Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Found Guilty (npr.org) 112
After deliberating for more than 40 hours over six days, jurors in the Elizabeth Holmes criminal trial have found Holmes guilty on four of 11 charges of defrauding the company's investors and patients. She was found not guilty on four counts. NPR reports: When the verdict was read, Holmes had no visible reaction. She sat masked in the courtroom and later hugged members of her family in the front row of the court. Holmes could face up to 20 years in prison, although legal experts say her sentence is likely to be less than that. During the nearly four-month federal trial in San Jose, jurors heard from over 30 witnesses called by prosecutors. Together, they painted Holmes as a charismatic entrepreneur who secured hundreds of millions of dollars in investment for a medical device that never delivered on her promises. When Theranos' technology fell short, the government argued, Holmes covered it up and kept insisting that the machines would transform how diseases are diagnosed through blood tests. The jury's decision followed seven days of deliberations. Still, the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on three charges, which will be resolved at a later date..
Holmes took the witness stand for more than 20 hours to defend herself. She accused her ex-boyfriend and former deputy at Theranos, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, of sexual abuse, saying that clouded her sense of judgement. Balwani faces a separate fraud trial in the same court in February. Holmes also showed remorse on the stand. She said she wished she had handled some key business matters differently. But she blamed others for the downfall of Theranos. She said lab directors whom she had trusted were the ones closest to the technology. And she said Balwani, not her, oversaw the company's financial forecasts, which were later discovered to be grossly inflated. Yet the government offered evidence that Holmes had an iron grip on Theranos' operations. Prosecutors argued she did not stop -- and even helped spread -- falsehoods about the company that misled investors into pouring millions into the startup. Theranos' value, once estimated at more than $9 billion, was ultimately squandered.
Holmes took the witness stand for more than 20 hours to defend herself. She accused her ex-boyfriend and former deputy at Theranos, Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, of sexual abuse, saying that clouded her sense of judgement. Balwani faces a separate fraud trial in the same court in February. Holmes also showed remorse on the stand. She said she wished she had handled some key business matters differently. But she blamed others for the downfall of Theranos. She said lab directors whom she had trusted were the ones closest to the technology. And she said Balwani, not her, oversaw the company's financial forecasts, which were later discovered to be grossly inflated. Yet the government offered evidence that Holmes had an iron grip on Theranos' operations. Prosecutors argued she did not stop -- and even helped spread -- falsehoods about the company that misled investors into pouring millions into the startup. Theranos' value, once estimated at more than $9 billion, was ultimately squandered.
Re:Death penalty to make her shut up? (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? Her entire defense was to dress up like a 'mom', cry on the witness stand, pretend she was a victim.
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Re: Death penalty to make her shut up? (Score:2)
I'm betting she's been behaving like the victim since about age 6 or so.
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Yeah, it's a smart defense. What juror could resist?
OTOH it's a clear example of how fucked up the system is.
Re:Death penalty to make her shut up? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm left wondering why this went to trial but things like ubeam didn't. Did she just piss off the wrong people?
ubeam has had a change of name but it's the same old bullshit: https://sonicenergy.com/ [sonicenergy.com]
Meredith Perry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Maybe.. but the police don't stop everyone speeding on the road.
under posted speed limits are not the same thing (Score:2)
under posted speed limits are not the same thing and trying to 55 when others are doing 70+ is unsafe.
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Yet they can *still* pick you out going 58 in a 55 and give you a ticket while not stopping the folks going 65. And the fact they were doing 65 isn't a defense against speeding.
In this case, she was doing 85 and tailgating at night with her headlights turned off after a couple glasses of wine.
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Because you're an asshole who wants to send people to jail simply because they were trying to do something impractical, but that might have valid applications. And you imagine that is what "fraud" is. You basically have no idea what Holmes is accused of.
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You basically have no idea what Holmes is accused of.
Fraud? Lying to potential investors about a fake product in order to take their money?
Basically the same as Meredith Perry then.
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Because you're an asshole who wants to send people to jail
Nope. I don't want her to go to jail. Her punishment should be to go on youtube and admit who she is, what she's done, and how she was completely wrong.
Then spend the rest of her life paying people back.
Re: Death penalty to make her shut up? (Score:3)
Her investor list is a who's Who of rich/influential people - she absolutely pissed off the wrong people. She defrauded billionaires for millions - they'll get their pound of flesh.
Re: Death penalty to make her shut up? (Score:5, Insightful)
Her investor list is a who's Who of rich/influential people - she absolutely pissed off the wrong people. She defrauded billionaires for millions - they'll get their pound of flesh.
