Re: The biggest Theranos Red Flag was it's Board
The pervasive problem with all of these cash graveyards is the implicit belief that Jobsian "reality distortion fields" can defeat science. They can't. If any founder of a science based startup regards Jobs as a role model - run.
Debunking Theranos never required anything more sophisticated than popping down to your local hospital and asking an MLSO if it is possible to get reliable diagnostic information from microliter, trans-dermal blood samples. It isn't. Blood is insufficiently homogeneous and with such a small sample significant contamination from the surface of the skin is inevitable. You can get crude estimates of a restricted number of highly soluble compounds that way (diabetics and glucose, for example) but little more. You don't need PhDs or Nobel Prizes or CDC Presidents, you just need to ask someone whose actual day to day business is blood sample analysis.
The startup I'm waiting to see is the specialist Law Firm dedicated to locating, debunking and financially eviscerating these farcical scams and the credulous VCs who fuel them.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
