{"id":31961,"date":"2023-10-20T14:26:28","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:26:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/tech-insiders-want-journalists-to-give-founders-the-benefit-of-the-doubt-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:26:28","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:26:28","slug":"tech-insiders-want-journalists-to-give-founders-the-benefit-of-the-doubt-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/tech-insiders-want-journalists-to-give-founders-the-benefit-of-the-doubt-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Tech insiders want journalists to give founders the benefit of the doubt &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"445\" height=\"352\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/l_journo.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"l_journo\"\/><\/div>\n<p>A number of prominent tech investors believe that when it comes to startup founders, the media should give them the benefit of the doubt.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com.au\/big-tech-investors-sure-seem-to-be-getting-defensive-lately-2015-9?op=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>Business Insider\u2019s <\/i>Matt Rosoff <\/a> explores this critique of tech journalism, made by a number of tech insiders in the wake of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/theranos-has-struggled-with-blood-tests-1444881901\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>Wall Street Journal<\/i> expose of a medical startup<\/a> Theranos and a confrontational interview with food startup Hampton Creek.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The <em>WSJ <\/em>piece alleges that Theranos, a startup offering quicker and cheaper blood tests valued at $US9 billion, isn\u2019t actually using its proprietary technology in most cases, and is instead relying on the traditional methods.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Many prominent Silicon Valley figures rallied to the company\u2019s defence, arguing that the benefit of the doubt should be given to startup founders.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would bet that the real Theranos story is a ton of people working really hard to change medical tests and are close to something amazing,\u201d venture capitalist <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joshelman\/status\/655033793414238208\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Josh Elman tweeted<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe question is only whether they fully achieve that amazing potential and can deliver to the market or if they just remain close.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Y Combinator president Sam Altman also <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/sama\/status\/654828572859723777\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pitched in on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know if the <em>WSJ<\/em> allegations about Theranos are true or not, but always gross to watch people cackle with glee in these situations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNew tech is hard. Slam pieces tell one side of a story. I do think Theranos should be more transparent, but people shouldn\u2019t pray for failure.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWatching the media build up and tear down Theranos feels the same with the sign bit flipped. Little data, and lots of hyperbole, both times.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Rosoff writes that a well-researched investigative piece identifying many very real and serious problems with a startup isn\u2019t exactly \u201cpraying for failure\u201d; this is just journalists doing their job.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><i>Want to grow your business with Instagram? <\/i><a href=\"startupschool\/\"><i>StartupSmart School can help<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A number of prominent tech investors believe that when it comes to startup founders, the media should give them the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31961"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}