The problem with Theranos is the problem with every single startup: all marketing no product.
And I mean NO product. Nowhere near beta. Just nothing. Wizard of Ozzing for investor decks. nytimes.com/2021/09/15/opi…
Marketing is often known as the yin, right-brain part of a startup. CMOs are disproportionately women.
Holmes was an excellent marketer. And a truly abysmal engineer. Like just about every latter-day founder I have ever met.
I was so excited to meet Teslas, Edisons, Mrs Fieldses when I advised startups.
Instead I met lavishly funded people selling Twitter-linked headphones that were not just made in China, but designed & engineered there & they caused horrible headaches and didn’t connect to Twitter
I started to ask 2 questions of founders:
Do you have any IP?
Do you have any revenue?
Answer: No but we know Drake.
In 2007, Marc Andreesen (who blocks me) famously asked what was most important to a startup—product, personnel, or marketing? By far marketing! The product “just has to basically work.” If they come, you will build it!
“Basically work” slides into “is shit” and basically:
Excellent marketing of shit projects IS fraud.
Damn my NDAs or I would tell you about 3 very high-profile opulently capitalized startups with sleek gadgets that did not work! But investors thought they did!
Or the famous meal-delivery service that gave everyone diarrhea and didn’t help feed the hungry as it promised to!
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Am I a bigger optimist than Max? It’s nearly 73% of those over 18, and those under 12 still aren’t eligible. Unlike the Grp of Seven, we are also home to the Bill of Rights & can’t just introduce statutes by fiat. Also home to all social media but TikTok so it’s disinfo central.
Imagine too if we had a national health service didn’t have this pervasive idea that we all are supposed to be swashbuckling mavericks with our own health decisions.
Once again as the Ned Flanders of vaccine proselytizing I urge everyone to hand-sell it to laggards. It’s still surprising how many people don’t know it’s free, don’t know “which one to get,” are scared of needles, etc.
In 2011 @DylanByers did a profile of me for Ad Week, which Wolff then run. I was told it was about my work at the NYT. It was, kind of. Also it was a way for Wolff to drag other writers at the NYT by praising me & also write about my non-sex life.
Dylan is not Wolff, & he was upfront. But the whole thing played to my vanity, with photo shoots & false eyelashes, & I learned my lesson when friends & colleagues thought the piece insulted them, & my friend @euanrellie got to have another laugh abt the URBAN MYTH in the piece.
Congratulations to @billmckibben & the incredible activists who got this done—gg divestment is not just the biggest thing to do to mitigate the climate crisis, but really the only thing. Yale, Princeton, even UT — your moves.