Making sense of art and design industries

By tumblingdumpling

Earlier, we discussed the case of Neonurture — where a brilliant design had gone to waste due to its failure to attach an economic value, and secure a steady stream of funding. But what happens when the reverse occurs?

Some of you might have heard of the startup who was, up until just over a year ago, the sweetheart of the media and the Silicon Valley, until a series of accumulated doubts and failed partnerships brought the company crashing down. That’s right, I’m talking about Theranos, an idea birthed by former CEO Elizabeth Holmes to eliminate fears of needles by conducting various medical tests using a very small amount of blood.

By Theranos – https://www.theranos.com, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58216087

Holmes had a design concept, and her concept most certainly appeared to hold significant value:

1. It was differentiated. Theranos promised customer satisfaction unlike any other blood testing options available in the market, purportedly claiming that a single pinprick test would suffice to test for multiple conditions

Alden Chadwick from Leeds, UK [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D

2. It held coordination/integration value, in that with its ability, it would radically change the way the medical industry approached blood testing processes

3. Finally, Theranos held, or would have held, immense financial value, with its anticipated high uptake in the market, its no wonder that investors and firms flocked to partner with Theranos in its initial years

By OSD Deputy Secretary of Defense – 130417-D-NI589-215, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53676731

So where did Theranos go wrong? Given its successes in securing hundreds of millions of dollars of funding, and multiple crucial partnerships, Theranos should, unlike Neonurture, have been perfectly equipped to roll out its designs on a mass scale.

The way I see it, Holmes’ biggest misstep with Theranos was simply that she talked the talk, but could not walk the walk. Yes, it was indeed a fantastic design idea, but whether we’re talking about the more premature Theranos 1.0, or the late-stage “Edison”, all of Holmes’ prototypes had fundamentally lacked the practical capabilities to turn her design concept into a reality.

The strangest thing about the entire saga was that Holmes had somehow managed to slip under the radar for a good 15 years. With her agreement with investors that she would be able to continue using their funds without revealing how Theranos’ technology worked, Holmes effectively evaded any sort of reality checks along the way — continuously pumping money into a design that did not exist.

If anything, what this incident shows us about the relationship between design and value, is that the relationship cannot continue without accountability. While it is important for designers to consider the value that can be attached to their works, it is equally crucial to have some form of reciprocity in terms of feasibility. Who knows, maybe if Holmes had been made to disclose her progress at various stages, we’d either have saved investors millions, or all be walking to our nearest pharmacy to get our fingers pricked by what would have been a revolutionary invention.

Read the full story at:

1. https://www.businessinsider.com/the-history-of-silicon-valley-unicorn-theranos-and-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-2018-5?r=US&IR=T#in-november-2006-theranos-chief-financial-officer-henry-mosley-was-fired-after-questioning-the-reliability-of-its-technology-and-the-honesty-of-the-company-6
2. https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-founder-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-life-story-bio-2018-4?r=US&IR=T
3. https://www.businessinsider.com/john-carreyrou-theranos-2018-5?r=US&IR=T