It's worth keeping in mind that, by and large, this is how the oligarch class thinks. Their top priorities are protecting and justifying their wealth and power. A journalist who exposes a massive fraud and probably saved lives isn't someone performing a public service - he's an enemy. There is no mea culpa. The relationship between the oligarch's own interests and the public interest is purely predatory and adversarial.

These priorities are relatively easy to see when it comes to techno-weirdos like Tim Draper and Peter Thiel or cartoonish megalomaniacs like Bezos, but they govern the behavior of even otherwise staid and conventional oligarchs (see, for instance, Eric Schmidt strong-arming the New America Foundation to fire everyone involved in antitrust policy research).

I like the way you think. Are there any books you recommend on understanding how oligarchs think? What do you think is going through the mind of oligarchs with more geopolitical concerns, like Putin?

For a literary treatment once can read Ernst Jünger - the Mauretanier-Orden pops up every now and then in the course of his writings.

This is a useful academic introduction:

https://www.amazon.com/Oligarchy-Jeffrey-Winters/dp/05211829...

Wow—this guy really buys into the hype machine to fix all problems. There was a reason most top VCs turned this down—for most of the use cases proposed there is intrinsically too much natural heterogeneity in blood that you need to use a larger blood draw. Journalists were not going to change that fact that this machine was never going to work.

Tim clearly has some screws loose. I just learned today that he has a fabulously wealthy father; that explains a lot.

While it's clear that the vast majority of us do not agree with Draper's comments here, let's not attempt to discredit someone based on their (wealthy or otherwise) financial background.

I took this to mean something like "that explains how he has been able to become and continue to be a high-profile venture capitalist despite having a screw loose", rather than "that explains why he has a screw loose".

His father was one of the earliest of the modern venture capitalists. And among the first in California, circa 1959 (just two years after the founding of Fairchild Semi).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Draper_III

> And among the first in California, circa 1959

His grandfather founded the venture capital firm in 1959. His father was an associate that joined at the time of the founding.

So what he's saying is that the two things he doesn't know anything about are business and badgers.

Not quite, "...two OF the things..."

I'm also irritated by the condescending, misogynistic undercurrent of claim. It seems doubtful the same assertion would have been made if Theranos had been founded/chaired by a man.

This belief that women are without agency is stubbornly persistent and omnipresent.

Yes this is true, but you have to admit her story was helped on the up-ramp.

Remind me of my distant friend. He was constantly drink driving and eventually got caught and lost his drivers license. He couldnt get to work on time with buses constantly late, so they fired him. 5 years later he still blames the cop for being fired.

The Scooby Doo defense.