The whole 'coming out of nowhere' thing is another red flag. This idea that an undergraduate built revolutionary medical tech in their dorm room no less? Who invests in that? With no data, no trials, no feasibility study?
Holmes hasn't actually claimed to have come up with any new discoveries or revolutionary technology while an undergraduate, I think. She had the idea for the company and decided to drop out. Of course, magazines like Inc. had no issues playing up her genius with Silicon Valley hyperbole.
Several people -- her professor? I forget -- warned her the blood test wouldn't work, even before she dropped out.
People who are used to software success stories, not medical tech success stories. An undergraduate having an idea that changes the world is possible in the relatively unconstrained space of software (which the bubble is used to), less so in the long, dull slog of primary scientific research.
Reminds me of what my patent attorney friend said about the difference between copyrights and patents as it relates to software. Copyright serves writing, composing, etc very well because it's a difficult low output craft. Patents serves physical technologies because developing solutions to physical problems is as hard as it gets.
With software there very much more tends to be a direct map between requirements and the solution. It's definitely 'work' which should have some protection but not to the extent of copyright or patents.
Point to make. With a software company if you have a half decent marketable idea, money, and competent people to execute, you have a business. Because the engineers can make the software work. Maybe it's profitable, maybe not so much, but the result is real.
Biotech? Nope. High high chance that your engineers will hit a wall and not be able to make the idea work. And then you have nothing. It sounds like Theranos built a biotech company like as if it were software company and lied when they hit the wall.
I could believe someone making a rbeakthrough and then leaving college to commercialize it. That's what happened with Google and a bunch of other unicorn firms, and I'm plenty willing to believe in the posibility of innovation/discovery by a fresh thinker who noticed a pearl among the gravel.
But when Elizabeth Holmes burst upon the scene, she just seemed too good to be true - gee, you're an original, off-the-wall thinker and innovator and you're a goody-two-shoes workaholic of the kind MBAs and investors fantasize about? Nah.
My sister is very much that hard worker/high achiever personality but she's intellectually very conservative and compartmentalized. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this - indeed it's part of what makes her good at her medical profession - but innovators usually also demonstrate a playful streak and a tolerance for failure rather than needing to be perceived as perfect.
I wonder if this apparent fraud will result in criminal prosecution. It would be a sad end for la Holmes to matriculate at San Quentin.
Several people -- her professor? I forget -- warned her the blood test wouldn't work, even before she dropped out.