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

sec.gov

351–360 of 557 posts

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

#351

The SEC title says Massive Fraud. I think the title here should reflect that.

is the "Massive" part just grand standing, or does it correspond to a legal qualification of the alleged offense? Interestingly I can't google that because I get drowned under Theranos results.

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

#352
post #200

Is Holmes still rich after this? I can't tell just how much of her wealth she's being forced to return in form of shares.

>Is Holmes still rich after this? But why it matters at all? Penalty should be proportional to the deed, not to the person's finances.

no, individualized sentences are part of the justice procedure.

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

#354

From the Financial Times: Here's the nuance of her formula: Commit fraud as an attractive, well-connected WASP woman who happened to be neighbors with well-connected VC Draper family. Tell a great story: Stanford drop-out who studied Chinese, afraid of needles, wants to help the world. Leverage Silicon Valley connections to pull in other really big fish, such as Kissinger, et al, who would be really, really embarrass…

> Works like a charm

I dunno, I'd say it kinda failed here.

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

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if you want to lie about some drone-based burrito delivery service you're probably not gonna draw the same ire as life-saving medical equipment. Although if you swindle investors for over $700 million in either case I imagine the SEC will be knocking at your door eventually.

> if you want to lie about some drone-based burrito delivery service I wouldn't suggest lying about anything in the aviation sector either.

Yep, especially don’t lie about doing flights you are not doing, or not doing flights you are.

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

#356

From the Financial Times: Here's the nuance of her formula: Commit fraud as an attractive, well-connected WASP woman who happened to be neighbors with well-connected VC Draper family. Tell a great story: Stanford drop-out who studied Chinese, afraid of needles, wants to help the world. Leverage Silicon Valley connections to pull in other really big fish, such as Kissinger, et al, who would be really, really embarrass…

>Declare anyone against you as against women in business.

ie Sophia Amoruso, who ran her company into bankruptcy and immediately jumped into running a media company and having a Netflix show about women in business

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

#358
Why is there such a culture of fake it till you make it in SV? If the tech is good, no need for faking. If the tech is bad, figure it out, don't fake it. Otherwise, if it doesn't work and it is faked, things will get really bad and at worst lives could be lost.

It seems like there is a lot of stupid money around and a lot of scam artists trying to suck the supply dry.

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

#360

From the Financial Times: Here's the nuance of her formula: Commit fraud as an attractive, well-connected WASP woman who happened to be neighbors with well-connected VC Draper family. Tell a great story: Stanford drop-out who studied Chinese, afraid of needles, wants to help the world. Leverage Silicon Valley connections to pull in other really big fish, such as Kissinger, et al, who would be really, really embarrass…

> Works like a charm I dunno, I'd say it kinda failed here.

I'd say it worked fantastically. For the sake of timing lets compare Shkreli and Holmes. She committed a much larger fraud and lost people huge amounts of money. She is spending exactly zero days in prison. She is getting a $500,000 fine - which Theranos is probably paying for - and a slap in the wrist[1].

Meanwhile Shkreli - who's "victims" lost zero money - is going to spend 7 years in jail and has lost at least $10 million because the government decided to take it over.

I would love to see people complaining about gender gaps addressing the huge gender gap in our justice system, because cases like this are a slap in the face.

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[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-theranos-sec/theranos-and...

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