[Mick]

I was always skeptical that a college dropout could invent something that several blood testing companies that devote hundreds of millions of dollars to R&D could not do. My Silicon Valley friends in the venture community were always extremely wary of her (and indeed, as Vanity Fair notes, almost none of the investment in Theranos was Valley money) because of how secretive and too-good-to-be-true it seemed. Given the insane things that venture money chases, it was always very telling that little money was directed there.

I wasn't skeptical enough.  I worked for a company like that a couple of decades ago.  Promised an amazing technology...really an extrapolation of existing, incompatible technologies that, somehow, they were going to integrate seamlessly. 

I was brought on board to find $5 million in venture capital.  I went to some of the A-List VCs to seek a first round of funding, had auditions with two of them.  One sent the very, very tough chairman of a multibillion dollar company to meet with me (COO), the CEO -- who hadn't gone to college and had delusions of grandeur, but had founded one moderately successful company -- and our head of sales.  He listened to our pitch, asked a dozen challenging questions, stood up and said, "Thanks gentlemen, I've seen all I need to see.  Mick, can you walk me out to my car?"  I walked him out to his car, he said "Look, it's a very good idea, and it's a very big market.  But if the big guys want to get into that market, it would cost less than 2% of their R&D budget.  And your CEO told me 'they'll never think of it.'  Trust me, they will think of it.  And I wouldn't hire your head of sales to be a line sales guy at my company.  My advice is for you to get out as soon as you can."  That meeting was my second inkling that it wasn't going to go well, as was the fact that none of the Silicon Valley funds would talk to us.  The company ended up getting $5 million from a Swiss fund, and I resigned the day before they did the due diligence.  They burned through about $16 million in venture capital, never really went anywhere, though they did have an interesting exit and at least one investor made a lot of money, but it never really got off the ground.

[Mick]

I was always skeptical that a college dropout could invent something that several blood testing companies that devote hundreds of millions of dollars to R&D could not do. My Silicon Valley friends in the venture community were always extremely wary of her (and indeed, as Vanity Fair notes, almost none of the investment in Theranos was Valley money) because of how secretive and too-good-to-be-true it seemed. Given the insane things that venture money chases, it was always very telling that little money was directed there.

I wasn't skeptical enough.  I worked for a company like that a couple of decades ago.  Promised an amazing technology...really an extrapolation of existing, incompatible technologies that, somehow, they were going to integrate seamlessly. 

I was brought on board to find $5 million in venture capital.  I went to some of the A-List VCs to seek a first round of funding, had auditions with two of them.  One sent the very, very tough chairman of a multibillion dollar company to meet with me (COO), the CEO -- who hadn't gone to college and had delusions of grandeur, but had founded one moderately successful company -- and our head of sales.  He listened to our pitch, asked a dozen challenging questions, stood up and said, "Thanks gentlemen, I've seen all I need to see.  Mick, can you walk me out to my car?"  I walked him out to his car, he said "Look, it's a very good idea, and it's a very big market.  But if the big guys want to get into that market, it would cost less than 2% of their R&D budget.  And your CEO told me 'they'll never think of it.'  Trust me, they will think of it.  And I wouldn't hire your head of sales to be a line sales guy at my company.  My advice is for you to get out as soon as you can."  That meeting was my second inkling that it wasn't going to go well, as was the fact that none of the Silicon Valley funds would talk to us.  The company ended up getting $5 million from a Swiss fund, and I resigned the day before they did the due diligence.  They burned through about $16 million in venture capital, never really went anywhere, though they did have an interesting exit and at least one investor made a lot of money, but it never really got off the ground.