| ▲ | sschueller 4 hours ago |
| Yet people who met her were stupid enough to think she is some kind of genius and gave her millions of dollars. Sometimes I think if Charles Manson started a startup instead of killing people he would have had millions in investments and be praised as some sort of wunder kind... |
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| ▲ | covercash 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Or Charles Manson could weasel his way into existing startups, claim them as his own, become the richest man in the world, AND kill so many more people than he ever thought possible! |
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| ▲ | timcobb 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| He could have done this if he was from a more privileged background for sure. |
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| ▲ | aa-jv 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| >were stupid enough to think she is some kind of genius and gave her millions of dollars. The tech industry is rife with such suckers. We wouldn't have the wealth we have without them. |
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| ▲ | OroPla 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Who was it again that said money is thrown out the window without any concern, you just have to stand below the right window? It was true then and it is true now. Really helps if the money you are throwing out isn't your own, too. |
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| ▲ | jiaosdjf 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| All founders and CEOs are like this, to the point that when I meet a person in leadership who clearly isn't a sociopath my default reaction is to assume that they're not successful. The only reason I'm somewhat confident that I am not a sociopath is because I am still frequently presented business ideas that make me think "WTF how did you even think of that and why am I so angry that it's probably going to work" |
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| ▲ | timcobb 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > who clearly isn't a sociopath Or is a sociopath, just not *clearly*. |
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| ▲ | tantalor 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Hot take: She is a genius. Just not the kind of genius that can invent new products or lead a successful company. If she had partnered with a competent engineer and CEO, Theranos might still be in business. The company wasn't doomed from the start. It began with a real vision. |
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| ▲ | sarchertech 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah but the “vision” was just the ideas of a kid with 2 semesters of college classes under her belt saying “what if”. It was never going to work. She had tons of competent engineers working for her. The basic idea was and is unworkable. If she had come up with an actual good idea with only 2 semesters of experience then sure you could say she was a genius. Even if she couldn’t successfully build a company. But the most you say is that she is a really good conman. | | |
| ▲ | embedding-shape an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > The basic idea was and is unworkable. To be fair, lots of "basic ideas" are unworkable until someone bangs their head against it enough times and suddenly it is workable. Sometimes the environment or available technology just have to change/improve/scale a tiny bit more for something to go from unworkable to workable. Still, what she did was obvious fraud straight up, not just "lets bang our head against this until it works". | | | |
| ▲ | milindsmart an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | And surely with all the competent engineers working for her, she could have figured out where to pivot to, once she understood that the original basic idea was unworkable. Plenty of founders keep pivoting, all the time in the beginning, so it says something about her that she doubled down on it to the point of fraud. |
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