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U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

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Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

#11

Post by maxxxxx »

zitterbewegung wrote: post #8
maxxxxx wrote: post #6

Does anybody know if Theranos got started with at least an idea how to accomplish what they wanted to do? From what I have heard in interviews they started with the thought "Doing xxx would be super useful" but didn't have an approach for accomplishing this but instead took in money and tried to figure it out. It's like me saying "An antimatter drive would revolutionize space exploration" and starting to collect mone…

After the company launched professionals in the medical testing said it was impossible. I believe it was even posted to HN. They stated it was impossible to get the results they would get from the amount of blood given.

That can be OK if the company was started knowing that they had invented something new.

Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

#12

Post by JumpCrisscross »

maxxxxx wrote: post #6

Does anybody know if Theranos got started with at least an idea how to accomplish what they wanted to do? From what I have heard in interviews they started with the thought "Doing xxx would be super useful" but didn't have an approach for accomplishing this but instead took in money and tried to figure it out. It's like me saying "An antimatter drive would revolutionize space exploration" and starting to collect mone…

> It's like me saying "An antimatter drive would revolutionize space exploration" and starting to collect money but without even the faintest idea how to produce one

In America, it's perfectly legal to say "I'm going to make an antimatter drive; give me a million dollars." It's illegal to say "I have a working antimatter drive prototype; give me a million dollars." Holmes and Balwani did the latter.

Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

#13

Post by jaredhansen »

While Theranos was flying high, much was made of the company's connections to DC power elite - Kissenger on the board, etc.[1]. And the implication usually seemed to be that the deep bench of Serious And Important And Powerful People allowed the company to get away with things that otherwise would not have been possible.

I think it's worth pausing to consider: when's the last time you heard of a startup CEO/CTO team getting indicted for wire fraud? I'm not saying it doesn't happen, and I have no position on whether Holmes and Balwani are guilty of these or other charges.

But I do have to wonder whether the degree of attention from the DOJ has more to do with avenging the reputational and possibly financial losses of those same board members, than garden-variety "the DOJ prosecutes fraud".

In which case, there'd be a civics lesson as well. Live by .gov, die by .gov.

(Edit to clarify, lest I be accused of insufficient virtue signaling: fraud is bad, don't do it, if they committed fraud they should be punished, etc etc.)

[1] e.g.https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/03/14/theranos...

Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

#16

Post by badminton1 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #12
maxxxxx wrote: post #6

Does anybody know if Theranos got started with at least an idea how to accomplish what they wanted to do? From what I have heard in interviews they started with the thought "Doing xxx would be super useful" but didn't have an approach for accomplishing this but instead took in money and tried to figure it out. It's like me saying "An antimatter drive would revolutionize space exploration" and starting to collect mone…

> It's like me saying "An antimatter drive would revolutionize space exploration" and starting to collect money but without even the faintest idea how to produce one In America, it's perfectly legal to say "I'm going to make an antimatter drive; give me a million dollars." It's illegal to say "I have a working antimatter drive prototype; give me a million dollars." Holmes and Balwani did the latter.

That is a good way to describe it.

They also made the technology very secretive. Not even their investors could have access to implementation details.

Re: U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani

#17

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jaredhansen wrote: post #13

While Theranos was flying high, much was made of the company's connections to DC power elite - Kissenger on the board, etc.[1]. And the implication usually seemed to be that the deep bench of Serious And Important And Powerful People allowed the company to get away with things that otherwise would not have been possible. I think it's worth pausing to consider: when's the last time you heard of a startup CEO/CTO team…

> I do have to wonder whether the degree of attention from the DOJ has more to do with avenging the reputational and possibly financial losses of those same board members

The response to evidence against a conspiracy theory is not to flip the conspiracy theory.

If you defraud investors out of billions of dollars and lie to Medicare and Streisand effect the Wall Street Journal when it investigates you, you're going to get busted.

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