To be fair, they basically asked for it. It was clear back then that she had a snowball's chance in Hell to actually deliver on her promises. At 19, she could not even have been an expert on the state-of-the-art in blood-testing, much less a genius innovator. At that age, there was simply not enough time to get the the experience absolutely required. But no, these investors wanted to believe the completely insane "supergirl" narrative.
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It was clear back then that she had a snowball's chance in Hell to actually deliver on her promises.
You're speaking as a techie, not as a billionaire who is being told of the wonders of technology while their PA scribes their meetings because the billionaire can't work a computer.
It was clear to *us*, it certainly was not clear for everyone, and there's also the point of the faked fraud which she has now been found guilty of.
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Are you saying they are making unrealistic projections about the future? Or lying about current capabilities? Important distinction.
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I'm left wondering why this went to trial but things like ubeam didn't. Did she just piss off the wrong people?
It likely has to do with the fact that Theranos gave blood test results that were bogus. Endangering the public is a surefire way to get prosecuted.
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Ubeam is bullshit to those people who know. They have raised $26million in funding for R&D. They may squander that, but so far have not actually come out and demonstrated actual fraud by faking working equipment when it actually doesn't.
Holmes isn't guilty of promising and not delivering on something. That's not a crime. That's just an investment risk. She's guilty of actively faking and lying about the state of the technology.
She's going to join good company by the likes of Trevor Milton who also direc
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Two things that probably contributed to Holmes getting convicted while uBeam didn't:
1. Holmes was all over the media, so she made a great 'example' to convict. I have literally never heard of uBeam.
2. The fact that something as important and life-threatening as blood testing was being lied about, versus some random wireless phone charging tech. One can potentially kill, while the other is trivial if it doesn't work.
Understand the charges first (Score:5, Interesting)
There was an interesting piece on Salon.com that talked about how her defense strategy, to blame a sexually controlling relationship from a man was actually detrimental to feminism. That's an interesting opinion; women should have equality, but being equal means sometimes women can be scumbags too and should go to jail for it. https://www.salon.com/2021/11/30/ghislaine-maxwells-and-elizabeth-holmes-fake-feminist-defenses-are-an-insult-to-metoo/
Re:Understand the charges first (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I think that anyone, man woman or other, can be a victim of a controlling relationship. But this does not absolve them of responsibility for what they do, and especially not when they are the CEO of a billion-dollar market disrupting company. Someone in a position with that much power has a responsibility to be in charge of their lives well enough to make good decisions for the company, given the significant number of people those decisions impact.
I don't think that one woman being the victim of a controlling relationship hurts any political causes. BUT, letting Holmes off the hook on 7 charges might make the community of venture capitalists think twice before investing in woman-run businesses. If they know that the women running these businesses are likely to get light consequences for outright fraud, they might prefer to risk their money on male-run businesses instead (on the belief that the higher risk of being held to account means the men are less likely to be fraudsters). I am not a part of this community and I don't really know what that landscape looks like. I just can't imagine that failing to hold female fraudsters accountable could help any sort of feminist cause.
Re:Understand the charges first (Score:5, Interesting)
anyone, man woman or other, can be a victim of a controlling relationship
Sometimes I think she was the victim of her board.
You'd think a medical device research company would have a Board stacked with experts in medical research and medical devices. Instead it had a board full of politicians and rich bankers that seemed from the beginning structured to abuse use their political connections to manipulate government contracts to pump a stock.
Consider her board:
That doesn't look like a medical device company. That looks more like either a conspiracy to defraud the government and/or defraud public investors if they were able to get it to an IPO.
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That board actually looks pretty normal and pretty much reflects most boards.
Not that normal: most boards consist of CEOs of other companies. That's why those bastards are able to keep increasing their compensation while stepping on the rank and file's neck.
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That's a good point...
For example:
https://investors.sysco.com/co... [sysco.com]
Sysco Food Corporation consists mostly of CEO's, CFO's, and Presidents of other companies.
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Her parents were high profile diplomats in the State Department. Not high enough to be general knowl
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The board indicated an important aspect of Theranos - it was an affinity scam. Affinity scams are where you convince investors belonging to some group that you are are "one of them" and that they should give you their money as a sign of group affinity, proof that you belong.
In this case the affinity group was not ethnicity, or religion, but a very special socio-economic group -- the rich, powerful and famous. Being "on this board" was a status symbol, and similarly VCs dumping their money into this did it
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I kind of doubt they will sentence her anywhere near the maximum.
