A former Theranos employee's account of life inside the company
The biggest takeaway here: surround yourself with the right people.<p>I find it hard to believe Holmes wanted to outright commit fraud with Theranos. Instead, some combination of startup “disruption” tactics and a crew of unqualified yes men led to a toxic company culture that cultivated lying and, eventually, criminal fraud.<p>On the first point: There’s a very real culture in Silicon Valley where it’s expected that everyone lies, at least a little bit. Startups will massage their numbers in VC pitch decks, or launch “Wizard of Oz” products that aren’t based on new tech. If you’re on a client-facing team, you’re expected to learn which white lies to tell. Most startups get away with this without a problem, and Theranos probably expected to as well when they came out of stealth mode and debuted their testing equipment. But this process doesn’t work in biotech when it affects real consumer health outcomes; there is a reason behind much FDA bureaucracy, and it’s to protect people’s health. The tech industry could use a better ethical backbone overall.<p>On surrounding yourself with the right people: The anecdote about the manager who lied about results, was given promotions and accolades, and then promptly quit when it became time to become accountable, was telling to me. First, there was a lack of checks and balances in place to prevent these lies—how was Holmes supposed to know the manager was lying? The board had little technical or scientific background, and it’s not clear that the company set up processes to ensure research was sound. And the most likely reason why? They probably just trusted people and didn’t expect that these problems could happen. The only way to ensure you’re not blindsided by issues like these is to make sure those around you are capable, experienced, and have been through this before.<p>Company culture is everything. As bad as Theranos is, the tech industry is rife with fraudulent practices and bad apples. I’d hope Holmes’ criminal charges make executives pause and think about setting up processes to allow for honesty and accountability. Unfortunately, though, the mainstream narrative has been to paint Holmes as an unsophisticated crook instead of looking at the systematic problems of the company as a whole, and that means people will keep on keeping on with the practices that led to Theranos’ downfall.