[bbctol]

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.

[Gibbon1]

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.