Theranos Lays Off Almost All of Its Remaining Workers (marketwatch.com) 91
A few months ago, Theranos laid off almost half of its workforce as it struggled to recover from the backlash generated when the company failed to provide accurate results to patients using its proprietary blood test technology. Now, according to people familiar with the matter, the company is laying off most of its remaining workforce in a last-ditch effort to preserve cash and avert or at least delay bankruptcy for a few more months. MarketWatch reports: Tuesday's layoffs take the company's head count from about 125 employees to two dozen or fewer, according to people familiar with the matter. As recently as late 2015, Theranos had about 800 employees. Elizabeth Holmes, the Silicon Valley firm's founder and chief executive officer, announced the layoffs at an all-employee meeting at Theranos's offices in Newark, Calif. on Tuesday, less than a month after settling civil fraud charges with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Under the SEC settlement, Holmes was forced to relinquish her voting control over the company she founded 15 years ago as a 19-year-old Stanford dropout, give back a big chunk of her stock, and pay a $500,000 penalty. She also agreed to be barred from being an officer or director in a public company for 10 years.
When does she go to jail? (Score:5, Interesting)
She lied about everything and committed numerous levels of fraud. She needs to be put on trial immediately.
Re:When does she go to jail? (Score:4, Interesting)
Mod parent +1 Interesting.
Why isn't she going to jail ?
Does anyone have a link / copy to the SEC settlement ?
Re:When does she go to jail? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why isn't she going to jail ?
US law has been written by corporations for decades and virtually nobody ever goes to jail for corporate fraud. The US government handed out billions to banks and bought up all the toxic assets they'd created through the most massive fraud in the history of the nation and only senior figure went to jail (and then only for 2.5 years). And now we're rolling back the minimal regulations that were put in place to prevent that type of fraud so it can happen again.
Why would you think that it would be any different for the CEO of Theranos? I'm surprised we didn't pay off her debts and buy her a house in the Bahamas.
Re:When does she go to jail? (Score:5, Informative)
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More likely because there were a bunch of insiders in their with her, who got it, made a fortune and got out, with full knowledge. So ping her and likely that ping will flush out a bunch of others, protected insiders.
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She got special treatment because she was a young woman in tech
I highly doubt that. I think it is much more likely due to two other issues: 1. her using the executive branch of the US government as a candidate pool for her board of directors. Going after those other tycoons did not require having to depose ex Secretary of State George Schultz or going after the current Defense Secretary for trying to get the DOD to contract with Theranos. Shkreli didn't have any important friends/conspirators, so taking him down was painless. 2. The SEC is even more tame now than it us
Re:When does she go to jail? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Because it's a "woman in science/technology", and if they throw her ass in jail, it will send the wrong signal to young, independent, progressive women. It would demoralize them and say "you stupid cunt. You fucking piece of shit bitch. This is why men look down on you, bitch. You can't hack it and you're not as tough or awesome as a man.
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In the biotech space, it is standard procedure to demand to see peer reviewed published papers, patents, and lab data before writing checks. Theranos categorically refused to provide any. The "investors" threw money at a twentynothing with no college degree, no experience, no expertise. Caveat emptor.
Re:When does she go to jail? (Score:4, Insightful)
So the message is "if you're a woman, rejoice, your options to get to C-Levels got better. No longer do you have to rely on your looks and your ability to give a good blowjob to get ahead, you can lie, steal, cheat your way to the top of the ladder now, too!"
Yeah, that's the message I'd want my kids to get.
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She lied about everything and committed numerous levels of fraud. She needs to be put on trial immediately.
The cunt belongs in jail.
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Either put on trial, or run for president.
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Can't it be both? I think the Donald needs to push a law that a president can rule from prison. He may need it to stay in office, after all...
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Trump's Sec. of War (Mattis) 'za board member of Theranos, before he (Mattis) went bankrupt.
As opposed to, say, Solyndra, just down the road about eleven miles, which blew a half Billion-with-a-B, under the watch (and into the pockets) of one of Obama's campaign "check bundlers" and his crew.
"The Swamp" is an equal-opportunity corrupter.
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Solyndra had a product that worked, unlike Theranos. Solyndra failed largely because competing technologies got far cheaper, whereas Theranos failed because they didn't have the tech they claimed they had. The cases aren't comparable.
blah, blah, blah (Score:5, Insightful)
She will: relinquish voting control, give back a big chunk of her stock, pay a $500k penalty, and agree to be barred from holding an officer or director position with a public company for 10 years.
A relatively small private contractor would go to jail next Wednesday for a hot check to float the Easter Party.
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You don't spill the blood of kings (Score:2)
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Tell that to the French.
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Could we? Pretty please?
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It seems like eating nutritious food whenever you want, and living in better homes built in safer neighborhoods, and driving your kids to better schools in better automobiles would be enough incentive for those inclined toward greater wealth.
Why do they need the additional Get out of jail free card?
Re:blah, blah, blah (Score:4, Insightful)
Because people are easily led sheep, and have been convinced that these are their betters, and that they should look up to them?
It also helps that they own all the media, most of the government (if not all, no one who is not owned will get far), and almost most importantly, the entertainment industry.
This is, I am afraid, the cost of popularist democracy.
