In my experience, people often have a (completely understandable and human) selective view of downvoting and flagging activity. There's a wide variety of opinions and perspectives on HN and I've seen all of them downvoted or flagged at one time or another, just as I've seen commenters of all persuasions be civil, well-reasoned, and, unfortunately, egregiously trollish and ranty.

Her employees can't work from home and be with their young children while she gets an in office nursery.

You think a glorified taxi company has put more peoples' lives in danger than a company that knowingly sold, deployed, and signed off on an health instrument and lab work that simply did not work?

An instrument and lab work that people relied on to accurately assess the contents of their blood?

An instrument and lab work that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services said "did not comply with certificate requirements and performance standards"

and deemed a:

"immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety"

The reason that the stories about Theranos are about a "bad company doing bad things and Holmes is probably a criminal" is because they are exactly that!

Uber is a taxi company that most people enjoy using, has not fraudulently screwed people over, has at least on a surface level removed a level of racism (my roommate no longer has to ask me to flag a cab down for him btw), and can be linked to a reduction in drunk driving. Yes, their CEO is a douche, and they have a horrible company culture, but they are not systemically screwing people over like Theranos was.

"If Travis Kaladick or whatever his name is were running the company, the narrative would be very different."

Now, given that Uber and Travis have been disparaged by both the press and HN on a regular basis, how would the narrative be different if he was running Theranos?

Do you actually believe that if Travis was in Elizabeth's shoes, we would speak more positively about the general situation?

I don't see how that's true, given that we speak very negatively about him already, and what he has done (behaved like a douche, promoted a bad culture) is, arguably, less egregious than what she has done (committed outright fraud, stolen investors money, possibly killed or at very least jeopardized peoples' health).

Well, of course they do - there are many more men founding startups overall, so they'll get most of the press even if the publications were actually more likely to report women's accomplishments.

With less than 20% of startups having one woman founder (Crunchbase, 2014), what do you expect the press to do?

But, geez, I hate the idea that there is lava-like splash back spattering all other women in the world who are trying to be taken seriously.

Why is this such a terrible thing to express that so many people need to come down on me for feeling this way? If you were, say, a black guy concerned about some black guy getting enormous bad press and how that impacts blacks, would that merit this kind of dismissive pile on and massive downvoting?

And if it did, would you think it only proved your point that racism and bad press is a real concern?

And I apologize for aiming this at you. I am doing so because you seem to have the most evenhanded reply here so far. So it isn't intended to be ugly to you per se.

But, sure, I am just a vitriolic, hysterical woman who is oversensitive. I couldn't possibly have a valid point or concern.

She and Paul apparently cooked this idea up together. But it took forever for that detail to come out. For the longest time, my impression was that this was Paul's baby. I vaguely knew there was a female cofounder. It was much later that I heard that, really, this idea was her and Paul, not him and his prior cofounders.

I'm curious about why you feel this way. In reading the other responses to your original comment, it is clear that most respondents disagree with you. However, just based on my own experience with HN, they don't seem particularly aggressive or dismissive in tone (relative to any other contentious HN thread).

The reason I bring this up isn't to invalidate your perception. It's because I think that, sometimes the (legitimate) feeling of persecution can lead to seeing it even where it's not, and that can be toxic, especially in an anonymous or pseudonymous environment like this. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking people here are rejecting your opinion because of your gender (in part because sometimes they are!). But it really doesn't seem to me like that's what's happening here. To the extent that people are disagreeing, they are (again, to my reading) asking you to substantiate your position - not telling you to shutup or dismissing you. They just want to know why you believe what you do.

> I do think her gender contributed to the Theranos debacle. I have commented on that before and I have blogged about it. But that aspect of how that plays out is Verboten. We cannot discuss it. This, too, is a form of sexism and is part of the problem.

But that's what we're doing here. I'm asking you to comment on it. I think that's what everyone is doing. We want to hear your opinion in its full detail. And yes, that means people will respond to it and attack it. But, speaking for myself at least, that isn't done with malice or dismissiveness, its part of the process of coming to shared understanding. I hold lots of controversial opinions, and I love to fight it out with people on HN and other places about them, because that's how I learn and develop my own ideas. I wouldn't be half as intelligent or thoughtful as I am without that dialectic. It's something I value immensely, and it's why I participate in discussions like these. But in order to glean that benefit, you have to be willing to put your opinion out there and have it torn down, sometimes even viciously so.

> I appreciate your participation here in this thread. It is a breath of fresh air amidst what is an otherwise mostly negative experience for me.

As do I yours. My hope is that you will participate in these discussions and provide your alternative viewpoint. It can be difficult if you're not emotionally oriented towards this kind of conflict[1], but I think it is essential to have differing views here. But those differing views will never truly get heard if people like you don't follow through on their expression. That is to say, if you pack up your opinion and go home, we'll just be here echoing the same view of this situation we already had. So I would encourage you to engage with everyone that's responded to you, be dismissive right back to them if you feel like it. But substantiate your position - cite articles, quote interviews, and so on. Make your case, and I think you'll find that people will be receptive to it. Or maybe you'll decide that we're right about this one, and there is no sexism here. But IMO the only losing move is not to play.

[1] This sounds like a female stereotype, so I should clarify. Certain people (like me) love argument. I am energized by it. If people are dismissive of me or think my opinion is stupid, i'm only more encouraged to make them look stupid with my airtight counterargument. This is, as far as I can tell, just an emotional orientation people have or don't have. Some people don't like this sort of conflict at all and it causes them to shut down completely. It is of course a stereotype that this is more predominant in women than men, but I certainly know women that love to argue as much as any man that I know.

It is a little like arguments I have heard that black Americans who sound obviously black can't qualify for a job because they aren't articulate enough and it isn't racism. My response to that is "George W. Bush."

Maybe not hiring "inarticulate" blacks isn't racism. But why can an inarticulate white guy get a high ranking job if being articulate is so freaking critical?

There is always some excuse or justification for an overall pattern of behavior. Yet, the pattern persists and trying to point out the pattern gets dismissed for various reasons. It is a real life version of the trope Status Quo is God.