Do you really think VCs would invest $400 million & Walgreens & Cleveland Clinic would do deals with this company, that put people's health at risk & create massive liability, without diligence because she is a woman?
Maybe Theranos will fail. Obviously fraud is unacceptable. And the lack of peer review helps no one. But, the idea that she was funded because of her gender is absurd. If anything, given all the data on this topic, she was funded in spite of it- because she was trying something very difficult & potentially revolutionary--not some dumb app.
I hope you'll reconsider your thinking on this. Its hard enough for women to get funded; maybe it's worth giving them the benefit of the doubt when they do.
> Do you really think VCs would invest $400 million &
> Walgreens & Cleveland Clinic would do deals with this
> company, that put people's health at risk & create
> massive liability, without diligence
One way to help yourself swallow a bad decision is to look at all the other people also making it, and convince yourself that if they're doing it, it must be all right.
Large-scale investors gravitate towards big risk/big reward ventures which require significant capital because it's saves having to make a zillion angel-scale deals. Plus, it seems sexier with extra-awesome brownie points to go after something which may be r/evolutionary.
PS: Color was a snausage clusterfuck of dbag, hubris behaviors that ruined the team (and the venture). Hopefully, that elicited a corrective learning experience.
It's more like starting Intel than Apple.
I do agree with you though that it's probably her sales ability rather than her gender that led to the investments. I think it's likely the investors thought she'd make a great cover story, and that contributed somewhat to her success, but I doubt her gender was anywhere near the defining reason.
She's basically Color's Bill Nguyen. I wish I was as good as these guys at hustling.
Yet apparently none of that matters because his most recent venture was a flop. What I'd do for that track record!