Curious myself, I used the HackerNews search feature to find the first few theranos articles with significant points/comments.
First article, Sep 2013, top-rated comments include "The website design hides the message in frills and imagery, but the essence appears to be: Faster/cheaper blood-testing, via a smaller/quicker samples", "Yep, I still have no idea who they are or what they do.", "There are more soldiers in that board there than doctors. The only way I'd give them my blood would be to infect them with a disease." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349349
June 2014, top-rated comments include ".. zombie ... apocalypse". "What an odd cast for a startup board. I wonder what connects all these people, other than all being high-profile," and "The whole article was pretty weird. Anyone care to speculate what's going on here?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7951019
Oct 2015, top-rated comments include "Everything I've heard about this company is just weird", "investors throwing good money after bad, both to save face and to chase the glimmer of hope that they were getting somewhere with this," "Very smart. And very deceitful," and "Suddenly a company that looks like a Kickstarter page has the valuation of companies like Quest Diagnositics." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10397149
I'd say HN was indeed appropriately skeptical (for the right reasons) by 2014 if not 2013, and certainly by 2015 (wikipedia says the first article seriously questioning Theranos was WSJ in 2015), HN was fully in board with the questioning of Theranos, commenters were not defending them from accusations.
But then, I don't know if that shows HN collective insight, so much as the tenor of HN comments tends to be skeptical/critical/negative. But they definitely were on theranos.
I appreciate you doing this. However .... what HN search feature?
I went and read the 2013 comments; they certainly were critical of the website: almost a trope on HN, I guess considering how many people make a living at that. Nobody really seemed to notice anything untoward. Many/most were as gee-whiz fanboy about it as people on this article on Moderna.
True. I don't know if there was enough info available to know what a scam it was with the first announcement of the company? In 2013 HN comments, there were definitely people interested in the promise of quicker/cheaper blood tests (I mean, that's pretty appropriate with hindsight in 2020), but also people who thought the business plan seemed pretty sketchy and the board of directors was suspicious, that the company seemed more about marketing than any actual product (which turned out to be pretty on the nose, and there were some comments to this effect in 2013).
By 2014, the level of suspicion was much higher. By 2015, when reports first started to come out of untoward behavior form the company, HN commenters was totally on board with those reports and there were few trying to defend the company.
That's about what I'd expect, I think? Or the best I'd expect? Are you saying you knew in 2013 that the company would turn out to be fraudulent? Do you have some documentation showing that? I'd be impressed.
First article, Sep 2013, top-rated comments include "The website design hides the message in frills and imagery, but the essence appears to be: Faster/cheaper blood-testing, via a smaller/quicker samples", "Yep, I still have no idea who they are or what they do.", "There are more soldiers in that board there than doctors. The only way I'd give them my blood would be to infect them with a disease." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349349
June 2014, top-rated comments include ".. zombie ... apocalypse". "What an odd cast for a startup board. I wonder what connects all these people, other than all being high-profile," and "The whole article was pretty weird. Anyone care to speculate what's going on here?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7951019
Oct 2015, top-rated comments include "Everything I've heard about this company is just weird", "investors throwing good money after bad, both to save face and to chase the glimmer of hope that they were getting somewhere with this," "Very smart. And very deceitful," and "Suddenly a company that looks like a Kickstarter page has the valuation of companies like Quest Diagnositics." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10397149
I'd say HN was indeed appropriately skeptical (for the right reasons) by 2014 if not 2013, and certainly by 2015 (wikipedia says the first article seriously questioning Theranos was WSJ in 2015), HN was fully in board with the questioning of Theranos, commenters were not defending them from accusations.
But then, I don't know if that shows HN collective insight, so much as the tenor of HN comments tends to be skeptical/critical/negative. But they definitely were on theranos.