18 ms·

Out of curiosity, does anyone know what happened to all of the Theranos hardware / technology after the company was shut down? e.g. the edison testing machines

arthurcolle 4y ago
What is the value of IP that doesn't work? Edison machine IP seems about as useful as those time travel or perpetual motion machine patents that come up.
- etaioinshrdlu 4y ago
  I would very much like a Theranos Edison for my office, next to a Juicero.
  - Reason077 4y ago
    Someone ought to make a museum of failed products. These two exhibits would be a great start!
    - Chris2048 4y ago
      https://museumoffailure.com/ https://museumoffailure.com/
- jen20 4y ago
  I'd imagine those machines in particular would be useful as museum pieces.
  - codex_irl 4y ago
    That is what I am thinking.
- jliptzin 4y ago
  Collectibles…definitely a market there
- codex_irl 4y ago
  I don't think that the machine IP has much (any) value, more just curious what happened to them from an "oddity" viewpoint e.g. did they get thrown in a dumpster or is there some warehouse out there, packed with all the stuff they cleared out of the old Theranos HQ
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Presumably there are liquidation companies that deal with such things. (There are companies out there to do pretty much anything.)
duxup 4y ago
They had nothing of value. They were often running tests on competitors machines. They either passed those results off as coming from their machines, or validated their own results using competing machines. Their machine could not do what it promised with the amount of blood it claimed to use and was no better than proven machines, and arguably worse as they had lot of maintenance issues even operating at their HQ.
hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
As the other's have said, Theranos technology had nothing of value. Not only did the technology not work, it is physically impossible for it to ever work - capillary blood is not homogeneous enough at that small of a volume to give accurate quantitative results. This is one of the things that made me a bit angry when reading some of the letters of support to Holmes today, and her own statement. That is, so much of it still carried on with the fantasy that "Holmes was close, but just fell short". No, she didn't fall short. Her own lust for recognition and power blinded her to the physical realities of what was possible, harming investors, employees and patients in the process. I'm actually a bit surprised at the outcome - 11 years seems like a fair and justified sentence for what she perpetrated.

arthurcolle 4y ago

What is the value of IP that doesn't work? Edison machine IP seems about as useful as those time travel or perpetual motion machine patents that come up.

etaioinshrdlu 4y ago
I would very much like a Theranos Edison for my office, next to a Juicero.
- Reason077 4y ago
  Someone ought to make a museum of failed products. These two exhibits would be a great start!
  - Chris2048 4y ago
    https://museumoffailure.com/ https://museumoffailure.com/
jen20 4y ago
I'd imagine those machines in particular would be useful as museum pieces.
- codex_irl 4y ago
  That is what I am thinking.
jliptzin 4y ago
Collectibles…definitely a market there
codex_irl 4y ago
I don't think that the machine IP has much (any) value, more just curious what happened to them from an "oddity" viewpoint e.g. did they get thrown in a dumpster or is there some warehouse out there, packed with all the stuff they cleared out of the old Theranos HQ
- ghaff 4y ago
  Presumably there are liquidation companies that deal with such things. (There are companies out there to do pretty much anything.)

duxup 4y ago

They had nothing of value. They were often running tests on competitors machines. They either passed those results off as coming from their machines, or validated their own results using competing machines. Their machine could not do what it promised with the amount of blood it claimed to use and was no better than proven machines, and arguably worse as they had lot of maintenance issues even operating at their HQ.

hn_throwaway_99 4y ago

As the other's have said, Theranos technology had nothing of value. Not only did the technology not work, it is physically impossible for it to ever work - capillary blood is not homogeneous enough at that small of a volume to give accurate quantitative results. This is one of the things that made me a bit angry when reading some of the letters of support to Holmes today, and her own statement. That is, so much of it still carried on with the fantasy that "Holmes was close, but just fell short". No, she didn't fall short. Her own lust for recognition and power blinded her to the physical realities of what was possible, harming investors, employees and patients in the process. I'm actually a bit surprised at the outcome - 11 years seems like a fair and justified sentence for what she perpetrated.