There is some optimism about the Theranos mission, and a lot of skepticism about their implementation. Most of the comments are centred around the composition of the board and (correctly) surmise that the lack of medical expertise is a huge red flag.
Does the composition of Theranos' board strike anyone else as very weird? It seems much more like the board of a foreign policy think thank than a biotech start up. There are three former cabinet secretaries (state and defense), two former very senior military officers, two former senators (one regarded as a foreign policy expert), a bigshot DC lawyer, and the former CEOs of Bechtel and Wells Fargo. The only physicians are former Senator Frist and a very credentialed epidemiologist, but it's not clear to me that either would have much knowledge about laboratory testing.
I'm really curious what the rationale for this board composition is. [Edit: I'm curious if this is connected to Holmes' father's experience in the foreign policy establishment]
Any citations on that? In all the hullabaloo about Theranos I haven't heard that there were serious theoretical difficulties with what they were trying to do.
It would make me feel somewhat better about the whole mess to know this was the case. A successful Theranos would have been the best thing to come out of SV since the Apple II. It was sad to see it fail because of executives' delusions.
No, Theranos started to fail as soon as anyone with real medical expertise without a stake in the company started to probe it.
Theranos was extremely successful at fleecing VCs and embarrassing political board members.
It's a good thing that it got so far, because it proves just how bad VCs are at evaluating successful companies and how much of the funding game is who you know.
The more I read about theranos the more apparent it is that there is something fundamentally wrong with it's core goals, leadership and technology. One easily identifiable red flag is the composition of its board. It's nearly all ex-military and government officials not veteran entrepreneurs and technologists. Just to name a few: George Shultz (former Secretary of State), Sam Nunn and Bill Frist (former U.S. Senators), James Mattis (General, USMC, retired) and Gary Roughead (Admiral, USN, retired) Henry Kissinger (former Secretary of State), William Perry (former Secretary of Defense)
It's almost as if they intentionally stacked it with senators, govenrnment, and military guys. This is not a typical board, especially for a medical company.
Yes. Up until a few weeks ago, Theranos's board consisted of mostly ex-Pentagon and ex-Senators and such types [0]. Theranos did not have a medical advisory board until about a month ago, apparently.
Contrast with Elon Musk and SpaceX. One of Musk's first hires/co-founders for SpaceX was Tom Mueller, who at the time was already widely regarded as one of the best rocket engine designers in the world [1].
Can somebody please objectively fill me in on what caused the failure of Theranos? Is it a scam from the get go? I had high hopes after reading the profile of their CEO.
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