She's unlikely to offend again -- her notoriety alone will keep her from the opportunity. The people she defrauded were largely sophisticated investors, many of which expected to lose money *and* they really did not exercise much due diligence or oversight which could have mitigated their losses.
And she's got a child, which the cynic in me probably thinks is somewhat strategic on her part. I'm sure she partly had the baby because she's 37 an
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Man "She's unlikely to offend again -- her notoriety alone will keep her from the opportunity. " really strikes me as "she's wealthy so just being caught was punishment enough".
I agree they won't stack the sentences (4x20)
I am hoping for 12 years. It's not just about her. It's all the other wealthy CEO's who would be put on notice and about the rule of law. If we can send a poor hispanic mom to prison for 12 years for selling one joint we can certainly send Holmes to prison for that long.
However, they'll
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No her notoriety hurts her in multiple ways.
There's the general negative PR of a convicted felon. There's the sense she's a liar and a bullshit artist. Even if you get through that, there's the idea she couldn't deliver a product, either, so she wasn't even a good manager let alone idea person. And then you can tag on all the things she said about being manipulated by her lover/husband.
She's toxic all the way around the block and I don't see who would want to hire her except to exploit her infamy in some
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And yet... we can justify putting a poor hispanic mom in prison for 12 years at a cost of $31,000 per year to warehouse her and render unemployable.
I'm sick to death of the wealthy getting off with light sentences.
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I don't know what poor Hispanic mom you're referring to. I mean, did her shitty common law husband who fathered her 3 kids get her caught up in some gangland killing and she's facing the full force because he stashed his gun in her dresser, making her an accessory?
Or did she actually do something awful, like chain her kids in the closet while she went on a meth bender? Pimp out her 13 year old daughter? I don't think being poor or a minority is an automatic excuse for not facing serious penalties for se
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No.. she sold less than $31 worth of pot (first offense) to an undercover informant in her neighborhood.
What's wrong with you?
The rich don't just skate on financial crime- they skate on *every* crime.
"Oh poor Johnny picked up for assaulting someone in a bar fight! It must be so embarrassing.. but he's a "good" (i.e. wealthy, connected) kid so he gets off while the 'trash goes in back' (an actual quote by police officers in another case) where middle income kids picked up at the same time went to jail while
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Cannabis prohibition (and most drug possession and use crimes generally) is the worst public policy enacted in the 20th century.
That being said, disparate treatment in this situation isn't entirely unreasonable, although the specific sentencing terms for Spottedcow are unreasonably harsh.
Willy Nelson isn't just wealthy and white, he's a famous musician. He is not a threat to his community or part of any criminal enterprise. Ms. Spottedcow was conducting a drug dealing transaction and the state has an inte
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And should pot be legal? *yes*. it's dumb and very corrosive to the rule of law that it's illegal.
But the point here is that the *same* laws are not enforced equally depending on your wealth and social status.
Enforce the laws equally and many of them would be much less harsh.
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... letting Holmes off the hook on 7 charges might make the community of venture capitalists think twice before investing in woman-run businesses.
What I read is that all fraud cases are hard to prosecute. Getting Holmes convicted on 4 charges out of 11 might actually be good performance. I am not a lawyer. Regarding venture capitalists' attitude to risk, I get the impression that they expect to lose quite a few of their bets, but the winners pay for the duds. If they don't put the money in, they don't get the rewards.
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Getting Holmes convicted on 4 charges out of 11
might actually be good performance.
It is, since those four were some of the major charges.
It's common in high-profile cases to charge the accused
with a few serious charges plus a bunch of lesser ones
to persuade the perp to plead out.
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Given how stupidly obvious her guilt was (Score:5, Insightful)
The part that irritates me is that she only faced prosecution because she roped some of the really rich into her scam. 2008 came and went without a single charge because the super rich got off scott free in that.
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2008 came and went without a single charge because the super rich got off scott free in that.
What I read is that there were penalties, but that the penalties were less than the rewards, so could be treated as just a cost of business. I think there is a fair bit of business that relies on not taking responsibility for losses. Run your risky business until it falls over, then walk off with the money you made, while investors lose their money. This is perfectly legal. If it weren't, a great deal of the modern economy would not exist.
Re:Understand the charges first (Score:4, Interesting)
These are not my facts, there have been a number of government studies on it.
Reference:
https://www.ussc.gov/research/... [ussc.gov]
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The implementation of anything has problems. Just because something has problems doesn't mean the alternative doesn't have problems.
