[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.