Reply to The Dropout on Hulu (Elizabeth Holmes story)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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