Could Elizabeth Holmes have saved Theranos? (moving to a platform approach, engineering and sales) 

She should have given most of the money to third party R&D. And absorb them if they can show success. That way she would have ended up with something working, which they can continuously improve. The catch is that she should have pivoted _very_ early, long before the first accusations or the test faking. Start going from hype to reality very quickly, that is the only way to actually do things well, (and not turn into a scam).

YOU ARE SECRETLY IN LOVE WITH HER! ;-)

@@DrTune 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

"Policy" just means: "what are we going to do". It is a 3-dollar word, or a magic word that basically means nothing. "she has board that helps her with policy" - she has a board that helps her making decisions. she basically hinted that the FDA is being slow in certifying her magic test (of course it is their fault) , so the board helps her in convincing the FDA. As it turns ot, the FDA is sponsored by big pharma and lobby groups anyways, so it actually makes sense.

V serious answer. All your experience of entrepreneurs should tell you that, while you have the raw ingredients & potential, you haven't settled on a clear brand identity/mission. And reading between the lines, it's because you're not prepared yet to make the effort neces for self-definition. Let me suggest an appropriate brand. 1. "The Great Fraudsters" or similar. 2. Not any fraudsters/scammers but esp. those who "pull the wool over your eyes" - who define themselves overgenerally or vaguely, in a way that we should ideally see through - whose success testifies to the poverty of our education about language and its levels of generality and abstractness/concreteness - and the necessity of grounding/seeing what is talked about in reality. Your mission should be to improve this education. So your analyses of Holmes fit this definition/identity. And so do the self-help-ers and religious books, whom you just once touched on AFAIK. Quibi doesn't belong. They had an idea that might have worked, but didn't. No fraud, deception, woolliness. IMO it is the woolly fraudsters that are most interesting to most of your audience. There is a huge potential realm here. Self-help. And religion. Metaphysicians of all kinds.Business missions. And intellectuals, scientists. A prime candidate that would make your name - Chomsky. Revered but actually a 2nd-rate wildly overgeneral theorist. E.g. there's a Universal Grammar that shapes all the grammatical sentences in a language. But he doesn't give an example of a single sentence - hasn't thought his theories through any more than you have your brand. Totally characteristic. Nothing but vague theories, all false, overlaid with lots of erudition. ... Of course, you gotta do what you wanna do. But what I've outlined does have major potential and esp I think for you. [You might add a sideline of the fraudsters' personal conflicts, which if you look are there. Dunno what Holmes' were but she must have been hugely conflicted & tense - in ways that showed if you looked.

Sounds about right 🤣

Spot on!! 😜

Melody - yeah, what's up with her hair. A billion dollars and she can't even invest in a can of Frizz Ease.

Or like me..hates brushing the hair...

What's wrong with not brushing your hair? I brush it only when off work but leave it messy when working...I rather sleep

There's alot of soulless people like this

She knows that most people are stupid and that as long as you are "respected" I must believe what you say. I also believe she in some way hypnotizes people but I do not know enough about that to clearly communicate. It is happening all the time...think school shooters. Hypnotized.

Her parents produced this

@@Franciscasieri our culture has not helped.

Elizabeth Holmes is a liberal who held a fund-raising dinner for Hillary Clinton. Of course she lies.

Or declare oneself president of planet Earth

all you need to do is research some fan created diagram of the inner workings of the holodeck from star trek and claim you will revolutionize entertainment but first...get a sex change

@@thewkovacs316 Just say you are non binary

@@ravanpee1325 oh ya...dont even have to go under the knife

if she got hired somewhere as an engineer, at a viable company she would be an engineer though?

@@fdre3wsd When you say "viable" I hear "reputable." No reputable business would hire a undergrad with only one year of bachelor's study as an engineer. To do so would be akin to Sunny Balwani's hiring of his dermatologist as a lab director.

@@fdre3wsd - It depends. Did she do some self studying on her own as a kid ? Look at Bill Gates, he was a computer nerd as a kid, and self taught himself programming. He wrote the BASIC interpreter, that was loaded onto the MITS Altair (1st personal computer), by himself. So Bill Gates could have been hired as a software engineer, had he not started Microsoft. I doubt Holmes as enough training and experience, formal, or informal, to be hired as an engineer. The problem with the Theranos machine, is not the technological implementation. The problem was the basic science behind the machine. There are reasons a certain minimum quantity of blood, to run certain tests. Theranos has never applied for any patents, nor academic papers, describing the required theories, to run the claimed tests with only a small drop of blood. If patents are applied for, they WILL BE searchable PUBLIC RECORD, at the USPTO website. That's what your patent attorney's will use to defend your technology, in court. All the Theranos Patents are on crumby little dispenser; "nano-tainer". No patents describing tests that only require a very small quantity of blood. If They did, that's the thing she would be talking about. Full disclosure, because it would be protected by the patents ! If someone won't show you the technology, when it can be protected by a patent, then its a SCAM ! Don't throw out Coca-Cola. That's old. A patent is good for 20 years. That's all you need. Coke has been around for over 100 years, and the "secret" is really a marketing tool, as opposed to hiding the magic formula.

