Consider that the requirements and circumstances are totally different in our industry vs. hers. She has to do a shitload of testing, she has to wait years... but our M.O. is to move fast and break things. Could you imagine being in her industry, and having the patience to go through years of trials and testing and passing through regulations?
She seems to have some good qualities needed to be a founder: believing in yourself to a delusional degree, being good at getting money an getting people to believe in you, etc. Maybe if she was in our industry, she could have been quite impressive and successful in running a company.
She hired Steve Jobs’ right-hand man. He quit because she was too abusive and too delusional. It’s fair to say she’s fundamentally different from any competent CEO, ignoring the fact that she chose to deploy medical devices to the field.
Maybe instead of trying to lower the standards of the medical industry, we should raise the standards of the tech industry.
I have worked at two reasonably successful healthcare startups. No 'unicorns', but they paid good salaries, made money, and were purchased for a decent price by bigger players. We waited. In the meantime we sold to researchers and performed LDT's (as Theranos did) to bring in revenue.
You do your work and put in the time. There is no other reasonable option. We didn't require a lying, arrogant CEO to pull it off.
I think a lot of technology people don't understand the scope of regulatory and medical implications of working in life sciences. It's not just simple as "code it up and flip the switch!" Theranos isn't the only firm I've seen crash and bail due to that cavalier attitude.
Theranos was doing standard lab tests, like blood electrolytes. Blood electrolytes are highly regulated by the body and are only abnormal in serious medical illness. If your blood sodium level is too low (hyponatremia) that's a medical emergency and you need to be in the ER (hyponatremia can indicate end-organ failure like renal failure, heart failure; it can also indicate serious endocrine abnormalities like SIADH or too much water intake 'frat-boy' syndrome). Uncorrected hyponatremia can lead to permanent neurological disease (classically brainstem herniation).
>She tells former colleagues, according to the two executives, that she is greeted by well-wishers on the street who are rooting for her resurrection.
That says it all. Beyond the fraud, beyond the obscene breaches of fiduciary duty, it all basically reduces down to a severely delusional person, operating in an environment where delusion in it's more acceptable forms is seen as a positive attribute.