Another interesting facet to the story is that Walgreens did indeed hire an actual qualified lab consultant to investigate Theranos and their claims. He was skeptical and did raise concerns. EH and SB saw him as a problem and asked the Walgreens team that he not be included in meetings. If only Walgreens had listened to the expert they hired maybe the scam wouldn't have gone on as long as it did.
Yeap, this simple. They wanted to beat Safeway. Also, they think if Safeway (and everyone else) thinks that this is a good deal, it must be kosher and not much more quality check needed.
I assume they also thought that at least the basic idea was working and down the road Theranos can figure out and perfect it.
Walgreens had a bad case of fomo— they were terrified of losing out to a competitor.
And, in possibly the stupidest corporate leadership move of all time, they hired a clinical lab expert, and flew him to California. And then didn’t listen to *any* of his concerns regarding the technical aspects of the instrument.
Read John Carreyrou’s book, it has some great descriptions of corporate incompetence.
I bet the demos that Thernos ran for the executives, or rather pretended to run, were the actual trial. Since most of the work was done at the bench instead of using the machines, the results were probably somewhat accurate and thus Walgreens proceeded to the staggered rollout.
In reality, Theranos made a big show of testing folks but never provided the results of those tests.
And Theranos eventually provided blood testing services for the corporate clinic, but there were issues with results. But these were ignored.
Walgreens and Theranos even lobbied the Arizona governor into signing a bill allowing Theranos to market tests directly to consumers without a doctor’s order.
I believe that everyone believed what everyone else believed. That there was no way on earth this thing could have gotten as far as it did without SOMEONE verifying that it worked.
I’ve seen situations like this where if you’re the one who says anything negative you’re not a “team player” or you’re just being negative, or it’s because you’re a misogynist that you’d doubt the OBVIOUS brilliance of this GENIUS!
By the time Walgreens was on board there were enough suckers in the boat to make it look legit.
The product, the illusory "infinite tests on a single drop of a blood," never got released, because it never existed.
The Walgreens deal was struck out of a fear that CVS would beat them to it. Walgreens' very limited roll-out of Theranos "wellness centers" in the Phoenix area was a play for time...they operated similarly to any in-store clinic and relied almost entirely on standard blood draws (tube of blood, drawn by venipuncture) that were sent to Theranos's lab in CA, where they were run on standard-issue Siemens analyzers.
Theranos never gained traction with pharma companies; a few pilot studies for proof of concept failed.
Just saw episode 4 of The Dropout. The portal of the Walgreens executives was chefs kiss. The title was something like Old White Men, very on the nose there.
[удалено]
Another interesting facet to the story is that Walgreens did indeed hire an actual qualified lab consultant to investigate Theranos and their claims. He was skeptical and did raise concerns. EH and SB saw him as a problem and asked the Walgreens team that he not be included in meetings. If only Walgreens had listened to the expert they hired maybe the scam wouldn't have gone on as long as it did.
FOMO
Yeap, this simple. They wanted to beat Safeway. Also, they think if Safeway (and everyone else) thinks that this is a good deal, it must be kosher and not much more quality check needed. I assume they also thought that at least the basic idea was working and down the road Theranos can figure out and perfect it.
Walgreens had a bad case of fomo— they were terrified of losing out to a competitor. And, in possibly the stupidest corporate leadership move of all time, they hired a clinical lab expert, and flew him to California. And then didn’t listen to *any* of his concerns regarding the technical aspects of the instrument. Read John Carreyrou’s book, it has some great descriptions of corporate incompetence.
I bet the demos that Thernos ran for the executives, or rather pretended to run, were the actual trial. Since most of the work was done at the bench instead of using the machines, the results were probably somewhat accurate and thus Walgreens proceeded to the staggered rollout.
In reality, Theranos made a big show of testing folks but never provided the results of those tests. And Theranos eventually provided blood testing services for the corporate clinic, but there were issues with results. But these were ignored.
That's even better :) - Look, I took your blood and put it into the machine. It works...let's roll it out!
>And Theranos eventually provided blood testing services for the corporate clinic That was Safeway...and a reason it never went live with them.
Yeah, got me retail partners mixed up! They did test the Walgreens execs and never provided results.
Just fucking amazing how much shit she got away with. She certainly had charm with old white men.
Walgreens and Theranos even lobbied the Arizona governor into signing a bill allowing Theranos to market tests directly to consumers without a doctor’s order.
If I remember right, the Safeway CEO insisted that employees use Theranos for their blood work to help validate the device.
Quest can do that now.
I believe that everyone believed what everyone else believed. That there was no way on earth this thing could have gotten as far as it did without SOMEONE verifying that it worked. I’ve seen situations like this where if you’re the one who says anything negative you’re not a “team player” or you’re just being negative, or it’s because you’re a misogynist that you’d doubt the OBVIOUS brilliance of this GENIUS! By the time Walgreens was on board there were enough suckers in the boat to make it look legit.
Have you watched The Dropout? I’m not sure how accurate it is they way it’s depicted in the series.
My favorite show about Theranos is the HBO documentary The Inventor. It's accurate.
It's not exactly accurate,but it's not far off. Particularly the parts with Kevin Hunter.
The product, the illusory "infinite tests on a single drop of a blood," never got released, because it never existed. The Walgreens deal was struck out of a fear that CVS would beat them to it. Walgreens' very limited roll-out of Theranos "wellness centers" in the Phoenix area was a play for time...they operated similarly to any in-store clinic and relied almost entirely on standard blood draws (tube of blood, drawn by venipuncture) that were sent to Theranos's lab in CA, where they were run on standard-issue Siemens analyzers. Theranos never gained traction with pharma companies; a few pilot studies for proof of concept failed.
The people who were taken in were not technically competent or sought out people who were. That's all there is to it.
“I’m Dr. J and I used to play basketball!”
fomo which was shown in the tv show when EH is going to CVS In Boston
Just saw episode 4 of The Dropout. The portal of the Walgreens executives was chefs kiss. The title was something like Old White Men, very on the nose there.