Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Five Investor Lessons From The Downfall of Elizabeth Holmes
Five Investor Lessons From The Downfall of Elizabeth Holmes
Holmes
Blood-testing start-up Theranos has become a parable of Silicon Valley over-reach. But the
trial of founder Elizabeth Holmes, who has just been found guilty of fraud, contains wider
First, they should apply scientific scepticism to fantastical scientific claims. The starting point
here should have been Theranos’s claims it had cracked the problem of drawing blood for tests
from a finger. Capillary blood, unlike venous blood drawn from an arm, contains fluids from
Hype is intrinsic to the culture of Silicon Valley. The computer industry’s marketing inspired
the term “vapourware” back in the 1980s. But overpromising and underdelivering is
Second, investors must distinguish between sensible protection for intellectual property and
secrecy so intense it signals cover-ups. Having secured patents, there was no reason why
Theranos should not have made its proprietary equipment available for testing by
In healthcare, that sort of transparency is essential — though there are growing concerns
Silicon Valley’s paranoid culture is eroding it. John Ioannidis, a Stanford professor and early
sceptic on Theranos, co-authored a paper showing that more than half of healthcare unicorns
The third lesson is that charisma carries some bosses further than their capabilities merit.
Holmes’s status as a rare female in a male-dominated world combined with her self-belief and
charisma to create a “halo” effect that stifled disbelief. Her charm and plausibility have been
公众号/B 站/微博:三言两语杂货社
compared to that of Bernard Madoff, the US financier who perpetrated the largest Ponzi
scheme in history.
Fourth, investors must make their own minds up on a business, discounting celebrity
endorsements. Holmes cosied up to establishment titans such as George Shultz, Jim Mattis and
Henry Kissinger. She created the illusion that her technology was validated using the logos of
The bigwigs gulled by Holmes avoid a portion of hindsight blame by virtue of her penchant for
fraud. But there was also a glaring illogicality in their mistake. It was to assume big
breakthroughs are as likely in the intractable physical world — in this case, blood testing —
The fifth lesson is that a proposition that seems too good to be true generally will be.