I started college as an engineering major. At any reputable engineering school you have to complete a core curriculum of calculus, physics and math to take actual engineering classes as a junior. Unless she placed out of about 40 hrs of college level basics there is no way she learned more than enough to be a lab technician.

@@fdre3wsd Nope, you are an engineer when you have a degree + certificate. US is full of bs titles anyway

And potentially for self defence purposes 🤣

Unkept or unkempt?

If she were hired, even after dropping out would she still be an engineer?

@@jrwntctv8091 gosh, you surely now, or know!

She actually wore those shoes in most of her interviews. It was part of her “quirky genius” look, along with the cheap off-brand parka she wore in some photo-ops.

It takes the power of persuasion to get so many people to part with that much money

@@JohnSmith-eo5sp nope just a pretty white woman especially in the states. You hear about "beautiful" white women scamming people all the time. & If you actually look into why & how you'll realize white Americans will take basically anything certain white woman say & don't do nearly the amount of research, if any, compared to other non-whites

Applause 👏

She should name her company Blind

Like elon musk

Yes I get irrationally angry every single time they confront her on only having 1 test and she gives the BS about “transitioning to FDA Framework “ my blood pressure can’t handle it, I want them to push back on that but they just accept it

It seems like she taps into the mid-life crisis of some of these men and has then dancing badly in public, or jumping on bouncy castles like a 5 year old 🤣😘 She's a typical blond over-madeup hustler, and I'll bet she was more than surprised how the investor fever ran away with itself and turned into a billion dollar stock market float [I'm still of the opinion, that there were cool heads in this "enterprise" who saw the opportunity for a money bubble, and maybe even for some money laundering on misappropriated stashes, by using this greedy grifter for as long as possible, but, of course, I'm only OPINING, as free speech allows me to do Joan of Arc was another useful idiot for a cash and land grab and she was dispensed with fire once the hack had played itself out]

Same, Martina. I’m so tired of massive egos being indulged at the expense of actual competence. I can’t bear her.

She's about to transition to a orange jump suit

TEXTBOOK PSYCHOPATH! ESP THE CRAZY EYES! GIANT BLACK EYES AND MINIMAL BLINKING...THOSE PEOPLE COULD NOT CARE LESS REGARDING WHAT HAPPENS TO OTHERS!

True, connections are a big one

Is she left-handed?

@@expatexpat6531 would it matter? Lmao she could fake being left handed that’s the kind of person Elizabeth Holmes is! Haha

Haha yes, thanks 😊

I feel like a heroin addict getting my fix every day with these Elizabeth Holmes podcasts, telling myself a big lie that I'll get clean one day, but never managing to do it.

Yes! I think so too. Otherwise, she would have been smarter about her tragic trainwreck of an exit

No, not really. If you had been following the podcasts and read the book, you would know about the self defeating constraints of... A) The placement of the blood extractions: Capillary blood missrepresents the concentration of some analytes, thus is impossible to have accurate tests for them ( Hemolysis, a well researched phenomenon ). B) The amount of blood ( Nanotainer format ): Some specific analytes vary wildly in concentration, when analyzed from small samples. In some cases they are not found at all. The only way to make a scientific guess is to draw a much bigger sample than the one a nanotainer provides. Also, some tests require the ”alteration” of the sample via adding reagents. After that, the sample is unsuitable for further tests, and if you only have the small amount provided by a nanotainer, you can only subdivide it so much for few tests. C) The Edison’s /Minilabs limiting space & technology: (space) Elizabeth was hell bent in limiting the size of the Edison’s to that of a large PC Tower. According to insiders, having several measurement instruments confined in such small enclosure, made impossible to isolate some test from the heat and light emited by some other instruments, badly altering the readings. Same thing went to retrofitting a proper cooling device within the edison, or thicker walls to contain heat and light. There was simply no room enough inside. (technology) Also, some analyses from small samples are only possible via microfuidics techniques, but for some reasons, Elizabeth ditched early on the microfluidics instruments from her machines. Thus her goals were simply at odds with physics’ limits. e) Yesmen Due to her insecurity, Elizabeth got rid of the able people that pointed out the problems they ran into, precisely same people with the inquiring and curious minds able to solve them. Soon she was surrounded by people only good at conforting her.