This is also probably why original democracy was NOT popularist democracy, and had a number of features, now long gone, designed to stop this very development.
We are all busy racing to totalitarianism, with the only real competition being who wants to get there first. Right now the left is showing a more rabid love for it, however the right are playing many of the same games.
Re:blah, blah, blah (Score:5, Insightful)
Because people are easily led sheep, and have been convinced that these are their betters, and that they should look up to them? It also helps that they own all the media, most of the government (if not all, no one who is not owned will get far), and almost most importantly, the entertainment industry.
This is, I am afraid, the cost of popularist democracy. This is also probably why original democracy was NOT popularist democracy, and had a number of features, now long gone, designed to stop this very development.
We are all busy racing to totalitarianism, with the only real competition being who wants to get there first. Right now the left is showing a more rabid love for it, however the right are playing many of the same games.
I have begun equating the left and the right with punches that equally contribute to my beat down.
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and have been convinced that these are their betters, and that they should look up to them?
Or that they, too, can be a member of this class if they just work hard enough.
The lie of social mobility is a large part of what keeps the poor and working classes from demanding more of the upper class/es. Everyone is a temporarily embarrassed millionaire (to misquote/paraphrase Steinbeck).
As you say, they media is complicit as is the entertainment industry. Bread and circuses.
This is also probably why original democracy was NOT popularist democracy, and had a number of features, now long gone, designed to stop this very development.
From what I understand (not from the US), the majority of states only allowed white, male, landowners to vote when the republic wa
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She's not in jail. That's richer than she should be if there was a legal system in place.
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So why haven't the board members been accused of fraud and wound up in court for defrauding investors.
It is not just the CEO/Chairman at fault.
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That didn't work out so well in Germany 75 years ago.
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So, GIGO, and probably not a case for fraud.
Re:blah, blah, blah (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is one of those instances where gender politics has really favoured her, and she did more than just fool her investors. Not only has an ignorant media, oblivious to the technicalities, promoted her and gave publicity because she was a 'woman in tech', they're certainly not covering the mess now, when they clearly got it so wrong.
I think the media that covered her should apologise. In certain sectors, their fervour of covering all things related to culture wars, such as gender and minorities, they promoted and gave publicity to a charlatan.
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they're certainly not covering the mess now, when they clearly got it so wrong.
Is this the media that isn't covering it?:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/t... [wsj.com]
https://nypost.com/2018/04/10/... [nypost.com]
http://fortune.com/2018/04/10/... [fortune.com]
https://www.foxbusiness.com/ma... [foxbusiness.com]
I skipped the tech sites which are all covering it too and just quoted sites that actually are more general purpose.
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Yea, I should have said that the media aren't covering or admitting to their errors. They're not really doing it justice in comparison to the glowing praise of the female Steve Jobs that they published years ago.
There's an easy answer to that: no one cares. The media deals with the idiot classes or sub groups. The former don't care about the technicalities at all, the latter are only interested in what their sub group is about (e.g. finance media will only detail the finances of the company, who cares about fraud).
This isn't some wild conspiracy, it's just purely what sells papers.
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the media is really bad at issuing corrections.
Consider why that is in the context of what I said. No one cares that the paper made a mistake. It is quite consistent. The media is bad at issuing corrections because the newspaper relies on either facts for subgroups or outrage for the general masses.
the news industry tend to do whatever it can to not correct the record
No they don't. The news papers happily issue corrections when asked to and don't tend to fight it much. But not issuing corrections because it doesn't sell papers is not the same as doing whatever they can not to, and most cases that end up in the legal syste
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Mainstream journalism is reasonably good about reporting errors about facts. However, "Elizabeth Holmes Is Astounding New Tech Woman" is an opinion, not a fact. Opinions change. There are sections in scientific papers for things that are neither data nor logical conclusions of data, such as "Further Research". If the "Further Research" section turns out to be dumb, do journals issue corrections?
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it's not like she was doing all the R&D and testing. People had to know what was going on
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The SEC cannot hand out criminal penalties. They pretty much gave her the maximum possible.
Only two dozen employees remain (Score:2)
Which to Elizabeth Holmes means they're still going to release a perfected version of their ground-breaking blood testing product. The woman will be repeating this to herself 2,000 times a day in her jail cell.
But who will be left (Score:2)
wow and just in time for infinity war! (Score:1)
Wha? (Score:2)
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What do they need the remaining ones for?
My wife just said "Somebody needs to turn out the lights."
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What do they need the remaining ones for? Would you buy a blood test from these people?
Someone has to file legal paperwork.
What are they DOING? (Score:2)
I mean, if they have ANY sort of technology, they need to just sell it and be done, as no one will EVER trust these dipsticks to make a product. So why the waiting game - we all know where this ends. Are they just going through the motions while they court perspective buyers for the tech? Or is the tech so much a fantasy that they are going through the motions, hoping to run out of money and not have to show their empty papers to anyone?
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They do not have a product. What probably happens here is that Holmes had an idea she though was really great (being an inexperienced student does that to you) and decided to not run it by anybody with an actual clue and instead tried to get rich. Then the media discovered this wondergirl and pushed her as high as they could. At that time, something that would otherwise have faded away quietly and would probably have left her with debt and no finished education, turned into a huge train-wreck because she ac
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The SEC cannot hand out criminal penalties, so yes.