, Columnist
Theranos Could Have Used a Few Short Sellers
Board members were too patient or too polite to look into problems at the blood-testing startup.
Former wunderkind Elizabeth Holmes.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
In October, a few days after John Carreyrou’s first bombshell article in the Wall Street Journal about problems at the blood-testing startup Theranos, the Silicon Valley veteran Jean-Louis Gassée1463684254572 told a little story in the widely read newsletter the Monday Note.
Gassée has a hereditary condition that puts him at high risk for blood clots, so he pays regular visits to the hematology clinic at Stanford Hospital to get his blood tested. One day last summer, while walking back from the clinic to his office in downtown Palo Alto, he thought it might be interesting to see how the results from the Theranos clinic in the nearby University Avenue Walgreens compared.