile investors, and so on. IOW, she used every relationship/investment/PR bit to snag the next bigger/higher profile thing. It's really pretty breathtaking when you see it all laid out.

+1

The thing the show is reminding me of is how much of it was a snowball effect, and how part of the problem was that her detractors all seem to have other reasons to criticize her that made people not take them seriously. The guy suing her was clearly angry with her family and had a personal agenda. Dr. Gardner (unfairly) was viewed as jealous of Elizabeth's early success and youth. Everyone at Theranos who started making noise about issues was viewed as a an angry ex-employee with a bone to pick. No one had credibility next to Elizabeth, especially with the backing of people like Larry Ellison. People just assumed that these big investors MUST know it was legitimate or they wouldn't have poured so much money in.

You even saw it in the last episode with David Boies. It's not like that guy only chooses winners, but his whole career is his reputation and so much of it is based on being on the "right" side of these big cases, like his big 1st Amendment cases or Supreme Court advocacy. He's also a very smart person. It's just hard to imagine that he didn't suspect something was very amiss at Theranos when he started working with them, but you have to wonder how much of it was that he was taken in by Elizabeth or just the aura of importance around her and the company.

It's very embarrassing for a lot of these people. It really feels like there should be more consequences for the people who helped her get away with this for so long by simply not doing their due diligence, perhaps being persuaded to think of her as a daughter or granddaughter and protect her in a way that was not merited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK but did Elizabeth have a scientific concept to support the ability to do this?

Anything more than- wouldn't it be cool if it was one drop of a blood into a machine that super analyzed it immediately?

If Siemens could shrink and speed up their machines, they would have. What was the breakthough she was bringing to the table?

I feel like my 9 year old could come up with the concept. I realize I'm being snarky here but really I'm totally ignorant about all of this I just don't get it.

I don't believe she ever had anything other than the idea. With her first cohort of scientists, the promise was, "I'll get the funding to develop this." The most relevant breakthrough was microfluidics, but she had nothing specific to blood testing.

She attached her name to all of Ian Gibbons’ patents but she actually did no work on them. They were all Ian’s work. And he knew exactly the limitations of those patents and how they were not ready for prime time. When he tried to tell her they didn’t work well enough to go in Walgreens, she demoted him to a glorified HR person and stripped him of his lab role. He killed himself the day before his deposition to testify on how they didn’t work for what she intended.

His story, plus those of some of the patients who were really directly harmed by the con they pulled, is what pushes me over the edge. Like if people die thanks to your stupid business con, you're no longer a white collar criminal anymore -- you are culpable.

If I were Ian's family I'd never let this go. It's really devastating to me that he was ever put in that position and that he wound up dying as a result. I know he was sick but it's no excuse. There is just no excuse for what they did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the Seimens machines. Does that mean that there was already the technology to do what she claimed she was going to do?

Both the podcast and the book (Bad Blood) gets into this much more. As others explained, the Siemens machines had been around for a while and that was the tech Theranos was trying to replace -- they were trying to create a more efficient, portable device so that people who had to have these tests wouldn't have to go to a testing facility and produce several vials of blood. If you've ever had your blood drawn for tests like this, you know what a burden it is. Whenever I have to get more than one vial drawn, I pretty much have to calculate an extra hour into the appointment because I will need to recover. It sucks.

The original idea at Theranos was actually to be able to sell these machines directly to doctor's offices or even individuals to keep in their homes if they needed blood draws a lot or had a condition that required certain tests to be run frequently. Most blood tests are sent to labs who use those Siemens machines, and this adds to the time it takes to get results, as well as cost and insurance issues because the labs will bill your insurance separately from the doctor's office where the blood was taken and sometimes the insurance company doesn't cover the particular lab... it's a mess and it actually makes sense that someone would want to find a way to make this process better.