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I wonder if her former boyfriend/business partner/co-conspirator Ramesh Balwani will try the Lying Scheming Girlfriend defense in his upcoming trial. Right now it seems like a bad move. Maybe he will get a clue and negotiate a plea deal and save everyone a lot of wasted effprt.
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Lawyers are in the job of getting their client acquitted of charges, or to get minimal punishment if they can't. That is all. They are not in the job of promoting a social or political agenda (unless they think that will sway the jurors). They commonly rely in social prejudices to try to sway jurors. So if they imagine that painting the conniving shark that is Elizabeth Holmes as a "weaker vessel" manipulated by men might prevent her from being convicted they will do that in a heartbeat.
Glad the law applied to the wealthy as well (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see her as a man or a woman (tho she's tried to use her gender to escape the law).
I mainly see her as a really rich person who hired the most expensive lawyers and didn't get away with it.
Which is rare.
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I don't see her as a man or a woman (tho she's tried to use her gender to escape the law).
I mainly see her as a really rich person who hired the most expensive lawyers and didn't get away with it.
Which is rare.
Her very expensive lawyers will, of course, try to claim that there were errors by the judge such that the guilty verdict should be entirely vacated or a new trial should happen. However, with the exception of egress errors by the trial judge (and there has been no such reports to this point) appetite judges are loath to second guess jury verdicts.
With four convictions, for a first time offender, one might expect the sentence to be around 10 years, served concurrently, with release on good behavior in a
Re:Glad the law applied to the wealthy as well (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't see her as a man or a woman (tho she's tried to use her gender to escape the law).
Don't you? It's her whole story.
In the dusty, ancient days of ... er ... 2012 or so, women were still a "minority". They needed special rights and privileges and fawning over, especially in fields with few women like tech. That's how she got so far in her grift in the first place.
But there was a sea change ... victim hierarchies shifted ... and by the late teens women were just something you can identify as, and white women were just "karens". All protection was gone, and she was now open to being taken down.
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Her story is the inability of technology to implement her idea.
Her idea was a good one: diagnose 'any' disease easily, etc. She did an excellent job marketing it. When it turned out she couldn't implement it, she didn't give up when she should have, instead just faking it.
Re:Glad the law applied to the wealthy as well (Score:4, Interesting)
If it were easy, or even doable, it would've been done by the likes of Chiron, Bayer, Siemens, or Abbott. I worked in blood diagnostics for the first three - Chiron was bought by Bayer, and then by Siemens - and when we achieved a new assay - Vitamin D, for example, which you wouldn't think was that "exotic" - it was cause for a celebration: in part because of the technological breakthrough; the other part because of FDA approval. Those companies had lots of resources available to put toward R&D in diagnostics, but progress was never easy. So, while there's shame enough on those foolish investors who thought some "wunderkind" was going to blaze a trail that the other established players hadn't seen, there's a lot of fraud - criminally established, now - on the part of Holmes to sell them a bill of goods like that.
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If it were easy, or even doable, it would've been done by the likes of Chiron, Bayer, Siemens, or Abbott.
ok well that part I don't believe at all. Otherwise there would be no medical startups, but there are.
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"Marketing," or straight up lying?
Not much of a difference, anymore, at least in 'Merica. Hence all the spam for miracle energy saver devices (capacitor in a box), miracle pennies-a-day air conditioners (fan that blows on ice which you make in your not-pennies-a-day freezer), miracle graphene electric heaters with >100% efficiency, electric vehicles that have to be photographed rolling downhill because there's no powertrain, electrolysis hydrogen generators for your car, 200mpg carburetors, etc. Some of these are products that do a th
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Blaming her lies on limitations of technology?
Why??
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She wouldn't have needed to lie if the technology was there.
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She didn't say that was a good idea and if people gave her money she would try to make it happen. She told investors she had solved the problem and just needed investors to scale the business up.
She didn't her herself by doing tons of media claiming she was a genius who was about to revolutionize the medical testing industry while knowing there was NO WORKING PRODUCT back at the office.
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Her story is the inability of technology to implement her idea.
There is an enormous difference between "an idea" on the one hand, and "a fantasy" , "a pitch" or "a scheme" on the other.
If you found a company on "the idea" of offering real anti-gravity hoverboards you are just creating a con, as their is no anti-gravity tech. Starting a company claiming you can deliver, and then arguing "well, we were serious but we just could not implement the idea" is just a fraudster trying to jawbone their way out a prison cell.
Holmes had a scheme, not an idea.
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Her idea was a good one: diagnose 'any' disease easily, etc.
Wow, why didn't I think of that idea? Never mind, I've had another good idea : stop global warming easily, etc.
