[minimaxir]

What's interesting is that venture capitalists are slamming media outlets for reporting on the issue.

Here's a rather silly rebuttal to a recent Theranos piece on The Information from Dave Morin: https://twitter.com/williamalden/status/658705178523258880

"Isn't it time as Millenials that we try to use the Internet to unearth deeper facts and see through these traditional smear campaigns?"

[OopsCriticality]

Morin's rebuttal is all the more laughable in the light that Theranos may be deficient in their quality systems: https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/27/9621026/fda-theranos-lab...

These aren't trivial problems that can be fixed "at the time of, or within a week of, the inspection", as Theranos claims.

[semi-extrinsic]

It's also laughable that he thinks the volume of blood drawn for a standard test is what makes him pass out. Nope, that's a purely psychological reaction. If we're talking about donating blood, I'd believe it could be a physical effect, but that's equal to 50 vials in a blood test...

[Crito]

Search for Theranos (and related terms) in HN history with the search bar at the bottom of the page.

A lot of high profile posters making very embarrassing defences of Theranos. Lots of thinly veiled accusations of ageism, sexism, ludditism, etc. I fear few will learn any lasting lessons from this saga.

[kevinskii]

There were also others who were making pointed and substantive critiques of Theranos on HN many months before any of these stories broke.

Edit: Some examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8182026

[Crito]

This is true. There were in fact people voicing their suspicion that Theranos was all a crock of shit in the very first discussions on Theranos on HN.

Warning signs were there. People were voicing specific technical concerns, as well as less specific concerns over the technical expertise of those involved. For the most part, these critics were brushed off. HN's voting system did not promote their comments; rather it promoted the apologetics.

[notacoward]

Random thought: maybe "gratuitous positivity" is as damaging as "gratuitous negativity" and should be treated the same way. Only seems fair, doesn't it?

[dredmorbius]

There's an alternative philosophy to consider, stoicism:

http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/why-stoicism-is-one-of-th...

[jonesb6]

I knew there was a word that described my attitude towards tech journalism.

[volaski]

It's a conflict of interest only if there actually is a conflict of interest. Tell me, what "conflict of interest" does Dave Morin have with Theranos?

[7Figures2Commas]

It doesn't look like there's a conflict of interest (Morin, as far as I can tell, is not a Theranos investor), but I think you're overlooking the fact that a lot of prominent tech investors are sitting on investments in companies that have been significantly overvalued, and the cracks in some of these companies are starting to become apparent.

There's a decent discussion on this here[1]. Red flags, like reports of late-stage investors marking down the value of some of their unicorn investments, are starting to mount and I think that has to be worrisome for investors who are sitting on large unrealized gains that could easily evaporate.

Expect to see a lot more hand-waving on the part of investors as prominent unicorns come apart at the seams.

Morin, according to his AngelList profile, is an investor in a number of unicorns, including AirBnB, Dropbox, Evernote and Slack. Two of the mutual funds that invested in Dropbox have reportedly marked down their investments[2] and some media reports suggest Evernote is in trouble[3].

[1] https://pando.com/2015/10/27/techpocalypse-coming/

[2] https://www.theinformation.com/mutual-funds-mark-down-dropbo...

[3] http://www.businessinsider.com/evernote-is-in-deep-trouble-2...

[minimaxir]

Not a conflict of interest in the legal sense, but more of a conflict of interest in the ethical sense since venture capitalists have a lot to lose if the allegations have any truth.

I edited the parent post for clarity.

[notsony]

Perhaps Dave can shine a light on a path forward for Elizabeth, by introducing her to his friends in Indonesia.