Billy McFarland, famed "entrepreneur" behind Fyre Fest got out of jail and immediately announced plans for raising funds for Fyre Fest 2. Apparently there are enough suckers to go around, so why not just copy/paste the original scam instead of doing the work of tweaking it to boost legitimacy?
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.
I grew up in America and didn't find it incendiary at all. The extreme reaction was surprising to me, as well. The word was very common in 80s and 90s songs with no illicit or incendiary connotation whatsoever! In fact, I find headlines phrased like this article's annoying. It's just unclear and poor writing, IMO.
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.
That was implication of the original con. She was this superstar Stanford undergrad who’d discovered something so radically important she had to drop out of school for the sake of humanity.
She wasn't a "superstar" in any way whatsoever. She dropped out after 1 year of undergrad, with zero papers published where she was a principal author, or anything that would even hint that she knew what she was doing. She was rich and connected so was able to get funding on the basis of not much more than a powerpoint and a couple of supportive professors.
It is possible that they are licensing technology that was developed in academic science and are raising money to scale it up and get it ultra-standarized for commercial scale.
I agree that the modern Silicon Valley model of VC funding has been spoiled by SaaS startups, where the capital expense is smaller, the timeline to exit is shorter, and pivots are easier. It is not great for deeptech innovation because those require more capital, time, and are more technology-constrained than software. Ironically, modern VC was developed to support semiconductor startups (1970s-90s), but has drifted from that technology-heavy origin.
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.
> 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.
Readit News
What a weird world we are living in.
https://www.biography.com/crime/a63917214/billy-mcfarland-no...
[0] https://youtu.be/xUBCX7AV5PY
Not my intention at all....
https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-health-elizab...
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.
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I agree that the modern Silicon Valley model of VC funding has been spoiled by SaaS startups, where the capital expense is smaller, the timeline to exit is shorter, and pivots are easier. It is not great for deeptech innovation because those require more capital, time, and are more technology-constrained than software. Ironically, modern VC was developed to support semiconductor startups (1970s-90s), but has drifted from that technology-heavy origin.
This is not a coincidence at all.
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yw_xyGbUNZ0&pp=ygUWZWxpemFiZXR...]
Big "if", I know...
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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?
- Karl Marx (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumai...)
I understand that justice is for sale in Washington these days.