| General > General Technical Chat |
| Theranos Elizabeth Holmes sold compilers to China? |
| << < (3/5) > >> |
| donotdespisethesnake:
--- Quote from: MK14 on February 28, 2020, 11:56:20 am --- I am at least a little bit suspicious of her 'story' about selling the compilers. --- End quote --- The word she uses is "distributing". We might assume that running a business implies selling, but that is not the word she used. Maybe she wrote a web page in Mandarin with a download link to a GCC package, and asked for donations. She also says she didn't make money, maybe because people thought why pay for something I can get for free anyway? Considering the embellishments people apply on their CV, this does not seem like a big deal. Federico Must claimed to have a PhD from MIT right there on his business card, as well as claiming other degress, that turned out to be lies. He never even attended. |
| MK14:
--- Quote from: donotdespisethesnake on February 28, 2020, 12:51:54 pm --- --- Quote from: MK14 on February 28, 2020, 11:56:20 am --- I am at least a little bit suspicious of her 'story' about selling the compilers. --- End quote --- The word she uses is "distributing". We might assume that running a business implies selling, but that is not the word she used. Maybe she wrote a web page in Mandarin with a download link to a GCC package, and asked for donations. She also says she didn't make money, maybe because people thought why pay for something I can get for free anyway? Considering the embellishments people apply on their CV, this does not seem like a big deal. Federico Must claimed to have a PhD from MIT right there on his business card, as well as claiming other degress, that turned out to be lies. He never even attended. --- End quote --- That is a very good point. So, even if she only very slightly "sold" (I like your GCC webpage example) one or more pieces of software. She could technically be telling the truth. But in practice, it is close to lying. Example: Someone could write a CV (Résumé), which says they have been an electronics technical author, covering many aspects of electronics. Read by a huge number of people. Without mentioning, that it was ONLY on EEVBLOG forums, because of their post count of 3 posts. |
| donotdespisethesnake:
I don't know about others, but in my career as an engineer I never had to worry too much about liars. Sure, some engineers brag a lot more than their incompetence, but few I recall told outright lies. However, in my forays into the management world, outright lies is more the norm. I worked for a startup, and the founders' pitch to investors included the phrase "we have patented technology". No only did they not have a single patent grant, they didn't even have any patent applications! To my possibly naive mind, that is basic fraud. I raised concerns with others, but no one else was troubled. "You have to bend the truth a bit to get investment" was the phrase. I guess that serious investors who exercise due diligence are wise to that, and can sniff out "vaporware", because we never did get any venture capital. I got to the point where I just couldn't tell whether what we were doing was a real attempt at business or an investment scam, and I had to quit. Apparently the saying is "fake it until you make it". That is the equivalent of "lie and hope you don't get found out", which seems to be the basis of a lot of business. On many occasions I came out of meeting asking "Was X true?", with the answer "no, but they don't know that". It seems obvious that Theranos was a fraud, but actually their business model was normal, and lies on the extreme end of a continuum. Compare with Waterseer, who raised funds for a bogs technology, eventually end up selling repackaged dehumidifiers. Was that a scam, or just over promising to get to a viable business? |
| MK14:
--- Quote from: donotdespisethesnake on February 28, 2020, 01:19:35 pm ---I don't know about others, but in my career as an engineer I never had to worry too much about liars. Sure, some engineers brag a lot more than their incompetence, but few I recall told outright lies. However, in my forays into the management world, outright lies is more the norm. --- End quote --- Your experience, sounds fairly typical. If an engineer, says pin 1 is +12 Volts and pin 2 is 0 volts/ground. But they are lying, and it is the other way round. They wouldn't get very far in engineering, as the devices would probably break, or blow a fuse or something. So engineers, really need to tell the truth. I can understand some of the need to be economical with the truth, when managing things. E.g. If you tell the customer that they can get a much better widget, than you are selling, for half the price, better quality and reliability, from another supplier. Then telling them, would probably lose you business. It would be like a major supermarket, on its shelves, saying something like ... Our Flour is £1.99, but Lidl sell a bigger, better tasting bag for only £0.49 Our Sugar is £1.49, but Aldi sell a bigger one, which doesn't clump up in hot water, for only £0.39 Our Vegetables are only £2.49, but Sainsbury's have a special on better tasting ones, for only £0.99 So, absolute truth, is a tricky subject area. |
| Mr. Scram:
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on February 28, 2020, 12:52:18 am ---Alright but why would that matter? I know she fucked up, but are we going to endlessly dig up all the details of her past life? Why not try and find something from when she was a kid and stole some candy from her kindergarten buddies? *puzzled* :popcorn: --- End quote --- People love heroes and villains even if the real world is much more nuanced and complicated. The latter is boring and tiresome. |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |
| Previous page |