I do not understand why a rebranded geocities website to give everyone their own personal webpage, a 140 maximum character length bulletin board website, and glorified touchscreen bookmarks for websites are still considered to be examples of innovation. Facebook, twitter and apps have been around in some form since the beginning of the internet.
Lab-on-a-chip technology has the potential to be the science fiction equivalent of a medical tricorder. Every doctor could have one and give instant patient feedback. Yet the expectation for this start up is to get it perfect from the beginning. They may lose all their VC's money but I bet that DARPA would still bankroll them.
She worked as an undergraduate in a Stanford microfluidics laboratory and happened to know a venture capitalist who was the original angel investor in Theranos. She is not the wozniak she is the Jobs because she can play the media and use them to help the company raise capital. Moving microfludics from academia into business is a great thing. The culprit is that the journalists did not even bother doing the bare minimum of background reading on the technology Theranos is using.
I wish the media would ask how much of the market share the company will have and if they plan on expanding beyond Walgreens. Also there were rumors that small amounts of blood easily coagulate. If that is true then do they plan on using a blood thinner or fractionating the blood in a centrifuge and then testing it? How much uncertainty do they have in each of the tests they are performing on one drop of blood? Do they have enough capital to narrow the uncertainty? Are they having problems with the FDA approving their testing? What will happen to all the medical lab techs? Will they be let go or is blood testing only a small part of what lab techs do? Instead we get articles on gender, turtle necks and start up culture...
Lab-on-a-chip technology has the potential to be the science fiction equivalent of a medical tricorder. Every doctor could have one and give instant patient feedback. Yet the expectation for this start up is to get it perfect from the beginning. They may lose all their VC's money but I bet that DARPA would still bankroll them.