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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

#141

Post by colordrops »

madrox wrote: post #74
colordrops wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: "putting my worst enemy through", I don't know, this doesn't sound as bad as growing up in a war zone or even the ghetto, or getting waterboarded. Sounds like bureaucratic hell, but that's not even close to how bad things can get.

Well, hopefully you wouldn't want to put your worst enemy through those things, either. Doesn't have to be the worst thing in the world for you to not wish it on someone.

I believe in proportionate and fair punishment for crimes committed by anyone, let alone my worst enemy. Bureaucratic hell seems more than reasonable for the crimes committed by Theranos leadership. And I'm sure the trial won't be as bad as prison.

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

#142

Post by rossdavidh »

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 recall Carreyrou (the journalist who wrote this article and exposed them originally) saying a few weeks ago that he thought it was a bad idea for them to keep operating the company, that it was probably antagonizing the DOJ. This is just a hunch, but it may be that they (the DOJ) were convinced that if not indicted, they would try to do it all again (find a new bunch of investors to fleece). If so, I think they might have been correct.

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

#143

Post by api »

atombender wrote: post #93
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…

This interview with John Carreyrou [1], the Wall Street Journal journalist who is largely responsible for exposing Theranos, goes into a lot of detail. It's long, so if you want a shorter answer, jump to the question "What technology did Theranos actually develop?": Basically there were three iterations of the technology. The first one used microfluidics, which are basically the repurposing of the micro-fabrication t…

> The short answer is her Jobs-like "reality distortion field" -- she was exceedingly good at convincing ...

Considering this and the lack of substance behind her claims, I would personally bet money that she is a clinical psychopath.

The most disturbing thing I have ever observed about human beings is our tendency to follow psychopaths. Psychopaths seem to have this gravity around them and people just fall into line. I've observed some spectacular examples. A psychopath can say the most questionable or even absurd things and people will just believe, whereas people will be skeptical of even very sane things that come out of the mouths of non-psychopaths. It's as if clinical psychopaths have some special instinctive ability to generate body language, vocal cues, and linguistic patterns that manipulate others very effectively.

I am not claiming that everyone with a "reality distortion field" must be a psychopath, but I've definitely observed a positive correlation.

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

#144

Post by atombender »

meowface wrote: post #124
jjoonathan wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thi…

They did start with legitimate attempts at implementing th technology needed to microfluidics (though apparently Holmes knew nothing about the field and didn't even know anything about existing players such as Abaxis, who actually had working machines).

However, they could not get the technology to work and abandoned several development paths in favour of a less ambitious approach that, among other things, involved doing blood analysis the old-fashioned way (manually in the lab), and only pretending to be using new tech they'd invented. They knew it didn't work, but kept selling it anyway, which is where it went from just faking it to outright fraud.

Most of their money was raised after they failed to develop their blood analysis technology, but to the investors, to the press and to their clients (such as Walgreens), they were still claiming to be using their proprietary technology [1].

[1] http://m.nautil.us/issue/60/searches/does-theranos-mark-the-...

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

#145

Post by weiming »

atombender wrote: post #93
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…

This interview with John Carreyrou [1], the Wall Street Journal journalist who is largely responsible for exposing Theranos, goes into a lot of detail. It's long, so if you want a shorter answer, jump to the question "What technology did Theranos actually develop?": Basically there were three iterations of the technology. The first one used microfluidics, which are basically the repurposing of the micro-fabrication t…

I am assuming they had some of the best people in the field working on these. Makes me wonder how much the employees were aware of the company's situation, and the infeasibility of some of these goals.

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

#146

Post by anoncoward111 »

So I mean like, fraud is definitely not a good thing, but COUNTLESS government contractors committed outright fraud and embezzlement during the Iraq War, and none of them were ever held accountable.

One of them even made 8 billion USD completely disappear from the "Iraq Reconstruction Fund".

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

#147

Post by oldgradstudent »

comex wrote: post #136
epistasis wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if there were "experts" of the same caliber calling the iPhone impossible. In fact, I don't recall anybody saying it was impossible, but would like to find out more. I remember a ton of doubt, after launch, that it would be successful, but those people weren't really experts.

Here’s one example. Apparently RIM’s employees collectively thought it was impossible (to achieve the stated battery life); I think they count as experts: > RIM had a complete internal panic when Apple unveiled the iPhone in 2007, a former employee revealed this weekend. The BlackBerry maker is now known to have held multiple all-hands meetings on January 10 that year, a day after the iPhone was on stage, and to have…

I had the first iPhone. Let me just say that the official battery life was somewhat aspirational.

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

#148

Post by mchannon »

wil421 wrote: post #75
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 feel like you are playing the victim in this situation. Tone is hard to read through text so please forgive me if I misread your factual statements based on your own experience. Both of these people fully deserve what’s coming to them. They lied to investors, they lied again to investors to keep the company afoalt, and above all they seriously jepordized medical results. It’s one thing to challenge status quo or ev…

I am a victim, offering highly pertinent experiences to inform the opinions of the HN crowd. It doesn't matter if my tone offends your sensibilities.

I feel like you're playing judge, jury, and executioner. Leave the pitchforks and torches for the judicial system in this country.

What if they get found not guilty, or more likely (but still unlikely) the feds quietly drop the case?

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

#149

Post by grouseway »

atombender wrote: post #93
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…

This interview with John Carreyrou [1], the Wall Street Journal journalist who is largely responsible for exposing Theranos, goes into a lot of detail. It's long, so if you want a shorter answer, jump to the question "What technology did Theranos actually develop?": Basically there were three iterations of the technology. The first one used microfluidics, which are basically the repurposing of the micro-fabrication t…

I wonder if medman77 was talking abut the glue dispenser here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6349808

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

#150

Post by jvagner »

meowface wrote: post #124
jjoonathan wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 thi…

You might be able to "fake it til you make it" with some kinds of products, or business plans, or interactions with customers and partners.

You can't really fake science.

This may have been faking too hard in a place where experimentation, or R&D, yielded nothing usable.

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