Alex WellersteinVerified account

5. Most resigned as Theranos's problems emerged. But why didn't they do minimal due diligence before they joined the board? Or ask hard questions?

6. Why did Holmes draw on so many national security people for a health corporation?

7. Why were those people so willing to accept?

My suspicion, in a word: networking. Without wanting to be overly cynical about it: when you're building support for ANYTHING unconventional, you need to show you have buy-in from respected people. You use your existing connections to get others, and then leverage reputations.

This is LARGELY the most useful thing I learned how to do at Harvard as an aside. It is frankly what Harvard as an institution excels at. The names on that list are Stanford-centric, so I assume the same dynamic is as work.

And I would again emphasize that not-just-bad-guys do this. I don't know any other way to launch big things if you don't have the reputation yourself. But if the core turns out to be rotten, it looks shady.

I think this is all plausible. But golly gee, I would have checked out something like this a little more carefully than they did, networking or not. Or maybe networking requires that suspension of critical thought. I went to a different kind of college.