I thought she developed the initial prototypes and proved that the concept could work. The fact that it couldn&#x27;t improve &#x2F; scale is the risk of startups. IMO you had a bunch of Silicon Valley types who are used to ignoring the rules and shipping a &quot;minimum viable product&quot; and improving it later -- but that strategy doesn&#x27;t work in medical devices (at least if you can&#x27;t get FDA certification before the shit hits the fan).<p>Her technology worked, but not as well as they had initially hoped and some of the roadblocks turned out to be bigger than they had anticipated. That&#x27;s the name of the game with biotech startups.<p>Theranos just expanded far too early. They made a bet that they could improve the quality before they hit scale, and they lost that bet. Then they tried to cover it up, which seems to be what people will go to jail over.