Theranos ’ Elizabeth Holmes is Not a Liar

(Via Quora’s Is Elizabeth Holmes a liar?) The Theranos story has gone from bad to worse, first from the Wall Street Journal “expose” that Holmes during a live blogging event equated to “tabloid” journalism, then from a series of very public disengagements with partner corporations, and now — complying with a Herculean FDA request. This is causing some in the public to ask whether Holmes is a mastermind in a fairytale of scientific triumph. No. Holmes is not a liar. Holmes made bad business decisions and painted herself into a corner. Holmes is in the class of executives that are technologist founders, which combines subject matter STEM expertise with the vision and strategy typical of C-level executives. The challenge with this class of executives is that they often do not excel in all aspects required in each role. There are incredible business chiefs that cannot do the job of their company’s top subject matter experts (SME). There are genius technologists who can rapidly run businesses of any size to the ground. It is rare to combine both SME and business acumen at the highest levels in one person. In the case of Theranos, she was extremely effective in the beginning, when she needed to create excitement and inspire others to support her vision. She fulfilled an important role for a chief executive. She brought the technology into development, which fulfilled an important role for a technical subject matter expert, although I am le...
Source: NAKEDMEDICINE.COM - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Business of Medicine Source Type: blogs