@studme, I've invested in healthcare in some capacity for almost 20 years. If someone couldn't show me a peer reviewed paper, I'd hang up on them.
Holmes' scientific lies were not very sophisticated. A 5 minute social conversation with a clinical chemist told me, in clear language, why some of her tests were suspect.
All Tim Draper or any VC backer would have had to do was a literature or patent search, and request a retrospective validation study of stuff tested at a real lab, and they could have seen Theranos was completely full of shit. They could have wondered why their board was full of daddy's government connections and so few scientists or doctors.
Some people want to be fooled, they want the warm fuzzy feeling of having backed the female chemical engineering prodigy who wasn't. Holmes played these investors and their FOMO like a violin.
There's a lot of stupid fucking money floating around.