The Sexism That Led to the Elizabeth Holmes Trial

nytimes.com

6 points·bko··5 comments

> Elizabeth Holmes followed the Silicon Valley playbook to a T.

No, what Theranos did wasn't normal.

Theranos wasn't even a Silicon Valley favorite. They were famously passed on by many respected VCs who vetted the company.

There's a reason why the bulk of Theranos' investment cames from the Walton family, Rupert Murdoch, Betsy DeVos, and the Cox family instead of traditional VC firms.

Even Theranos' board was composed of people with political or military backgrounds instead of medtech backgrounds.

The reason Elizabeth Holmes is on trial is because the company was fraudulent from the start. Let's not try to rewrite history and pretend it was business as usual.

Yes, the common impression back in the day was that the Theranos folks were quite literally delusional and deeply in denial about the technically insurmountable challenges wrt. what they were trying to do. It was a recurring take here at HN too. Disappointing that this NYT article would be trying to rewrite history.

For context, this is not a NYT columnist writing this article - it's Ellen Pao guest writing an opinion column.

Because there's an agenda to push.

I was curious if and when this sexism argument would come up.

Why is Elizabeth Holmes in court and not Adam Neumann? Well, he might have had a bong chimney put in his office but he didn’t fake people’s HIV tests.

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