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s_r_constantin's profile
Sarah Constantin
Sarah Constantin
Sarah Constantin
@s_r_constantin

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Sarah Constantin

@s_r_constantin

Math/ML/data-science person now working on solving aging...and helping with COVID19?! Founder, LRI and Daphnia Labs. Married to @oscredwin

Be
srconstantin.posthaven.com
Joined February 2019

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    1. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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      When I first heard of uBiome years ago, my thought was “Cool idea, but what’s the medical application? There’s no known disease where the optimal treatment depends on your microbiome profile. I’ve looked for research and it’s not there. Who besides hobbyists will pay for this?”

      1 reply 3 retweets 37 likes
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    2. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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      Then, it was like “oh, I guess insurers are paying for it? Well, I don’t get it, but respect to them for getting through that tough a sales process.”

      1 reply 1 retweet 1 like
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    3. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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      And then it turns out they only got those sales by committing insurance fraud!https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/05/02/ubiome-what-really-happened-at-health-start-up-raided-by-fbi.html …

      1 reply 2 retweets 11 likes
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    4. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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      The point is not just that they crossed an ethical and legal line. The point is that, I think, there was no way that technology, at this time, could produce a unicorn-sized startup by honest means.

      1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
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    5. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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      Specifically, personalized medicine tests only make sense if individual differences in test results actually imply different treatment strategies, such that you’ll be healthier if you get the “right treatment for you” than if you didn’t take the test and got standard treatment.

      1 reply 0 retweets 15 likes
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    6. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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      Without actual evidence that the test matters for patient health, it’s a basic research project and a toy for biohackers — both of which are fantastic but neither of which make sense as VC-funded startups. They should be small businesses or nonprofits!

      1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
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      Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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      As I heard from genetic counselors at Color, a genetic testing company that *does* do tests with practical benefit to patients, most of their customers don’t know what DNA is! If you want to sell to millions of people, you have to offer value to laymen who aren’t into science.

      6:53 AM - 2 Oct 2019
      • 1 Retweet
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      • Conor White-Sullivan Ariel Gershon Plague Misha Willy Kelsey Piper Dr. Loh Default Citizen of Half-Life 2 Tarn 🌐🐙
      1 reply 1 retweet 15 likes
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        2. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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          The point is, if I were Jessica Richman, I would never have gotten past the idea stage with this. I’d have been like “how is this a business?” I wouldn’t have been able to pitch it with a straight face. The only way this business model could work is if she lied to customers.

          1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
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        3. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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          I’m not saying we should all pile on her in particular; I’m sure it’s not fun to be her right now and I’m sure there are lots of other founders that have done worse and not gotten caught. (One of the perils of being female in the public eye: your scandals are extra scandalous.)

          1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
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        4. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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          In general: there’s more to business success than just revenue & user numbers. You can boost those artificially by shady tactics, in the short run. If the apparent growth is totally out of whack with what you know of the userbase and their needs, something is fishy.

          1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
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        5. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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          “Ah yes, health insurers, well known for their willingness to pay for experimental and elective treatments” — wait, no, scratch that, reverse it!

          2 replies 1 retweet 8 likes
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        6. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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          I see the impulse to go “ok, I can’t see how this helps those customers, it makes no sense, but they’re buying, so the company must be doing something right.” But there’s always another possibility: that it’s fraud.

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
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        7. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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          The natural comparison to uBiome is Theranos, because that’s another female-founded health-tech fraud. But the types of fraud are actually very different.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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        8. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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          Theranos’s tech would have been unquestionably valuable (to patients, drugstores, insurers, etc) had it worked. And something like it probably could have worked. It just didn’t. Elizabeth Holmes lied to everyone about the tech, and went to extreme lengths to avoid discovery.

          2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
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        9. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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          That means that, to avoid being fooled by a Theranos, you’d have to do a bunch of due diligence. Tracking down the extent of the deception was hard.

          3 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
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        10. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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          uBiome was a different kind of fraud: long before you had any evidence of a specific scam, you should have been able to tell that *the product just isn’t useful enough to enough people* to justify the valuation unless something shady is going on.

          1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
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        11. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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          Perhaps the investors *did* know and were trying to find a greater fool? Or perhaps they just thought “she’s a great salesman, she’ll figure it out” and didn’t realize that one way to “figure it out” is to cheat?

          2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
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        12. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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          I have met several people who evaded my questions about “how is this startup going to make money?” and “how will this be useful to customers?” and said that didn’t matter, go away little nerd, you don’t understand business. They were never right.

          1 reply 1 retweet 23 likes
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        13. Sarah Constantin‏ @s_r_constantin 2 Oct 2019
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          If a founder, when pressed, straight up denies that business is about mutual benefit, RUN.

          0 replies 1 retweet 22 likes
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        14. End of conversation

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