@@gorka9020 Yes, that’s what I said - in addition to EH’s insatiable ego, there were insurmountable scientific problems that no one would ever solve, no matter how much time and money was spent. I’ve followed this case for about 3 years, and I’m an actually qualified (female) scientist who is disgusted by this woman’s pathetic behaviour.

genalyte maverick made her fiction real

@@matthewbrooks6707 I disagree with Lorna's comment that Elizabeth genuinely thought she could turn around things, and provide a service exactly as advertised. Even though is clear she is a bit delusional, she was aware that the only best possible outcome was to provide a much watered down version of the product she initally advertised. Cyncisms strong with her is ( Yoda ).

As soon as money changes hands, your officially a problem. If you know your pitch doesn't match the tangible results, your lying.

Seriously? It turns to bullshit the very first day she lies to investors to fuel something out of a fairytale. As they say, conning only works on greedy people.

Holmes is working on the Board, the water board is more what she is feeling now . What have I put myself in ???

Yes, I've heard the dog being a wolf too; also heard that the dog was 'doing his business' on the office floor! Who needs that in an office with bullet proof glass?! Thanks for the Casey video and thank you @ SAWS for the awesome Elizabeth Holmes content. Your videos keep me going in-between episodes of The Dropout landing! 🙂

Kind of like every historical religious figure. 😂

Anyone can be a Drop Out Engineer, they had thousands in the Rusian gulags.

Thank you 🙏🙏 haha I would probably embarrass myself. But I will take a note and have a look 😊

@@SAWS No you would not embarrass yourself. It would take a lot of catchup on the Delphi murders but you are a natural. You do real well at communicating and presentation.

Thank you 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

I agree. The script/outline is good, he does a good job of covering everything and sounding casual but informative, the editing is well done and the visuals are so clean. This guy will go far if he sticks with it.

Totally agreed. It's news media and politicians who keep distorting everything for the worse

The media fed her ego, which was her downfall. She couldn't back down into a more rational space. But that's on her.

They were desperate for a "Clinton-esque" guru who could help entice people into voting for a "Clinton-esque" president. No joke, some have said that's why Clinton was the first to be on her board.

The media was def excited to fulfill its own prophecy

Shouldn't the investors be blamed? They should have done their due diligence. The woman is a con artist. Had the investors actually investigated like Pfizer had done, they would have realised that her company was built on a house of cards.

Very true - the EU is also swept up in this narrative. I bet we have a Holmes somewhere

I think there are so many other founders just like Elizabeth lurking through SF, Boston, Toronto, all the digital hubs. And I think it says a lot about the valorization of ego in tech culture

yeah, it's not her natural voice and she occasionally forgets to do the voice.

True, I missed that point as well

Also she just jumped on the feminism bandwagon

Absolutely; a clever, blonde, white 19-year-old from a trailer park (with, for the sake of argument, an idea that actually worked!) would have nothing like the access to wealth and resource that EH did, and I don't think could ever get to where EH is - successful or not.

Yes, maybe! And pre-FDA approval I guess...

I think she meant that the FDA should bow to her ideas, but that didn't work out so well since they are not all old rich white men there.

I would say it is a title and education can be gotten out of the library

😁😁

🤣

I thought the same thing

Wouldn’t that make it more expensive then just getting a larger sample of blood from the get-go from the patient?

​@@TheMcKenzieHaus The whole idea is you can use a pin prick of blood and do a bunch of tests. In this case you can get the tests at your local drugstore avoiding a hospital visit. That was her whole idea, and if it was real it would have changed the world as she always said. But alas, she couldn't do it.

If it can be done. Its not blood from fingertips. its more we create a device that can puncture in our heart just one drop of blood, but its completely safe. Its like the analogy in 17th century we want to create car powered by coal just like train. No, there will be car but we use petroleum. So the imagine technology still wrong

Haha ok ok

indeed! witch shoes!

Yes, most of my audience is much older than me according to the analytics and the comments are really thoughtful! Good and smart people out there

Yeah, I think he was super perplexed. He was probably trying to figure out if she was a genius or an idiot

At the time this interview was done she wasn't yet discredited. He is playing safe. Wouldn't be him to go out from the narrative!

You are right but the shoes are so wrong for that outfit. If she was wearing a button-down shirt it would be better but still wrong.

@@lynnjaxful I totally agree with you. My point is that she doesn't care about the fashionable look as much as she cares about giving off a psychological appearance of being in control.

@@wittymystic7361 She is a poser. A want to be. You are right about the shoes. It is an obvious mistake that most women would not make.

