• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary says if he were 25 today, he'd chase these two booming opportunities in the world of AI

2

Ex-PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi worked from midnight until 5 a.m. as a receptionist to pay for her Yale degree—and she says ‘respect went up’ because of it

3

Even as Elon Musk calls philanthropy ‘very hard,’ everyday Americans gave a record $617 billion—despite feeling the squeeze over the cost of living

1

Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary says if he were 25 today, he'd chase these two booming opportunities in the world of AI

2

Ex-PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi worked from midnight until 5 a.m. as a receptionist to pay for her Yale degree—and she says ‘respect went up’ because of it

3

Even as Elon Musk calls philanthropy ‘very hard,’ everyday Americans gave a record $617 billion—despite feeling the squeeze over the cost of living
TechData Sheet

Data Sheet—The Theranos Saga Shows Why It Pays to Be Skeptical

By
Aaron Pressman
Aaron Pressman
and
Adam Lashinsky
Adam Lashinsky
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Aaron Pressman
Aaron Pressman
and
Adam Lashinsky
Adam Lashinsky
Down Arrow Button Icon
March 25, 2019, 8:19 AM ET
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

This is the web version of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the top tech news. To get it delivered daily to your in-box, sign up here.

This weekend I finished watching The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, Alex Gibney’s documentary about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. It is chilling, painful to watch, and a reminder of why it pays to be skeptical. If something is too good to be true, and if lots of smart but otherwise unqualified people repeatedly say so, it probably isn’t true.

I winced watching my former colleague Roger Parloff, an honorable man and a talented journalist, recount how he’d been duped by Holmes. I cheered the tenacity of The Wall Street Journal’s John Carreyrou, who refused to be bullied by the once-respectable lawyer David Boies. And I deeply admired the courage of the Theranos employees who spoke truth to power in trying to correct the dangerous record their company was peddling.

Not having yet read Carreyrou’s book, Bad Blood, I hadn’t realized how much Holmes tried to mimic Steve Jobs and Apple, well beyond her penchant for black turtlenecks. Secrecy at Theranos extended to internal groups. Clever, clean marketing created a narrative that masked the complexity of the product. Apple, of course, made computers and phones, not blood-testing equipment.

***

I got plenty of feedback from my column last week advocating the repeal of a key law that excuses Facebook, YouTube, and other Internet “platforms” from being treated legally as the publishers they are. I’ll come back to the subject as soon as possible. In the meantime, I found two meaningful quotes from people in a position to effect change.

One is from Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand, speaking to parliament in the wake of the heinous terrorist act in her country having been livestreamed on Facebook. “We cannot simply sit back and accept that these platforms just exist and that what is said on them is not the responsibility of the place where they are published,” she said. “They are the publisher, not just the postman.”

Robert Thomson, CEO of Wall Street Journal publisher News Corp., made a similar point in an op-ed in his company’s paper. “The creators are still being slain by the distributors, who are publishers, though they find it hard to pronounce the word,” he wrote. “If you are intervening to filter out offensive material, you’re editing, and if you are editing, you should aspire to be a great editor, not selective and reactive but proactive.”

Change is coming. It’s just a matter of time.

Adam Lashinsky
@adamlashinsky
adam_lashinsky@fortune.com

NEWSWORTHY

It's showtime. After a week of new product announcements on Twitter, Apple returns to the Steve Jobs Theater on Monday with a program likely focused on its new subscription video and news services. The event begins streaming at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern. And while Tim Cook & Co. explore the future of television, Viacom and AT&T had one of those old school TV battles. Under a just-announced new deal, AT&T's 24 million pay TV customers will keep access to Viacom channels including MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon after a weekend of intense negotiations. And in the third act of the future of TV, YouTube is canceling its plans for more expensive scripted shows, Bloomberg reports.

Collectables. In the latest of the parade of tech unicorns prancing towards the stock market, Pinterest made public its previously confidential filing to go public. Sales jumped 60% to almost $800 million last year, generating a loss of $63 million. Goals for the future? "We want to make Pinterest more shoppable.”

The merge before the storm. Speaking of unicorns going public, Uber is bulking up before its IPO, acquiring competitor Careem for $3.1 billion. Careem offers ride hailing and food delivery in the Middle East and Africa.

Adding some costs. No-fee trading stock trading startup Robinhood made its first acquisition, and it’s a millennial-focused podcast and newsletter producer called MarketSnacks, Fortune reports. To be renamed with the metaphor-busting title Robinhood Snacks, the aim is to provide market news and insights while retaining "editorial independence."

