How was she able to go so far with her deception? I mean, when one sells a machine, it's extremely easy to verify if its performance matches its claims. And yet she was able to convince investors into blowing billions of dollars in this thing.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-theranos-deception/

 

There are other examples: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29459896

 

There are other examples: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29459896

Yeah, I heard about that one too ... it's unbelievable ... and again, the product's claims is something that could've easily been verified from the very beginning... even by non-experts in the field.

 

just another example of a well known Silly Valley business plan. Fake it until you make it. I’m surprised you guys are surprised. Let me think now: Gilead killing patients in the testing process and now doing a booming business, diplomasandmore.com, alibaba.com. Etc etc.

Think about it. Steve Jobs was not an engineer. Just a very good salesman with his well known “reality distortion field”. That’s the world we are in, despite what you may think.

 

Most of the "booming economy" of the San Francisco Bay Area is based on a flood of government money and a complete fraud.

It's a ponzie scheme on the verge of collapse.

 

I see you’ve not bought into the myth. Me neither. Consider HP as an example, corporate history portrays a couple smart guys in their garage that hit it big by selling their audio gear to Disney. What could be more American and apple pie than that? In reality they made it selling gear to the military for that big war that came along just at the right time. And don’t start me on that electric car company...

 

How was she able to go so far with her deception? I mean, when one sells a machine, it's extremely easy to verify if its performance matches its claims. And yet she was able to convince investors into blowing billions of dollars in this thing.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-theranos-deception/

I don't know very much at all about her scam. The notion of quick, inexpensive blood tests is not at all an unattainable dream. I worked on the design of Beacon Biotech's chip mentioned here:

http://beaconbiotechnology.com/technologypage2.html

The kick-off meeting for this chip was enlightening and entertaining. They described their technology and I commented, "You mean you can really DO that?" They responded that every step they were doing was pretty standard fare in their industry. We then described out proposal for counting the photons given off by their material and one of their guys commented, "You mean you can really DO that?" But, like them, everything we were doing was pretty standard fare in our industry. Not to say that both sides didn't have hurdles to overcome as we were both pushing the limits -- but nothing ground breaking on either side by itself.

That made me realize (even more than some of my other work had) how insulated tech communities are. We often imagine how our capabilities could do miraculous things if only some capability outside our field was available and we just assume that because the capability sounds so sci-fi to us that it can't possibly exist. Yet someone in that other field is thinking the same thing in reverse. If only we had a really good way to cross-pollinate all of these tech fields so that any reasonably size group of people in one community had a fairly encompassing view of the capabilities of the majority of the other communities. Imagine what could be achieved. Of course, there are all kinds of efforts to make inroads in that direction, but I don't think any significant dent has been made or is likely to be made any time soon. We all simply have enough on our plates doing what we do within our community to have the time or inclination to look outward.

 

That made me realize (even more than some of my other work had) how insulated tech communities are.

And of course mutual ignorance extends far beyond just tech. A great deal of my success in both tech and business was due to the fact that I had feet in both disciplines. I met very few people that could move in between, and so I had less folks to compete with in my niche. Of course, the downside of being cross-discipline is that you're no good at either.

 

I think her looks had no small impact on the success of her scam. Would it have worked if she looked like @joeyd999's avatar? I think not.

 

I think her looks had no small impact on the success of her scam. Would it have worked if she looked like @joeyd999's avatar? I think not.

Oh no... if it had been joey, he would've had to present rigorous scientific proof and numerous independently monitored field tests ... for free!

 

I think her looks had no small impact on the success of her scam. Would it have worked if she looked like @joeyd999's avatar? I think not.

Almost certainly true. Attractive people (of any gender) have a much easier time gaining people's trust. There's probably also factors that go both directions, too. A con-artist is likely to know this and therefore likely take pains to be as attractive as they can be. There's possibly also a self-selection factor at play in that attractive people are likely to discover that they can trade on their looks at a young age and then more easily get lured into doing so more and more.

I would suspect, however, that an unattractive male probably has a better chance of pulling of a scam like this than an unattractive female. For whatever reason, there are more ways for a man to look "respectable" or "distinguished" by how they dress and groom themselves or how they carry themselves or talk than there are for a woman (at least that's my impression). Having said that, I can think of a number of females that, while not at all attractive, I could easily imagine being able to garner the trust necessary to pull of a big scam because of their ability to speak with supreme confidence and conviction. Of course, this presumes that they could maintain that air of confidence and conviction about something they didn't believe in as well as something they did.

 

Oh no... if it had been joey, he would've had to present rigorous scientific proof and numerous independently monitored field tests ... for free!

And imagine how much worse it would be if joey looked like his avatar!

 

And imagine how much worse it would be if joey looked like his avatar!

My avatar is damn handsome compared to me.

 

My avatar is damn handsome compared to me.

Touche, old man, touche.

 

My avatar is damn handsome compared to me.

That was my assumption.

 

There are other examples: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29459896

There are always people out there selling snake oil and there are always people more than willing to buy it.

I'm convinced that the overwhelming number of products and services advertised on the radio are completely bogus.

What amazes me (though it probably shouldn't any more) are the number of scammers that successfully sucker in big corporations and government agencies.

 

My avatar is damn handsome compared to me.

The question? "was the media duped by Holms" I ask when is the media not duped with a to good to be true story, put it to the press and apologize after. Average people believe it if it's in the news right?

kv

 

I see you’ve not bought into the myth. Me neither. Consider HP as an example, corporate history portrays a couple smart guys in their garage that hit it big by selling their audio gear to Disney. What could be more American and apple pie than that? In reality they made it selling gear to the military for that big war that came along just at the right time. And don’t start me on that electric car company...

"That electric car company" is another huge scam put together by a highly politically connected entrepreneur (Elon Musk) and the republican/democratic party.

At our transit agency, I used to work on electric trolley buses that also used a battery back up (emergency power unit) in case the overhead power went out. Charging and running the buses on EPU consumed a lot of energy and it was obviously nowhere as efficient as running directly from the overhead line.

Never the less, the transit agency now wants to convert all the trolley buses from overhead power to 100% battery and install charging stations in every garage. I guess the Second law of thermodynamics and entropy can be thrown out provided there's enough political clout.

 

"That electric car company" is another huge scam ...

The other major manufacturers don’t agree and are all jumping in to catch up. If Tesla fails it’ll be because they’ve accomplished their main goal - to make EVs mainstream - even if they’re not around to see it. You’re right that there are efficiency issues with EVs but ICE technology is pretty bad also. EVs may or may not win on efficiency but they will absolutely win on maintenance costs and TCO.
They’ll fill certain niches first (such as semi trucks and city buses) and knock off the other segments one by one. You may already own your last ICE auto.

 

The other major manufacturers don’t agree and are all jumping in to catch up. If Tesla fails it’ll be because they’ve accomplished their main goal - to make EVs mainstream - even if they’re not around to see it. You’re right that there are efficiency issues with EVs but ICE technology is pretty bad also. EVs may or may not win on efficiency but they will absolutely win on maintenance costs and TCO.
They’ll fill certain niches first (such as semi trucks and city buses) and knock off the other segments one by one. You may already own your last ICE auto.

And on the other hand, although the production of electricity is also pollutant, the wastes produced are concentrated in the very few sites where it's generated, and that makes it easier to manage and control.