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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

#121

Post by rubicon33 »

sarchertech wrote: post #103
jcranmer wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holmes and Balwani had some experience with microfluidics (IIRC), which is certainly sufficient chemical background to give them a credible belief that they could do what they wanted to do (run blood tests on smaller sample sizes). The ultimate problem with their goal is that when you do a finger prick, a large fraction of the sample is not blood but interstitial fluid and skin layers, which makes the results noisy a…

Holmes dropped out after 3 semesters. As far as I can tell she took one intro chemical engineering class. Not what I would call experience with microfluidics.

Sounds like she drank too much of the "drop out of college and disrupt the valley" kool aid.

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

#122

Post by jamestimmins »

jcranmer wrote: post #114
sarchertech wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holmes dropped out after 3 semesters. As far as I can tell she took one intro chemical engineering class. Not what I would call experience with microfluidics.

My recollection was that there was someone involved early on who had substantial experience with microfluidics, but I'm having trouble pinning down who exactly it was.

Potentially Ian Gibbons? He was the original Chief Scientist who died by suicide after legal issues arose within Theranos over a patent dispute. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Gibbons_(biochemist)

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

#123

Post by iscrewyou »

Reading the theranos story, what’s going on in the political spectrum today, watching the steps people seem to have taken to get where they are to influence the society and then seemingly failing at it, I am always reminded of the documentary “Enron, the smartest guys in the room”. It’s such a simple idea that likely one thing led to another and they have climbed a ladder to defraud investors and tried to cause public harm. Those first steps were maybe of good intentions or maybe of bad ones. But somewhere along the way, they clearly created a bubble of their own where they assured themselves that it’s ok what they are doing. Never lose the outside reference point. Never.

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

#124

Post by meowface »

jjoonathan wrote: post #65
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…

My suspicion: Holmes heard about microfluidics at school, misjudged its position in the hype cycle (it's a red ocean, not a blue ocean), sold herself as an expert, raised money from people who didn't know better, and let the success get to her head because at some point she would have hired actual experts and they would probably have tried to steer her away from the known-hard problem she was trying to tackle and tow…

It seems like a typical SV case of "fake it til you make it", except instead of risking a down website or burned investor, they risked harm and death of patients.

She clearly had some knowledge and strategy about the technology and likely fully intended for it to be successful, but responded to delays and difficulties with deception rather than just admitting it was harder than they expected.

"If we just get over this hurdle, we'll revolutionize medical testing and become legends." Not unlike Ponzi schemes which start out as legitimate investment ventures, do very poorly, and then just make up the return numbers. Martin Shkreli arguably pulled that fraud off "successfully" and actually got over the hurdle, but of course it came back to bite him.

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

#125

Post by learc83 »

jcranmer wrote: post #114
sarchertech wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holmes dropped out after 3 semesters. As far as I can tell she took one intro chemical engineering class. Not what I would call experience with microfluidics.

My recollection was that there was someone involved early on who had substantial experience with microfluidics, but I'm having trouble pinning down who exactly it was.

She convinced her chemical engineering professor to be an advisor early on.

But the project she sold him on was based on her idea for some kind of wearable. From reading interviews I got the idea that he was more impressed with the wireless, wearable aspect (technologies he didn't have experience with presumably).

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

#126

Post by tschwimmer »

smallgovt wrote: post #66
mchannon wrote: post #43

I have been in this exact place before. For the two of them, this day will be just about the worst of their lives. This is ordinarily when hard-core criminals are taken into custody. If their experience was like mine, they had to show up in front of a magistrate with their lawyers, plead not guilty, then go to a dungeon for about 30 minutes while they get handcuffed, fingerprinted, mugshotted, and DNA-swabbed. Then,…

Can you expand on your experience with indictments like this? It rings true to me that, in general, the average person would have much more compassion for 'bad' people in 'bad' situations if they could live a day in their shoes.

Not GP but it looks like this might be his case: https://www.justice.gov/usao-nm/pr/albuquerque-couple-senten...

NB: Mods, not sure if this is allowed, feel free to remove if not. Information was gathered using information freely offered by HN profile and LinkedIn.

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

#127

Post by jessaustin »

mchannon wrote: post #43

I have been in this exact place before. For the two of them, this day will be just about the worst of their lives. This is ordinarily when hard-core criminals are taken into custody. If their experience was like mine, they had to show up in front of a magistrate with their lawyers, plead not guilty, then go to a dungeon for about 30 minutes while they get handcuffed, fingerprinted, mugshotted, and DNA-swabbed. Then,…

I have a lot of sympathy for you, because I know that decent people are railroaded by federal prosecutors every day. That's not what's going on here. Prosecutors are attacking wealthy interests, not just defending them. (Since this is primarily a dispute among investors, wealthy interests are in opposition. Prosecutors have to choose a side, and they always choose the one farther up the pyramid.)

It's actually pretty unlikely that Holmes and Balwani will lose all of their fancy properties, because that sort of scene also upsets the plutocrats. They'll just have to give back most of the millions they've squirreled away.

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

#128

Post by jessaustin »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #73
mchannon wrote: post #43

I have been in this exact place before. For the two of them, this day will be just about the worst of their lives. This is ordinarily when hard-core criminals are taken into custody. If their experience was like mine, they had to show up in front of a magistrate with their lawyers, plead not guilty, then go to a dungeon for about 30 minutes while they get handcuffed, fingerprinted, mugshotted, and DNA-swabbed. Then,…

you do the crime, you pay the time. look, this society will fall apart if its only the poor who will pay the price for flouting the law.

"Will"? "If"?

If Homes and Balwani had confined their predations to the general public, they'd still be free and wealthy. It's only because they also swindled some plutocrats that they're going to have to return most of their plunder.

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

#129

Post by KSS42 »

icebraining wrote: post #83
sveme wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Skinming through the comments, very little criticism, everyone in awe. Only way down there is someone stating how hard it is to get regulatory approval. I guess that‘s HN still in full fanboy mode, before all those startups started to display their dark sides.

I don't see any fanboyism; I see interest, and surprise at the composition of the board. A bit down, I see strong criticism by medman77, who hasn't been downvoted.

medman77 created his/her account that day and only ever posted that one comment.

I wonder if he/she was from Nanomix (nano.com, another company working on similar technology since 2000)

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