
Theranos fires 41% of staffers - empressplay
http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/06/technology/theranos-layoffs-41-percent/index.html
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kqr2
Previous thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13338996](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13338996)

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bertil
I feel like any bad news about Theranos (or Yahoo) is just piling on what I
perceive as the corpse of a company.

Am I the only one who is just mostly surprised that it’s still around, and
enough people on Hacker News care about it?

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chaostheory
> and enough people on Hacker News care about it?

Sadly I feel the reason why it's still clinging on to Hacker News is because
of Al Bundy syndrome. Some people like watching others fail because it makes
them feel better about their current situation. Of course, I could always be
completely wrong; I just don't have any other explanation as to why boring and
predictable news gets voted up on HN. I'm just happy that it didn't get too
much upvoting.

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kqr2
Better known as Schadenfreude:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude)

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suprgeek
What is really galling about the whole saga is that this will end up costing
lives and pain.

1\. Some people might have gotten incorrect blood work results as a
consequence of hyped-but-BS techniques like the nano-tainers. Some portion of
these will result in unnecessary treatments/pain/suffering.

2\. Any future player in the same space must now work triple hard to bring
real changes to healthcare stuff - this means delays and lives lost that would
have been otherwise saved.

Elizabeth Holmes belongs in prison - plain and simple. There is blood on her
hands.

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wonko1
I think this is a little overstated (not much but a little).

I just read through their Yelp reviews (shockingly they're pretty good). What
surprised me most was that doctors were sending people to Theranos centers to
get tested. Perhaps the doctors should be similarly liable? FDA certainly
screwed up also.

You're second point feels like a bigger issue. VCs seems to make some
absolutely awful and huge investments in healthcare/science/biotech. Throw
100s of millions at companies based on the CEOs personally, and seemingly do
little to no DD. I don't get it.

This attitude crushes many potential companies. Particularly science-based
startups with CEOs with the ability to execute, and good technical background
but who can't sell as well as someone like Holmes.

If we could get VCs to make saner decisions in health care that would be a
major step forward for society.

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Naritai
What's the merit of using 'fired' instead of 'laid off' in this round?

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devoply
100% more click baity. If you look at their url it says laid off, so someone
changed the title after it was published.

cnn.com/2017/01/06/technology/theranos-layoffs-41-percent/index.html

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automatwon
_Theranos said on Friday it has fired 155 employees_

If you read the article it says fired. This is also reflected in the title,
and in the headline.

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devoply
Oh really. Well if you actually go read what they said on their website:

[https://news.theranos.com/2017/01/06/company-re-engineers-
op...](https://news.theranos.com/2017/01/06/company-re-engineers-operations/)

"company has identified a core team of 220 professionals to execute on its
business plans, and informed 155 employees that their positions have been
eliminated"

The company does not say it fired anyone, they use the word eliminated. Firing
usually means someone is terminated for cause. Not that they are being let go
because the company does not need them any more.

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metaprinter
Good grief. They don't use the word 'terminated' either. They just say the
positions were 'eliminated'.

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jbob2000
Their technology is a sham, the company literally does nothing but busy-work
for investors. How did they not fire everyone?

