Are Silicon Valley investors stupid enough to throw their money at any bright young dropout with a change-the-world idea? The fact that some Ivy League dropouts found billion dollar companies does not mean a particular Ivy League dropout chosen at random (or one of the many who express a desire to change the world) has a non-zero chance of returning $$$ on investments.
Demonstrating that inteligence and common sense are seperate traits, the latter not always accompanying the former.
There's all sorts of hurdles that a company might not get over:
- Tech turns out to be a red herring - Tech works, but competitors also get it to work - You can't scale the team - People buy the product, but you need critical mass to make it worthwhile - etc
What Theranos had was merely the hope of developing such a process, with many reasons to believe that it's simply impossible. That's insanely risky.
What I see is a cult leader who happens to be recruiting in Silicon Valley rather than (say) Hollywood.