![]() ![]() It is not our proudest moment as a country when we take down one who has tried to do so much for us. There are already plenty of books, movies and podcasts about the Theranos saga, so we’re not going to rehash too much of the drama that led to the company’s downfall. She is heroic for her efforts, for all the challenges she has faced and pitfalls she has overcome to bring this technology to us to change our world. Now, founder Elizabeth Holmes is on trial. They have turned her into a villainous caricature. The public (and possibly the courts) has been heavily influenced by what they have read about Elizabeth in the media and the various books and movies about her. It was entrepreneurs like Elizabeth who gave them to us. It is hard to imagine a life without a smartphone, without a car, without indoor plumbing, without electricity. We know that entrepreneurs have a reality distortion field, and that is what makes them so critical to our world. While Elizabeth Holmes crossed the line to. But we took a purposeful, calculated risk with our investment and while Theranos failed, I do not regret my investment.Īlthough they have remained silent with respect to Elizabeth and Theranos, venture capitalists have a very different attitude than what the media or the courts have to date espoused. Unicorns, Moral hazard, Agency theory, Disruption, Venture capital. The company raised 945 million from famous venture capitalists including Tim Draper. It was an ambitious project of incredibly advanced biochemistry and technological machinery that had never been conceived of, let alone built, and it was trying to wedge into an entrenched, customer-controlling industry. Elizabeth Holmes, left, the founder of failed blood-testing start-up Theranos. We knew Theranos was a long shot when we backed it. All these promises, none of them have happened,' Tevanian said. She is determined about what she feels is unconscionable: the system of health care in our country is expensive, unfair and provides inadequate service, and it can be so much better with new technologies she was attempting to build. He also Holmes started ignoring him and eventually had another board member, venture capitalist Donald Lucas Sr., confront him. When I first met Elizabeth Holmes, she was 19 years old and told me she wanted to “change health care as we know it.” I could see how passionate she was. Tim Draper, a venture capitalist who wrote Holmes a 1 million check when she dropped out of Stanford at 19 to start Theranos, says he still believes in what Holmes was trying to do. ![]() Investors know these risks when we write their checks.Įntrepreneurs, by their nature, are projecting a future that they want to accomplish and as my partner used to say: The best entrepreneurs have a reality distortion field because they often believe that they have accomplished what they have set out to accomplish because they have done so in their minds. If a company doesn’t work out, I take my lumps and move on. After 30-plus years in venture capital and seeding companies like Skype, Baidu, Robinhood, Tesla, SpaceX, Hotmail, and many others that were not so successful, I believe it is incumbent on me to do the diligence on any startup I back. ![]()
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