Haha yes and then the drones came

Also, she's implicitly saying that nothing was faulty except the "communication"

Thank you 🙏🙏🙏🙏😊

So funny since the nano grant buzzword was around since 2008 at least amongst chemistry professors

The movies are already in the making foooor sure.

Exactly. The investors are often in on the fraud, or at least willfully ignorant of it. They focus on whether they can tell a story to ignorant retail investors to flip their shares for a profit. Given the completely irresponsible and politically motivated MSM coverage, the investors had every reason to think this was a story they could sell.

… and she fakes her voice like a man, and hunches herself forward like a man. What a feminist icon indeed - you can only succeed if you do everything to act male instead. Can’t stand her.

Thanks!

🤣 everyone responds to the shoes

Yeah, neutral knee-highs would work better.

she portrayed herself as an inventor, as a scientist, she can not even do 6-grade math, she has no clue about the science of electronics, biochemistry, pharmacology, but she had a charm and ordinary people believed her.

basically it is IMPOSSIBLE. we have arteries, veins, and capillaries arteries - carry blood away from the heart veins carry blood back to the heart capillaries connect arteries and veins arteries carry oxygen to your lungs which has oxygen (left side of your heart) veins carry the blood back and reprocess the blood all over again capilaries carry oxygen, carbon dioxide and waste products in and out of tissue cells If you are trying to get the volume of oxygen in your blood system through veins, you CANT do that because it carries deoxygenated blood back to your heart. That is the job for an artery Capillaries have wasted product as i mentioned before therefore you cannot get an accurate reading of oxygen in the blood. this is just a rough example why this bs-Theranos would have NEVER worked. If it was even REMOTELY possible, why there was NOT a single person with a medical degree on the board?

@@aurinkobay7118 I wonder if there was ever an internal document about the tests that they believed were feasible with pin prick blood draws, the tests that could be done with very small amounts of blood so that other tests could use blood from the same blood draw, and of those tests which tests did they think they could develop technology for in a reasonable length of time. Very little has made it in to the popular media that covers Theranos about anything they actually accomplished or anything that they were pursuing that might have led to some kind of breakthrough. I asked a question about that on Quora and when I didn't get any answers I tried to answer it myself. Nothing much has changed since I wrote that answer. There is no public information about any useful technical developments that Theranos made. www.quora.com/How-valuable-is-Theranos-IP/answer/Dave-Kirkeby?comment_id=240646849&comment_type=2&__filter__=all&__nsrc__=notif_page&__sncid__=22567881925&__snid3__=30983126828

@@davefoc to me it looks like philosophers stone. Converting carbon into a diamond

He is saying could it be saved by changing the device to only do a few tests. Not actually finish iy.

Except Amazon never almost killed people. Until they got their huge packing facilities, I mean.

Amazon started with a working, successful book business, which changed the book selling industry. Then they realised they had a distribution and sales operation which could be used for other things. They still sell books. What were Theranos going to pivot into, in view of the fact that the thing the core product they raised funds to develop, never worked properly?

@@fredsmith5473 Good point, and quite true. I guess I mean the concept of a pivot could have worked. No one really cares if Theranos or Siemens or Roche devices are testing the blood. If Siemens have a test for X and Y, and Roche have a test for X and Z, Theranos could have a test for X and Y and Z with the right licensing arrangements. The fingerstick concept would be reasonably legit marketing for things where it obviously works. Almost certainly, other tests will be possible as time moves on. Maybe rock up to Walgreens, give more than a few drops of blood, get some results in minutes, other results are available on line in 24 hours. If Theranos had switched before burning through millions of cash and a huge mountain of credibility, it could have worked. Meantime there’s still plenty of work going on with micro fluidics and lab-on-the-chip testing. Walgreens signed with LabCorp just months after dropping Theranos, so retail (amazingly) are not frightened of “storefront” testing.

The best pivot would have been abandoning the company and starting fresh. Theranos did not build an infrastructure capable of doing other things, their failed testing device was a liability, not an asset. They had good people, but they shot down/ousted any critical thinking - no creative organization can thrive like this. And definitely more general abilities like communication, story telling, hiring, finding investors - it could have been a good base for a real organization with a real vision doing good in the world. Unfortunately, it did not. She is a master liar, this is why listening to her is so fascinating, it’s like a never ending car crash and you can’t look away. She knew full well her technology didn’t work, and was highly occupied with concealing it. When she says, in the video “we need to do a better job with communication” What she really says is “we need to learn how to lie better” Because for her “good communication” mean controlling the narrative completely.

@@bigdubi24 Nicely put, Michal. She was particularly dumb to keep aggressively firing anyone who told her something she didn't want to hear - people who were overwhelmingly correct, and people who often had decades more experience in the field than her high school education.