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Forbes Just Cut Its Estimate of Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes's Net Worth From $4.5 Billion To Zero (qz.com)
It wasn't long agon when Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and CEO of Theranos, was regarded as one of the U.S.'s most successful female entrepreneurs with Forbes estimating her net work to be $4.5 billion. Thanks to all the evidence that Theranos' technology is largely a gimmick and false advertising, the publication has revised that figure to essentially zero, reports Quartz. From the report: Last year, Forbes pegged its value at $9 billion, based on the sale of stakes to investors. Since that lofty estimate, Theranos has been battered by bad news (paywalled; alternate source), starting with reports in the Wall Street Journal in October that its tests were inaccurate. That triggered an inquiry from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which proposed banning Holmes from the industry. Forbes went back to its slide rule and, after talking to venture capitalists and industry experts, recalculated Theranos' value at $900 million, based on its intellectual property and money it has already raised. "At such a low valuation, Holmes' stake is essentially worth nothing," Matt Herper writes. That's because Theranos' other investors own preferred shares, and since Holmes owns common shares, they would get paid first if the company were forced to liquidate.
It's an interesting question: how come so many of these "successful females in IT" are just charlatans? For another example the ex-CEO of Reddit, married to an extremely unscrupulous gay man.
Perhaps they view technology as a "social construct"? That's quickly turning into a dog-whistle word for a con-man. Or con-woman, whatever.
Replaced by 3rd world commodity labor. Soon to be replaced by robots.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
What I don't get is did no one bother to see if her so-called game changing blood tests actually WORKED? I get the impression, no
I'm just kind of dumbfounded that no one thought to check with some actual PhDs, MDs, researchers, etc.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
I have no common cause with the Libertarian neanderthals around here that clearly despise and fear women, but in this case, Theranos looks like little more than a scam. But I wouldn't like that to the CEO being a female, since there are no lack of male-run scam outfits who are briefly market darlings before it's revealed that the company's core technology is a load of unmitigated bullshit.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The original article was essentially bullshit
If true, then Theranos could quickly debunk their BS by publicly demonstrating their technology in front of credible experts. Please explain why they haven't done that.
The dead giveaway on Theranos is the splurging of publicity in mass mainstream media without anything at all published in relevant peer-reviewed specialist journals.
As soon as anyone asks why they would do that, the answer is obvious. You'd think.
Aberrations have appeared in my destiny prognostication engine!
More likely it's the fact that Silicon Valley is a liberal/SJW stronghold, where investors will happily throw money at any company with a female CEO.
As we say in California, what are smoking and where can I get some?
http://valleywag.gawker.com/silicon-valley-named-13th-best-conservative-city-in-ame-1458838034
GAWKER?!?!?!?!
Yeah, that's a trustworthy source.
Jesus H. Fucking Christ, you scraped right through the bottom of the barrel.
I would however suggest that you have a common cause with some group, due to your use of a several highly derogatory terms for people who apparently do not agree with you, but hey.
More to the point, I think a major reason people are giving the responses they are to this long slow train wreck of Theranos is how Ms Holmes was held up to be such a glowing example of the truth and light behind women in business by certain groups. It has become quite apparently that this particular train wreck mostly comes down to her belief that hype and contacts has a billion dollar market value, and others supporting her in this. It is quite clear looking back at the hype machine that a good quantity of that has come from 'And look, she is a woman!', so that is a factor, one that she was quite happy to play.
The takeaway here should really be 'step carefully before you raise someone to sainthood for your cause'. This is of course a common mistake, especially these days (by many many different types of groups of course).
The interesting part comes next - Do the people who truly believe in their cause try and shout down any detraction of her as being sexist, or do they quietly admit there is some egg-on-face here and that she was not the saint she was held up to be. Time will tell.