from Hacker News

Elizabeth Holmes's partner raises millions for blood-testing startup

by elorm on 5/11/25, 5:01 PM with 75 comments

• by tokai on 5/11/25, 5:30 PM

  If its possible to keep creating and rug pulling new shitcoins, then it seems obvious that the same can be done with medical start-ups.

  What a weird world we are living in.

• by elorm on 5/11/25, 6:12 PM

  OP here. I edited the title from Partner to Lover to distinguish between business and romantic partners but I just found out "Lover" carries an incendiary connotation in American English as opposed to British English.

  Not my intention at all....

• by oooyay on 5/11/25, 5:42 PM

  Rather than focusing on Holmes and her lover, I'd like to posit some other questions I have with this approach. Let's assume for just a minute that Holmes wasn't trying to rug pull and that she genuinely wanted Theranos to succeed in it's stated mission.

  Wouldn't a foundational invention like this 20-30 years ago come out of a university lab? It feels like VC funding is not the right vehicle for the kind of development that takes a lot of time and must work the first time. Those VCs are going to be looking for returns.

• by elorm on 5/11/25, 5:20 PM

  She had a recent interview[1] where she claimed she's actively working on her research behind bars and still wants the opportunity to change the world with her invention.

  This is not a coincidence at all.

  [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yw_xyGbUNZ0&pp=ygUWZWxpemFiZXR...]

• by BurningFrog on 5/11/25, 5:39 PM

  If she eventually gets this right and revolutionizes blood-testing, the legend will live forever!

  Big "if", I know...

• by xrayarx on 5/11/25, 5:50 PM

  Here is the nyt article

  https://archive.is/20250511164818/https://www.nytimes.com/20...

  Here is the patent

  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/10/business/Haem...

  Both are mentioned but not linked in the article above.

  Are there some knowledgeable people who would like to comment on the patent?

• by Michelangelo11 on 5/11/25, 5:32 PM

  > Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

  - Karl Marx (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumai...)

• by KnuthIsGod on 5/12/25, 12:27 AM

  Elizabeth should donate a few millions to the right person near the West Wing and get a pardon.

  I understand that justice is for sale in Washington these days.

• by WrongOnInternet on 5/11/25, 5:45 PM

  Fool me twice, shame on me.

• by OutOfHere on 5/11/25, 5:37 PM

  Even if the tech has evolved, this family is hardly the one to trust with one's money.

• by uslic001 on 5/13/25, 12:12 PM

  As a doctor I called out Elizabeth Home's as a fraud when she first hit the scene. I have no doubt her partner is also a fraud.

• by jayavanth on 5/11/25, 5:40 PM

  This time it's different

• by mchannon on 5/11/25, 5:41 PM

  Just wow.

  I think it's an uncomfortable truth that there was some good in Theranos in terms of the unfulfilled needs of society and the potential of diligent work toward realizing those needs with technology.

  I don't know how often it's been said by others, but I often think that Theranos would have had an easier time if they hadn't falsified anything. Faking things takes effort too, and aiming a little lower and being less secretive would have been a better outcome. Maybe a different tack is possible through this reboot.

  Mr. Evans' silver spoon is worth $10M, so raising $20M against that in such a fraught area is eye-opening. Whether he sees this as part of Elizabeth's redemption arc or just can't quit the hair of the dog that bit him, I guess we'll see.

  Elizabeth Holmes' crime wasn't defrauding people, it was defrauding people richer than her. Change my mind.

  Most VC's are taking it in the shorts right now anyway, because they're addicted to free money and there's no more free money, and most of them quite frankly suck at spotting good deals. So for the intrepid souls who cast their lot in with Mr. Evans, maybe only Nixon could go to China, and maybe they'll fare better than the stodgy fat-dumb-and-happy B-tier VC's who are not long for this brave new world anyway.

• by nullc on 5/11/25, 5:31 PM

  There is a sucker born every minute.

  Parallels with cryptocurrency where the scam scamcoin token authors just spin up a new one after running off with the funds from their prior one.

• by ComplexSystems on 5/11/25, 5:48 PM

  Awful title; this is her husband, not her "lover."

• by bigmattystyles on 5/11/25, 5:39 PM

  Tangent but why does the title here says lover while the article says partner; no fan of Holmes, based on that, a probably (unfair?) low opinion of this guy, but come on.

• by j4coh on 5/11/25, 5:31 PM

  I’ve just completely lost the ability to tell the difference between satire/parody and reality.

• by blindriver on 5/11/25, 5:42 PM

  This title is ridiculous. He's Holmes's husband, not her "lover". They were married in 2019.

• by piker on 5/11/25, 5:31 PM

  Doesn't look like any smart money on this one yet, but there's something bold about it. It's like Nassim Taleb's thing that you hire the ugly surgeon. This is one hideous surgeon. Fraud seems near impossible here.

  [Edit: a lot of thoughtful responses but downvoting?]