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I've had another good idea : stop global warming easily, etc.
Uh what? How do you expect to make money from that? Your idea is a terrible one. You'll get no investors.
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It was more like she portrayed herself as a Jobs/Musk like figure, only a woman. Lots of CEOs try it, like the guy heading up Nicola Motors.
Sadly her BS overshadowed some actually talented women with real products, like Lisa Su.
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I don't see her as a man or a woman (tho she's tried to use her gender to escape the law).
Don't you? It's her whole story.
In the dusty, ancient days of ... er ... 2012 or so, women were still a "minority". They needed special rights and privileges and fawning over, especially in fields with few women like tech. That's how she got so far in her grift in the first place.
She was a rich kid who had a lot of friends with rich parents as well.
Sure gender played a role, but the chief factor that enabled her rise and allowed her to escape scrutiny was her family's wealth and social connections.
I can imagine the exact same narrative playing out with a young man, silicon valley is practically built around the narrative of a 20-something 'boy genius' raising millions off of a power point.
But there was a sea change ... victim hierarchies shifted ... and by the late teens women were just something you can identify as, and white women were just "karens". All protection was gone, and she was now open to being taken down.
"Victim hierarchies" and "karens" had nothing to do with it. The sea change was the accumulated
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She was acquitted of the charges relating to the harm she did to ordinary people.
She was only convicted of the harm she did to other corporations/rich people.
All because the prosecutor couldn't be bothered to waste their time on the charges relating to ordinary people and only spent time trying to prove the harm to the corporations/rich people.
This is a GLARING example of just how much the US has devolved into an oligarchy: the rich are only prosecuted when they harm the ruling class, or in
The world shifted out from under her (Score:1, Interesting)
The world shifted out from under her.
When she started out riding high, women were viewed as an effective "minority", with all the rights and boosts that entails. Especially in anything tech related. In that environment, how could she miss? Little things like facts and value could be easily overlooked.
By 2021/22 though, women scarcely exist as a class (after all, a man can "be" one by putting a dress, or even just by saying so). And white women especially are just "karens", not a protected class anymore b
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By 2021/22 though, women scarcely exist as a class
Sure they do. Example:
The rule requires most Nasdaq-listed boards, other than exempt entities and companies with boards consisting of five or fewer members, to have at least one woman in addition to at least one member of any gender from underrepresented groups defined by race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.
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By 2021/22 though, women scarcely exist as a class
Sure they do. Example:
The rule requires most Nasdaq-listed boards, other than exempt entities and companies with boards consisting of five or fewer members, to have at least one woman in addition to at least one member of any gender from underrepresented groups defined by race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.
Yes, the laws and bureaucrats have not kept pace. But they will. Just wait until the first "woman owned business" is getting government contracts because the suit-wearing dude in charge claims he is "identifying" but takes no other steps.
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Well, mindless hypes have a tendency to be followed by a backlash.
This happens when you work to change things (Score:1)
Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes: Firing Back At Doubters | Mad Money | CNBC [youtube.com]
Re: This happens when you work to change things (Score:5, Insightful)
She thought she was Steve Jobs with Lady Parts.
She had no product.
She lied to sick patients.
She lied to investors.
She defrauded billionaires, who could spend millions to secure justice.
She blamed her 'boyfriend'.
She deserves a serious sentence.
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She lied to sick patients.
Interestingly, she didn't get convicted on that charge.
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Bad iPhones don't kill or poison anybody (unless you unrealistically rely on it).
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Maybe the difference is Apple lied and got their investors rich, while Theronos lied and bellied up.
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She defrauded billionaires, who could spend millions to secure justice.
She defrauded billionaires who buy influence that can motivate prosecution by a mere phone call. Money is a terrible
tool in the justice system since it can be used to punish the innocent.
Re: This happens when you work to change things (Score:2)
She was not innocent.
I understand you are probably making a broader point,and I agree with the broader point, lets be clear, she is not innocent.
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agreed, she's guilty and I hope she spends a long time in prison.
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Board of Directors (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah, I can't see Henry Kissinger and George Shultz [businessinsider.com] going to prison. The other names of board members are very powerful people. That was part of the scam though, getting big names on the board to validate at least publicly that their product was going to be a game-changer. They must have been paid a large amount for their "services."
She was chairman of the board and her boyfriend also had a seat as well, they'll be the only ones punished unless they can prove that the board had information on the f
squandered lol (Score:2)
"Theranos' value, once estimated at more than $9 billion, was ultimately squandered."
uh, it wasn't squandered. it didn't actually exist in the first place.