Play by our rules. After requiring that scooter companies provide location data about the start and end of all rides, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation is getting ready for a possible crackdown. It approved only a one month operating permit for Uber, which doesn't want to provide the location data, versus one year permits for Lime and Bird, which are supplying the data about their customers.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Machine learning and artificial intelligence apps are all the rage but they need to start with data. And that data isn't always easy or economical to obtain in a format computers can use. Thus the exploding "data labeling" market in India. FactorDaily reporter Anand Murali spent some time delving into this budding niche and explains how it works:

Algorithms today have the ability to absorb more data and, hence, be more accurate. As long as the data is good and clean, feeding another million datasets to an algorithm will inch up its accuracy. This has caused an unending hunger for well-annotated and labelled data for A.I. algorithms and applications. Today, data preparation and engineering tasks account for more than 80% of the time involved in most A.I. and machine-learning projects, according to the Cognilytica report. “If you talk about autonomous driving, one hour of video data can lead up to 800 man-hours of work,” says Siddharth Mall, chief executive of Bengaluru- and San Francisco-based Playment, which works mostly in the autonomous vehicles space.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Spotify Wants You to Listen to Less Music By Aric Jenkins

Why the Olympic Games Are Steering Clear of E-Sports By Lisa Marie Segarra

GoFundMe Pledges to Shut Down Anti-Vaccination Campaigns By Alyssa Newcomb

This Leadership Move Shows That Netflix Is Focusing on Hollywood, Not Silicon Valley By Laura Stampler

Microsoft Revived and Killed Clippy—Office's Infamous Mascot—All in the Span of One Day By Alyssa Newcomb

German Airports Suffer Delays and Cancellations Following Air Traffic Control Tech Failure By Grace Dobush

Why Africa's Biggest Media Firm Wants to Create Europe's Biggest Consumer Internet Company By David Meyer

BEFORE YOU GO

He's probably older than your grandparents. This Saturday will mark the 80th anniversary of the arrival of Batman in Batman! Detective Comics. New York Times editor George Gene Gustines has a review of the Caped Crusader's career highlights, complete with the comic book cover art (like Batgirl debuting in 1966, issue #359). The upcoming issue #1,000 coming out this week returns to a case from the from the very first issue.

This edition of Data Sheet was curated by Aaron Pressman. Find past issues, and sign up for other Fortune newsletters.

About the Authors
By Aaron Pressman
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
By Adam Lashinsky
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

Tech volatility hits highest since dot-com bust next to S&P 500
Investingtech stocks
Tech volatility hits highest since dot-com bust next to S&P 500
By Bernard Goyder and BloombergJuly 7, 2026
1 hour ago
In this photo illustration, a Sk Hynix logo is displayed on a smartphone with stock market percentages in the background.
AICFO Daily
SK Hynix—which supplies memory chips to Nvidia—is about to test Wall Street’s appetite for the next wave of tech IPOs
By Sheryl EstradaJuly 7, 2026
3 hours ago
Hussein Fazal poses in front of the Super.com NASCAR car
Startups & VentureTerm Sheet
The $1.2 billion startup that wants to become Amazon Prime for savings
By Lily Mae LazarusJuly 7, 2026
4 hours ago
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma at Fortune Brainstorm Tech 2026 in Aspen, Colo. (Photo: Stuart Isett/Fortune)
NewslettersFortune Tech
Microsoft’s Xbox will cut 3,200 jobs and divest five studios
By Andrew NuscaJuly 7, 2026
5 hours ago
j
CommentaryEducation
AI didn’t break higher education—It exposed the credential trap
By Jason BenedictJuly 7, 2026
6 hours ago
Photo: Asha Sharma
North AmericaMarkets
Game over for 20% of Xbox staff as Microsoft hits reset: We ‘didn’t focus on the core business,’ CEO says. ‘We simply spread ourselves too thin.’
By Jim EdwardsJuly 7, 2026
7 hours ago

Most Popular

Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary says if he were 25 today, he'd chase these two booming opportunities in the world of AI
AI
Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary says if he were 25 today, he'd chase these two booming opportunities in the world of AI
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezJuly 5, 2026
2 days ago
Ex-PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi worked from midnight until 5 a.m. as a receptionist to pay for her Yale degree—and she says ‘respect went up’ because of it
Success
Ex-PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi worked from midnight until 5 a.m. as a receptionist to pay for her Yale degree—and she says ‘respect went up’ because of it
By Preston ForeJuly 6, 2026
24 hours ago
Even as Elon Musk calls philanthropy ‘very hard,’ everyday Americans gave a record $617 billion—despite feeling the squeeze over the cost of living
Success
Even as Elon Musk calls philanthropy ‘very hard,’ everyday Americans gave a record $617 billion—despite feeling the squeeze over the cost of living
By Preston ForeJuly 4, 2026
3 days ago
Current price of oil as of July 6, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of July 6, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJuly 6, 2026
1 day ago
Current price of silver as of Monday, July 6, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of silver as of Monday, July 6, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJuly 6, 2026
1 day ago
The man who ran Bernie's campaign says Democrats are still making the same mistakes with Democratic Socialists, and they should laud Mamdani's win
Politics
The man who ran Bernie's campaign says Democrats are still making the same mistakes with Democratic Socialists, and they should laud Mamdani's win
By Catherina GioinoJuly 6, 2026
18 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.