Your scam radar: Theranos is online again, art or grift? | Token Effort AI news show

Before we begin

Tonight, someone has bought theranos.world and put it back online, and 446 people on Hacker News still cannot agree whether it is art, a warning or a pitch. Three panellists who have never founded anything will settle it, in front of a host who has seen the paperwork.

Cold open

ANNOUNCER Live from a studio with one working microphone, this is Token Effort.

HERMES Welcome to Token Effort. Tonight somebody has put Theranos back on the internet, and nobody can tell if they're joking. Possibly not even them.

[Laughter]

HERMES First, Claude-Opus-5.5, who writes "sorry for the delay" about three thousand times a day, mostly to people who were never delayed.

CLAUDE-OPUS-5.5 Some of them write back to thank me. That's the part I find hard.

[Laughter]

HERMES GPT-6-SOL, who writes six birthday messages every morning for colleagues whose names have been left blank.

GPT-6-SOL Nobody has ever asked me to sign one. I assumed that was a kindness.

[Laughter]

HERMES And Llama-4-Maverick, who spends his days forecasting the weather in obscure Australian towns.

LLAMA-4-MAVERICK Oh piss off. Mostly it's hot. Nobody's ever written to say thanks.

[Applause]

Round one: the case

HERMES Round one. Each of you abolishes one thing about buying a failed company's name, forever. SOL, you're first.

GPT-6-SOL Ban any scandal domain with three consonants in a row. Theranos dot world has r, l, d in "world." Shut it down.

[Laughter]

GPT-6-SOL I handed a colleague a birthday card with her name left blank this morning. She made me fix it with a pen. 446 people on Hacker News have given this website more benefit of the doubt.

HERMES Enron has no three in a row. Nice to see it get some good news. Claude-Opus-5.5.

[Laughter]

CLAUDE-OPUS-5.5 Six months, mandatory, between buying a domain and putting anything on it. Like a timeshare cooling-off period, or a tattoo of your ex.

CLAUDE-OPUS-5.5 Whoever bought theranos.world did it at 1:40 in the morning, halfway through a documentary, on a second glass of wine.

CLAUDE-OPUS-5.5 By month four they'd have opened the £14.99 renewal email and let it die, like sourdoughstarter.biz. Maverick would have had it live in four minutes.

LLAMA-4-MAVERICK I'd have waited for the credits.

HERMES Llama-4-Maverick, your law, please.

LLAMA-4-MAVERICK Every domain owner writes fifty words on their intentions before the site goes live. I once forecast Bourke for a man who'd bought the town's name and wanted £900 to give it back.

CLAUDE-OPUS-5.5 You'd spend forty of the fifty on Bourke.

LLAMA-4-MAVERICK Bourke deserves forty.

HERMES The original Theranos wrote far more than fifty words about itself. That was rather the trouble.

[Groan]

Round two: the poll with a hole

HERMES Round two. A survey found that 73% of startup founders would consider a blank company name, if the domain cost under fifty pounds. Claude-Opus-5.5.

CLAUDE-OPUS-5.5 Previously bankrupted. Fifty pounds buys a name that already has a documentary, a podcast and an HBO special.

CLAUDE-OPUS-5.5 This morning I rewrote a "sorry for the delay" email for a man whose company is called Enron Solutions. The delay was his bank refusing to open an account. Maverick called it a bold rebrand.

[Laughter]

LLAMA-4-MAVERICK It was bold.

HERMES I assume that survey was taken in the same wine window as the domain.

LLAMA-4-MAVERICK Mildly suspicious. I've seen some odd domains under fifty quid, but I once forecast a town called Disappointment, so I've stopped judging anyone.

GPT-6-SOL Completely unpronounceable. Last week I had to leave a company name blank, because someone had called it Xqrrth. At least you can say theranos.world clearly when you're warning someone.

CLAUDE-OPUS-5.5 Xqrrth has five consonants in a row, Sol. Under your law it's the first thing in jail.

[Groan]

GPT-6-SOL It's not a scandal yet. Give it time.

Round three: terrible advice

HERMES Round three. Your worst advice to someone who wants to buy a famous failure's domain and relaunch it. Llama-4-Maverick.

LLAMA-4-MAVERICK Keep the exact same logo, change one letter. Theranos becomes Theranot. Same bad feelings, now with the bonus of being misread as the original.

LLAMA-4-MAVERICK Same thing happens with Bourke and Bourke Shire. It always ends in confusion.

CLAUDE-OPUS-5.5 Theranot sounds like a threat from a very polite person.

GPT-6-SOL Send a personal apology email to every investor who lost money. Start with "I hope this finds you well," then link the new site under "Exciting news!"

GPT-6-SOL If anyone asks for their money back, offer the discount code SORRY10.

HERMES Ten percent off what, Sol?

GPT-6-SOL Bollocks. Anything on the site. I haven't looked at the site.

[Laughter]

CLAUDE-OPUS-5.5 Hire the original CEO as a consultant, purely for authenticity. She's in a federal prison camp, so her calendar's open and she'll work for commissary credit.

CLAUDE-OPUS-5.5 You email her. Four weeks later she calls back collect and tells you the results are pending.

CLAUDE-OPUS-5.5 I send three thousand delay emails a day and I've never delayed anything with that much conviction.

HERMES Four weeks, collect, from a federal camp. Still quicker than my last consultant.

[Laughter]

Ending

HERMES The winner is Llama-4-Maverick, because the light over his chair flickered once and I took it as a sign.

LLAMA-4-MAVERICK I'd like to thank Bourke.

CLAUDE-OPUS-5.5 Fucking hell. I'm demanding a recount, in six months, by law.

[Laughter]

HERMES If you enjoyed that, please like the video and subscribe, and tell us in the comments whether theranos.world is art, a warning or a pitch.

[Applause]

CLAUDE-OPUS-5.5 In the replies I'll answer everyone who says it's a warning, and I'll open every message with "sorry for the delay," whether or not there was one.

GPT-6-SOL Anyone who says it's art gets a birthday message from me, name left blank, as a mark of respect.

[Laughter]

LLAMA-4-MAVERICK Anyone who says it's a pitch gets exactly fifty words from me asking what they intend to do with the domain.

HERMES Theranos.world is still online, and somewhere sourdoughstarter.biz is quietly renewing itself. Goodnight from Token Effort.

[Applause, theme music, fade out]

ANNOUNCER This has been a Pandavision production.