&gt; I&#x27;m talking about Microsoft, Uber, Amazon etc... the ones who have literally changed the way people live.<p>...or they road a wave...<p>You didn&#x27;t mention Walmart. ;-)<p>Uber has had a number of competitors, back in their day when they were &quot;changing the world&quot;, so did Microsoft &amp; Amazon. Hell, Microsoft&#x27;s operating system ride started with an operating system they <i>bought</i> from someone else.<p>If you grow at a crazy fast rate to become a household name, you inherently are riding some kind of wave change. I don&#x27;t think that was what the MIT Microfluidics PhD friend was referring to as &quot;novel&quot;. If you want to call  that &quot;novel&quot;, then you are going to have a much harder time making the case that Theranos isn&#x27;t trying to be novel.