Yes. In 2003, when she started the company at 19, Draper etc invested & other well known SJWs like Henry Kissinger & George Shultz joined her board because of her gender. They both knew & give a shit that a decade later people would be talking about diversity. For 12 years, she flipped her blonde hair & the men were fooled-& the money just kept pouring in.
Do you really think VCs would invest $400 million & Walgreens & Cleveland Clinic would do deals with this company, that put people's health at risk & create massive liability, without diligence because she is a woman?
Maybe Theranos will fail. Obviously fraud is unacceptable. And the lack of peer review helps no one. But, the idea that she was funded because of her gender is absurd. If anything, given all the data on this topic, she was funded in spite of it- because she was trying something very difficult & potentially revolutionary--not some dumb app.
I hope you'll reconsider your thinking on this. Its hard enough for women to get funded; maybe it's worth giving them the benefit of the doubt when they do.
> Do you really think VCs would invest $400 million &
> Walgreens & Cleveland Clinic would do deals with this
> company, that put people's health at risk & create
> massive liability, without diligence
Yes.
One way to help yourself swallow a bad decision is to look at all the other people also making it, and convince yourself that if they're doing it, it must be all right.
Investments in companies mostly make money evaporate as a standard practice.
Large-scale investors gravitate towards big risk/big reward ventures which require significant capital because it's saves having to make a zillion angel-scale deals. Plus, it seems sexier with extra-awesome brownie points to go after something which may be r/evolutionary.
PS: Color was a snausage clusterfuck of dbag, hubris behaviors that ruined the team (and the venture). Hopefully, that elicited a corrective learning experience.
You bash him because he had the audacity to wonder and have an opinion about how gender could have related to the publicity and valuations.. considering how we are constantly bombarded by p.c click-bait articles on female founders and such stuff, it does not seem so silly after all. Then you use the gender card to have us give her the benefit of the doubt just because she is a woman... well played :)
Do you really think VCs would invest $400 million & Walgreens & Cleveland Clinic would do deals with this company, that put people's health at risk & create massive liability, without diligence because she is a woman?
Maybe Theranos will fail. Obviously fraud is unacceptable. And the lack of peer review helps no one. But, the idea that she was funded because of her gender is absurd. If anything, given all the data on this topic, she was funded in spite of it- because she was trying something very difficult & potentially revolutionary--not some dumb app.
I hope you'll reconsider your thinking on this. Its hard enough for women to get funded; maybe it's worth giving them the benefit of the doubt when they do.