The article feels like it was written on a tight deadline by sleep deprived journalist trying to get something out. Theranos is a case of a place that calls itself flat when it really isn't. If anything the moral issue presented here is more significant in hierarchies than in flat structures. In a hierarchical structure a few bad actors can do a lot without anyone even knowing about it. For this reason, more explicit hierarchies typically have a series of checks to try to curtail this issue. The lack of these checks at Theranos is less about being flat and more about the fact that it was a heirarchical org that refused to act accordingly.