Well stated. I'm a retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist who relied on accurate blood test results to manage major intracranial procedures. No way would I accept a finger-stick hemoglobin/hematocrit as the basis on which to decide on the need for blood transfusion. Why? Because as a medical intern I did them routinely, because I had to get a number to present at morning rounds and even our excellent STAT Lab (LAC-USC Medical Center in Los Angeles) sometimes couldn't turn around a properly drawn venous sample in time. Because it was often difficult to get sufficient blood volume from a finger-stick to fill even the tiny glass capillary tubes we used to "spin a 'crit" in a centrifuge, I would occasionally squeeze a patient's fingertip to enhance blood flow. Those results were sometimes wildly at variance with later venous samples from the same patient. Why? Because they were diluted with interstitial fluid along with capillary blood, the result of my manual pressure on the fingertip.

As an engineer, I'd translate this as "the signal-to-noise ratio for a finger stick test is much too low for accurate results."

This is the first explanation I've ever heard in 30 years over dozens of physicians/nurses for why a blood draw needs so much sample. And I wonder if young med students/nurses are taught that little fact about squeezing a fingerstick...

My residents were ;-)

>determine traffic on a freeway by taking a brief glance through a tiny slit in a piece of paper.

taking 10 such brief glances may allow for some good enough probabilistic estimate though. Upon hearing first time about Theranos in 2013 i thought that they would do something like it, i.e. statistical approach based on some data mining as they would collect large number of samples, etc. - a typical SV tech based approach. One look at Holmes' black turtleneck photo and Glassdoors reviews mostly talking about Ballwani, and i remember immediately thinking - any even minimally advanced R&D is just not possible there.

What's so bad about the black turtleneck?

In the tech industry, if it's worn as a uniform, it's probably a dead give-away that the person should be avoided (especially if there's any other supporting evidence related to negative behavior). It's a Jobsian mimic. There was one Steve Jobs, he was extraordinary in some ways, and he wasn't very nice. There isn't going to be another, he was the product of a unique circumstance. The next great person/s will be their own composition made up of the time and place.

Her fake voice is a lot more indicative than the black turtleneck though.

Ah. I read that she picked the black turtleneck as a compromise between being professional and not drawing too much attention to herself or dressing "too feminine" -- though who knows how true that is.

Because invariably whoever is mimicking Jobs' outerwear didn't go through the same process that Jobs did, nor develop the same philosophy that led to making that process even possible or an opportunity to spot, to arrive at that turtleneck. The turtleneck is a representation of Jobs' ideals and thinking around focus, quality, grace, craftsmanship, teamwork and many other attributes he admired. Even those people who go to the trouble to get the same kind of turtleneck from the same Japanese maker that Jobs did, I can practically guarantee they have only the vaguest clue why Jobs arrived at that turtleneck.

It is far more enlightening and satisfying for those people to develop their own sensibilities, find personal ways to express them, and through their force of will and drive, imbue their own meaning into their own habits.