Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

sec.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 557 posts

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#241

Post by sulam »

fwdpropaganda wrote: post #137
minimaxir wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth nothing that one of Theranos's VC funders, Tim Draper, did defend Holmes despite the fraud allegations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11973102 https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/01/theranos-investor-cl...

That's extremely interesting, thanks for sharing. Think about the decision that he had to make in 2016. He had to choose between admiting his mistake and doubling down. The downside of admitting his mistake is that he's guaranteed to get negative points; the upside is that it will minimise futures downsides. By dubling down, he's guaranteed to reduce his negative points in 2016 but exposes himself to magnified upside…

I think you're ignoring the iterated nature of the game he plays. He is looking for founders to fund -- deal flow is the lifeblood of any VC. This is a signal like many other, and what it says is "As an early stage investor I absolutely have your back."

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#242

Post by mikeyouse »

rb808 wrote: post #44
megadeth wrote: post #7

Won’t see a day of jail time while Shkrelli gets 7 years.

You dont really think a working class Albanian would get treated the same as a well connected blonde woman do you? This is America here. Shkreli got convicted because he was running "Ponzi Scheme" where no one lost money. Figure that one out.

If you rob a bank and then go to a casino and bet it all on 'Black', you're not absolved of that original crime if Black hits and you pay back the bank.

Shkreli lied to his investors (he claimed he had $55M under management when it never surpassed $6M), produced false financial statements, told prospective investors that his original investors had doubled their money (when they actually lost everything), raided the fund's money for personal expenses, backdated financial statements to defraud banks for new debt.... this is all laid out in the indictment: https://www.scribd.com/doc/293530336/1-main

If you think that financial criminals should face repercussions, Shkreli belongs in jail. Others surely deserve jail as well, but 'fairness' isn't letting Shkreli off, it's punishing the rest of them too.

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#243

Post by nodesocket »

williamscales wrote: post #237
nodesocket wrote: post #221

I'll be very curious to see how and if her charges compare to Martin Shkreli who got the book thrown at him (7 years and $7.4m). Shkreli was a scapegoat mostly because of his public/social media persona, cockiness, and arrogance. Meanwhile the crooks that caused the financial meltdown have not been charged with anything. Bene vixit, qui bene latuit— "He lives well who conceals himself well."

I don't think he was a scapegoat per se, he did actually do illegal things. But I imagine that things would have gone a lot better for him if he had not jacked up the price of Daraprim to the extent he did. It seems that drew attention to his previous activities.

> jacked up the price of Daraprim

Which by the way is completely legal and common in the pharmaceutical market, but the media outrage and SJW backlash made it seem illegal.

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#244

Post by lazerpants »

nodesocket wrote: post #221

I'll be very curious to see how and if her charges compare to Martin Shkreli who got the book thrown at him (7 years and $7.4m). Shkreli was a scapegoat mostly because of his public/social media persona, cockiness, and arrogance. Meanwhile the crooks that caused the financial meltdown have not been charged with anything. Bene vixit, qui bene latuit— "He lives well who conceals himself well."

>Bene vixit, qui bene latuit— "He lives well who conceals himself well."

The Trump administration should've hired you as a consultant.

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#245

Post by ilamont »

cat199 wrote: post #108

call me back when the ex board members get hit for this.. IMHO the fraud wasn't the investors getting fleeced, it was the US public through obamacare payments made for pharmacy blood screening.. and given the players this will never, ever, ever see the light of day.. for now, it sounds like they are taking the fall to cover the higher ups to me.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos Since its incorporation in 2003,…

Board members may have been incompetent, guilty of a dereliction of duty, or were tricked themselves. Meeting minutes would shed light on this.

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#246

Post by vasilipupkin »

pron wrote: post #199
vasilipupkin wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no, I am not. Attorneys at the SEC made this determination based on everything they had on Holmes. Calling their decision biased against poor people vs rich people, etc, political rather than legal, etc. without any evidence is bullshit.

> based on everything they had on Holmes ... and a decision on when it is worth it to pursue a case. Unless the chance at conviction is zero, there is some politically determined risk threshold involved. Not only is the decision on the threshold political, but the risk itself is determined by the resources at the defendant's disposal. I am not saying that their decision is necessarily biased against poor people, but…

"and a decision on when it is worth it to pursue a case. Unless the chance at conviction is zero, there is some politically determined risk threshold involved" - you are alleging that in this specific case there was politically determined something - without any evidence whatsoever.

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#247

Post by mikeyouse »

Boxxed wrote: post #193
jonwachob91 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SEC is a civil agency and can not jail anyone for anything, they can only levy penalties. Justice has to take over the case for an offender to go to prison.

How does that make the above statement any less ridiculous? Isn't that exactly what he or she is pointing out? That the system is explicitly preventing these people from serving jailtime?

No. The system doesn't do any such thing.

Since the SEC only deals with civil penalties, they can act quickly and without the certainty required for criminal convinctions. They can also refer cases to the Justice Department, who can (and do) levy criminal charges.

Just because the SEC is the only body to publicly announce a resolution doesn't mean that Holmes or Theranos are off the hook criminally. The Obama DOJ initiated a criminal investigation in 2016 that is apparently still active and could absolutely result in jail time:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/19/business/theranos-sec-jus...

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#248

Post by wolf550e »

mevile wrote: post #107
georgeecollins wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people are in jail today because they can't post bail. You can discourage ever facing incarceration by being able to afford a good legal defense. You can be forced to accept incarceration without conviction because you are poor.

I doubt Holmes can afford much of anything anymore.

Surely her family will pay for a lawyer to keep her out of prison.

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#249

Post by plouffy »

swarnie_ wrote: post #47
plouffy wrote: post #35

700 million dollar fraud, 500.000 dollar penalty. That's an impressive RoI for the fraudsters.

No one is lining up to buy Theranos shares, where is the ROI here?

In salaries, perks etc ... I can imagine that a large part of the 700 million dollars would have been spent on salaries, perks etc ... 500,000 dollar fine seems paltry when you've essentially been able to con people out of 700 million.

Re: Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged with Fraud

#250

Post by freejulian »

williamscales wrote: post #237
nodesocket wrote: post #221

I'll be very curious to see how and if her charges compare to Martin Shkreli who got the book thrown at him (7 years and $7.4m). Shkreli was a scapegoat mostly because of his public/social media persona, cockiness, and arrogance. Meanwhile the crooks that caused the financial meltdown have not been charged with anything. Bene vixit, qui bene latuit— "He lives well who conceals himself well."

I don't think he was a scapegoat per se, he did actually do illegal things. But I imagine that things would have gone a lot better for him if he had not jacked up the price of Daraprim to the extent he did. It seems that drew attention to his previous activities.

He didn’t hide from what he was doing - he embraced it. Make no mistake, big pharma is doing the exact same things.

I for one am appreciative that he called attention to the power monopolies have over the pricing of medicine.

He had the book thrown at him because he drew attention to what modern capitalism is.

Post reply on HN