In the podcast and book they really get into why Theranos using the Siemens machines was a huge deal. When they set up the Walgreens partnership, patients reported these weird experience with results from the pin prick tests. But then Theranos would sometimes have them do a full blood draw (not the promised pin prick) and of course patients noticed this because that was the whole point -- I don't have to sit here and wait for the person to find a vein and draw a full vial and maybe have to do a re-draw if the first vein doesn't produce enough, etc. It turns out Theranos was running these draw through the Siemens machines. And yes, it was in part as a quality control measure, but since the Theranos machines straight up did not work, the outcome was that basically they were just using the Siemens machines for the tests.

And keep in mind that the blood tests were never supposed to leave Walgreens at all. The point was that the Theranos machines were supposed to be onsite. But since those machines didn't work, Theranos would set up theses elaborate systems to send the blood to their own testing facility, or sometimes they'd even pay to send them to a 3rd party lab, and then report the results back. But it would take days, not minutes as promised.

I mean, it was just incredibly obvious from the minute they launched in Walgreens (and at that cancer facility in Arizona) that they didn't have the technology. But people cut them slack because the promise of what they were suggesting was really, really valuable to patients and doctors, and they were willing (at first) to let them "iron out the kinks". What was unforgivable is that these were not kinks, the machines never worked, they knew they never worked, and they straight up lied to sick people and their doctors in ways that were truly damaging. It's messed up.

Thank you, that is helpful. From the other PPs posts, I thought they meant that they were still taking the drop of blood and using the Seimens. But really the drop was irrelevant and it was always the vial that was needed.

I still can’t believe she was only convicted of 4 counts and it was related to money.

Not the PP, but I think in some instances they were taking a drop and diluting it to create a larger sample to run through the Siemens machines.

That's right, I forgot about that detail. They tried a bunch of different stuff in order to try and maintain that "one drop" promise, though eventually they even gave up on that because it was so obviously untenable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK but did Elizabeth have a scientific concept to support the ability to do this?

Anything more than- wouldn't it be cool if it was one drop of a blood into a machine that super analyzed it immediately?

If Siemens could shrink and speed up their machines, they would have. What was the breakthough she was bringing to the table?

I feel like my 9 year old could come up with the concept. I realize I'm being snarky here but really I'm totally ignorant about all of this I just don't get it.

I don't believe she ever had anything other than the idea. With her first cohort of scientists, the promise was, "I'll get the funding to develop this." The most relevant breakthrough was microfluidics, but she had nothing specific to blood testing.

She attached her name to all of Ian Gibbons’ patents but she actually did no work on them. They were all Ian’s work. And he knew exactly the limitations of those patents and how they were not ready for prime time. When he tried to tell her they didn’t work well enough to go in Walgreens, she demoted him to a glorified HR person and stripped him of his lab role. He killed himself the day before his deposition to testify on how they didn’t work for what she intended.

His story, plus those of some of the patients who were really directly harmed by the con they pulled, is what pushes me over the edge. Like if people die thanks to your stupid business con, you're no longer a white collar criminal anymore -- you are culpable.

If I were Ian's family I'd never let this go. It's really devastating to me that he was ever put in that position and that he wound up dying as a result. I know he was sick but it's no excuse. There is just no excuse for what they did.

I agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OK but did Elizabeth have a scientific concept to support the ability to do this?

Anything more than- wouldn't it be cool if it was one drop of a blood into a machine that super analyzed it immediately?

If Siemens could shrink and speed up their machines, they would have. What was the breakthough she was bringing to the table?

I feel like my 9 year old could come up with the concept. I realize I'm being snarky here but really I'm totally ignorant about all of this I just don't get it.

I had the same thought about this being elizabeth’s “invention” in the same way 9 year olds “invent” magnetic levitating shoes or whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK but did Elizabeth have a scientific concept to support the ability to do this?

Anything more than- wouldn't it be cool if it was one drop of a blood into a machine that super analyzed it immediately?

If Siemens could shrink and speed up their machines, they would have. What was the breakthough she was bringing to the table?

I feel like my 9 year old could come up with the concept. I realize I'm being snarky here but really I'm totally ignorant about all of this I just don't get it.

