Theranos’s invention never would have worked. Here’s why. | Theranos Trial Ep. 2

Elizabeth Holmes has been found guilty of four out of 11 federal charges relating to wire fraud, deceiving investors by making unsubstantiated claims about her revolutionary Edison machine. But that machine never would have worked — at least not in the way Holmes intended. Still, other promising companies are continuing to make progress with blood diagnostics that can do more with smaller volumes of blood,. Here’s what’s really possible.

[gizmoguyar]

The really amazing thing, to me, is that anyone gave her money. I've worked for multiple startups over my career. Not a single time has any investor agreed any amount of money without deeply understanding the technology, limitations, and testing results (usually 3rd party). I feel like these investors must have just taken her word for everything, without actually asking to see the inside of the machines. That's insane.

[juxtapositionMS]

Her invention actually worked. She invented a revolutionary new method of fraudulence.

[yavvivvay]

Theranos is a product of a culture where extreme confidence and wild risk taking is far more important than actual, existing work, research or progress.

[piotrtchaikovski]

Imagine if that funding went into legit research...

[AliAzri]

"Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth, sooner or later that debt is paid."

- Valery Legasov

[mikedee]

One of the major problems with Theranos was ignorant investors, who don’t understand science.

[stevensamuel]

What's funny is that her Stanford professors told her the same thing, but she just ignored them lmao

[tim]

The fraud conviction shows everything wrong with Theranos. That more emphasis is being placed on the money Theranos scammed rather than the people who were harmed, died, and suckered by the technology to the detriment of their health, illustrates just how criminal the entire industry is.

[splicerbabe]

I worked in a laboratory and each test is so widely different. Hematology required tubes with certain acids, some tests needed to be frozen, some tests needed to be incubated like quantiferums, some needed to be centrifuged so we could separate the serum. Antigens require multiple tubes of serum. Each test requires specific requirements besides the most basic ones that you would get in a Complete Metabolic Panel, which usually includes a Corvac(serum) and EDTA sample.
We did have a large Roche machine that did hundreds of tests on a conveyer belt, but we also had rows of lab technicians monitoring and manually running tests it rejected. It was huge (took up half of our 2nd floor lab) and cost a million dollar while having a turn around of 24 hours.

[jaredharmer]

In econ we call this the market of lemons: when ppl know there’s lemons (theranos) and can’t tell if something is a lemon or not, they treat everything as a lemon, don’t invest and the world suffers as a result.

Holmes didn’t just commit fraud, she held back the world decades from accomplishing something like this.

[addrad]

You know what’s so funny about this? She was so stuck on the idea of a single drop of blood, that no other solution was acceptable. I will be honest, I would happy if the test was instant, even if they needed two full vials of blood.

[lurkingarachnid]

Funny how when multiple medical expert is say it's not possible people still believe a 19 year old dropped out

[DanielSuh]

When I watched on 60 Minutes, first, as an oncology RN I was blown away. Why? Because this technology could be the end of countless blood draws that my patients have to endure each day considering that most have low Hgb to begin with. But then again I thought, my lab rejects any blood tubes with less than 3 ml. Either my lab is very inefficient or this technology is just too good to be true.

[joshuaoha]

The fact that so many "smart people" fell for her BS give me absolutely no faith in "expert" investors. Probably most of the entire stock market is a house of cards

[Bergen]

I did not do it, but if I went around and asked my fellow medical students whether such technology was possible - most of them would say no. Blood tests are incredibly complicated and require more material than just some drops from your finger.

[pete]

I’ve heard a lot of compelling arguments about why the company probably would have failed even if the technology worked perfectly. And people in the medical community thought it was a terrible idea well before they were exposed as frauds

[disphoto]

The headline at 4:05 "Other Blood Companies are Still Pissed about Theranos" could also be said today about Augmented Reality startups and Magic Leap. Magic Leap sucked most of the VC money out of the market then left a dumpster fire.

[blindfreddy]

The whole Theranos board should be on trial.

[curiousmd]

As an MD who has read the book and articles on this story, I feel she did have some good ideas but they are simply not workable at this point in time. Medicine has come very far in the past 50-100 years and perhaps it will be possible to replicate a blood sample or change the way we test for different elements/chemistry in another 50 years. She probably could have been somewhat successful if she scaled back her ideas to realistic goals and realized her limitations as well as became more educated in her chosen field. Unfortunately, her ego and greed got the best of her and she forged ahead even though she hurt many people (most importantly the patients who relied on her test results). I wonder if she ever would have stopped herself or if it would always be a race to the end and the inevitable crash.

[TheAppleLoadout]

All the warning signs were there and yet investors were lining up. I have no sympathy for their greed either.