
Theranos Low on Cash After Settlement with Walgreens - JumpCrisscross
https://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-low-on-cash-after-settlement-with-walgreens-1501624665
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protomyth
A company has not only totally failed in the market but employed deception
which lead to a lawsuit, my question is how do they have any money left at
all? Isn't this such a miss that whatever was left should just be returned to
investors and the company close down. Does anyone have a scenario where this
company becomes viable?

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jackmott
Indeed, why isn't the entire board, and upper management in jail?

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frgtpsswrdlame
Have you looked at their board? It's basically the ultra-elite. How would you
even go after James Mattis? It's kind of sad but a brilliant illustration of
how much money can protect you. Theranos the company will fail but Theranos
the people will be fine, except for the whistleblower that is.

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jackmott
All we have to do is elect people who don't care about that crap.

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trizzump
We have. And the sewer/swamp is being drained as we speak. It's a slow
process, but it's happening regardless of how you feel emotionally.

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JumpCrisscross
"The embattled Silicon Valley firm told investors in June that it had about
$54 million left on hand. It was spending about $10 million a month then, but
anticipated further reducing its burn rate.

Theranos in June was seeking to raise about $50 million from existing
investors. The company declined to comment on whether it had succeeded in
doing so, or on its current cash position. It isn’t clear when Theranos will
make the payments to Walgreens."

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jackmott
Why would anyone give them money now?

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Overtonwindow
Even if the technology was truly promising, and the company had a clear plan
forward to develop and profit, I would not give them a cent so long as Holmes
is connected to the company. She's far too much of a liability.

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rpmcmurphy
But she wears a black turtleneck, just like Steve Jobs.

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Overtonwindow
Theranos seems to be an example of supreme hubris. Years from now, we will be
reading amazing business school research into how a company, seemingly built
on the ultimate vaporware, run by a woman who saw herself as the next Steve
Jobs, collapsed due to the CEO's hubris. I think if it weren't for Holmes
controlling interest she would have been let go a long time ago.

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paganel
> Years from now, we will be reading amazing business school research

Serious question: Is there a decent future for _business schools_? Has anyone
done a decent ROI calculation on them based on the financial and business
results of the past 15/20 years? Are they currently on an upward trend?
Downward? Stagnant?

The reason I'm asking is that from half a globe away (Eastern Europe) the MBA
and business school hype seems to have died a little compared to 10 years ago,
as in I don't get to see "this guy/lady graduated from Wharton School" all
that often when reading business/financial profiles.

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chongli
_Is there a decent future for business schools?_

Yes, as long as you understand their purpose. They exist as a form of class
signalling. [0] Many of the older forms of nepotism/cronyism have been made
illegal. Racial and IQ discrimination are also illegal. Therefore, business
schools and law schools fill the gap. They exist to tell an employer that the
applicant is either a member of their class or an ally.

[0]
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/did/what_is_signaling_really/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/did/what_is_signaling_really/)

~~~
sliverstorm
I'm not a fan of floods of MBAs, but surely the degree serves some purpose
other than class signalling. It seems like an exercise in typical engineer
hubris to think <other field> is a trivial pursuit <engineer> could learn in a
week.

Suppose you take a veteran engineer heading into management, and send him/her
to get an MBA. Will they come back no better for it?

~~~
lordnacho
> I'm not a fan of floods of MBAs, but surely the degree serves some purpose
> other than class signalling. It seems like an exercise in typical engineer
> hubris to think <other field> is a trivial pursuit <engineer> could learn in
> a week.

You won't find engineers saying that medical degrees are just BS.

Fact is, business degrees are thin on content. I know this because I studied
engineering and went to a business school. Now of course any degree has some
kind of content, but business content just has very little that would pass for
being academic content. The core stuff like Porter's Five Forces and Taylorism
is no different than what you'd "know" if you read some of those airport
magazines now and again.

Imagine an engineering class where you just watched a Discovery show about how
the Channel Tunnel was made. Yes, it's content, but nobody should be hired to
build tunnels based on having seen that video of the French guy shaking hands
with the British guy.

But that is how we hire executives. A guy who knows some things about the
history of some industry, and can talk about it confidently.

> Suppose you take a veteran engineer heading into management, and send
> him/her to get an MBA. Will they come back no better for it?

They'll know something about the culture of management, which will be useful
for duping someone into promoting him. Well actually I rather like the idea of
having technically trained managers, so I'd cheer that on. But not because
you'll know how to manage from studying management.

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kolbe
The fact that this company even still exists shows what kind of distorted and
unsustainable market we have right now.

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Qub3d
Non-paywalled Article (Vanity Fair):
[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/08/theranos-
walgreens-s...](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/08/theranos-walgreens-
settlement-running-out-of-cash)

It seems this whole thing was a "build hype now, invent the actual stuff
later" policy taken to the extreme. Elizabeth Holmes has done a disservice to
the tech community's reputation.

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jonwachob91
No she hasn't. She just signaled to the world all the VC funds staffed by
idiots that think they are the smartest peeps in the room. All the science and
life-science funds passed on Theranos b/c they could smell the bullshit from
Holmes a mile away. No one in the life-sciences or science industry was harmed
by Holmes lies. The only ones hurt were the patients, un-knowing employees,
and the inept vc funds.

~~~
Qub3d
> No one in the life-sciences or science industry was harmed by Holmes lies.
> The only ones hurt were the patients, un-knowing employees, and the inept vc
> funds.

None of these things fall under the category of Tech Industry, much less its
reputation, which is what I was speaking to. In the case of the patients, they
were rarely direct customers of Theranos and their actual provider (like
Walgreens) has the responsibility of arbitrage. Walgreens, of course, is doing
so via suing Theranos.

For the VC funds, risk is a necessary condition to "sit at the table", so if
Theranos bankrupts a VC, the blame rests only on the VC itself.

The only group I agree may have been hurt are the lower employees of Theranos.
Sadly, that seems to be part of the new American status quo. $company plays
fast and loose with the rules, and the grunts (or taxpayers) suffer the
consequences.

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WillyOnWheels
It's interesting that at this point any institutional investor still has funds
parked in Theranos. They must really think they know something that everyone
else does not know.

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pcsanwald
it can mean a variety of things, including that they don't want to realize a
loss on the current valuation.

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k1lly
That pretty much sums it up: [https://medium.com/multiple-personalities-
order/how-to-be-th...](https://medium.com/multiple-personalities-order/how-to-
be-the-best-investor-in-the-world-
ed31163fe965?source=linkShare-d933cdd0594b-1501693136)

~~~
Qub3d
These sentiments are essentially a rough paraphrasing of One Up on Wall Street
(published 17 years ago) [0] with crass language added "for the fucking
effect!"

[0]:
[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/762462.One_Up_On_Wall_St...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/762462.One_Up_On_Wall_Street)