I don't believe she ever had anything other than the idea. With her first cohort of scientists, the promise was, "I'll get the funding to develop this." The most relevant breakthrough was microfluidics, but she had nothing specific to blood testing.

She attached her name to all of Ian Gibbons’ patents but she actually did no work on them. They were all Ian’s work. And he knew exactly the limitations of those patents and how they were not ready for prime time. When he tried to tell her they didn’t work well enough to go in Walgreens, she demoted him to a glorified HR person and stripped him of his lab role. He killed himself the day before his deposition to testify on how they didn’t work for what she intended.

His story, plus those of some of the patients who were really directly harmed by the con they pulled, is what pushes me over the edge. Like if people die thanks to your stupid business con, you're no longer a white collar criminal anymore -- you are culpable.

If I were Ian's family I'd never let this go. It's really devastating to me that he was ever put in that position and that he wound up dying as a result. I know he was sick but it's no excuse. There is just no excuse for what they did.

I agree.

Totally agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK but did Elizabeth have a scientific concept to support the ability to do this?

Anything more than- wouldn't it be cool if it was one drop of a blood into a machine that super analyzed it immediately?

If Siemens could shrink and speed up their machines, they would have. What was the breakthough she was bringing to the table?

I feel like my 9 year old could come up with the concept. I realize I'm being snarky here but really I'm totally ignorant about all of this I just don't get it.

I had the same thought about this being elizabeth’s “invention” in the same way 9 year olds “invent” magnetic levitating shoes or whatever.

Even though I'm horrified by what she did, I don't agree. Sometimes inventions really do start by someone saying, in an almost childlike way, "what if there was a better way to do this?" Like the telephone or the internet also probably sound like the fantasies of a 9 year old at some time.

My issue with her is that once she had the idea, she talked to experts who told her it wasn't possible, and she very arrogantly didn't listen. If your 9 year old came up with this idea you might even think "hey, yeah, that would be great -- having your blood drawn is awful." But if you decided to pursue it, you'd talk to people who understand blood testing and if every single one of them told you "sounds great, people have tried, it's just very difficult/impossible to run most of these common blood tests on less than a certain amount of blood" would you then pitch it to venture capital and falsify a prototype result in order to start a multi-billion dollar company? No.

It's not the "having an idea" part that is upsetting. It's all the other stuff. Lots of people have good ideas they can't get off the ground. That's... most ideas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK but did Elizabeth have a scientific concept to support the ability to do this?

Anything more than- wouldn't it be cool if it was one drop of a blood into a machine that super analyzed it immediately?

If Siemens could shrink and speed up their machines, they would have. What was the breakthough she was bringing to the table?

I feel like my 9 year old could come up with the concept. I realize I'm being snarky here but really I'm totally ignorant about all of this I just don't get it.

I had the same thought about this being elizabeth’s “invention” in the same way 9 year olds “invent” magnetic levitating shoes or whatever.

Even though I'm horrified by what she did, I don't agree. Sometimes inventions really do start by someone saying, in an almost childlike way, "what if there was a better way to do this?" Like the telephone or the internet also probably sound like the fantasies of a 9 year old at some time.

My issue with her is that once she had the idea, she talked to experts who told her it wasn't possible, and she very arrogantly didn't listen. If your 9 year old came up with this idea you might even think "hey, yeah, that would be great -- having your blood drawn is awful." But if you decided to pursue it, you'd talk to people who understand blood testing and if every single one of them told you "sounds great, people have tried, it's just very difficult/impossible to run most of these common blood tests on less than a certain amount of blood" would you then pitch it to venture capital and falsify a prototype result in order to start a multi-billion dollar company? No.

It's not the "having an idea" part that is upsetting. It's all the other stuff. Lots of people have good ideas they can't get off the ground. That's... most ideas.

Right that’s what I mean/she had an idea that might have been viable (like magnet shoes) but it turned out it wasn’t snd she acted (as did her ridiculous board) like she was Leonardo da Vinci meets Alexander graham bell