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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

#301

Post by JumpCrisscross »

75dvtwin wrote: post #299

Theranos / Holmes, also demonstrated how superficial, almost down to malpractice current so called journalism is. Complete lack of analysis, expertise in the fields they are covering, and clear initial non-biased position. Instead, we get this flood propaganda + sensationalism garbage from these so called 'reputable' news sources. And, as a consequence, con-artists, career politicians, and 'celebrities' -- leverage t…

> Theranos / Holmes, also demonstrated how superficial, almost down to malpractice current so called journalism is

Theranos was exposed by a Wall Street Journal reporter investigating and exposing the fraud. He was threatened multiple times and never budged. This is a story of journalistic excellence.

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

#302

Post by propman »

bredren wrote: post #190
maxxxxx wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That guy is nuts. It scares me that with his money he has a lot of influence.

I realize the ongoing support of this founder looks pretty bad. But in all my interactions and work with Tim Draper, I've found him to be an ethical and good person. He is nuts in an amazing way, and of all the investors I have met in the valley, I can't think of any other one I'd entrust with his influence.

That may be true, but if Holmes wasn’t stopped, thousands could have died...people trusted her to get accurate blood test results. What if some major medical ailment went undiscovered due to the poor accuracy of her machines?

Holmes is a ruthless, despicable humnan being. Cheating people out of money is one thing. Cheating people of their health, denying when caught for years and years is on a complete another level. And what she did to the poor whistleblower? Almost ruined his life and went a few rings below murder to her chief scientist. Not to mention the mafia style shakedown of John C, the reporter who broke the story.

If someone knows all that about a person, and still glowingly praises them, in my opinion they are NOT ethical and not a good person.

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

#303

Post by dghughes »

mhneu wrote: post #238

Excellent news for American society. “The Chickenshit Club” by Eisinger recently explained why the lack of criminal charges had emboldened white collar crime. Basically, individuals need to have the risk of criminal charges if they do something very egregious - they need to have skin in the game. The US Justice Dept has in the past two decades largely only been fining corporations. And so companies estimate risk and…

Even speeding tickets or anything most normal people would find a burden are nothing to super rich. But making few days in jail mandatory is a major deterrent.

Then again even people texting and driving are not swayed by fines. In my region of the world a $3,000 fine is not a deterrent to many people. I say jail time would change that attitude.

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

#304

Post by delbel »

Ice_cream_suit wrote: post #280
delbel wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was hoping the bankers can still be charged under the Patriot act, there is a provision for something to the effet threat to cause financial risk or damage if I remember. Paulson made a direct threat of financial doom if there was no bailout to President Bush. I think there is a way we can declare them enemy combatants and send them to gitmo for their trial. Sorry for typos, typing with a bad finger the last few da…

That is pretty far fetched. Using your sketchy rationale, one could claim that you are threatening Paulson and have you charged with a threat to kidnap Paulson to put him in Guantanamo Bay. And in any legal dispute between you and Paulson, you would be incidental roadkill, in view of his deep pockets. That is why the legal system has semi-reasonable heuristics that govern the range of interpretations that are accepta…

Well I don't have the legal authority to do this. The DOJ would have to look into this. I guess people don't remember how it went down. There was an emergency meeting at the whitehouse, I remember Bush and Nancy Peloski, and a few senators. After the meeting, one of them (perhaps a congressman) was interviewed on the whitehouse lawn and basically said that Paulson told them, if they didn't do this, the entire economy and country would collapse. So he said it in a way that would give him plausible deniability, but if there was evidence that he knew otherwise or coordinate to create a crisis situation, (that is probably the stretch you are missing to connect), which I allege -- because later on we found out that the banks were both buying and shorting securities knowing they would default (and this is a fact), I think this would be evidence to charge him. This is a specific area in the Patriot act for dealing with terrorism threatening financial crisis. Since there is no statue of limitations on this, it would be an avenue to charge him. There is no provision in the Patriot Act for normal citizens to kidnap people and have access to Guantanamo Bay, that's a bizarre and bewildering statement/counter argument to what I am saying. Perhaps people are to young or don't remember how the financial crisis went down. There are plenty of people at Zerohedge that remember.

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYrDtpAkppM

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

#305

Post by dmfdmf »

sjg007 wrote: post #291
dmfdmf wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd take those articles with a huge grain of salt. How could you distinguish a CEO with the courage to make an unpopular choice (e.g. layoff 1/3 of the workforce to save the company) -vs- a psychopath who does it to inflict suffering on others or to just establish dominance? How do you even measure psychopathic traits without defining exactly what "psychopathy" means and a rational ethic by which to judge the non-psy…

Huh? You just give the ceos a psychopath exam.

No. I reject the methodology of the psychologists who do these types of studies.

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

#306

Post by paulddraper »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #301
75dvtwin wrote: post #299

Theranos / Holmes, also demonstrated how superficial, almost down to malpractice current so called journalism is. Complete lack of analysis, expertise in the fields they are covering, and clear initial non-biased position. Instead, we get this flood propaganda + sensationalism garbage from these so called 'reputable' news sources. And, as a consequence, con-artists, career politicians, and 'celebrities' -- leverage t…

> Theranos / Holmes, also demonstrated how superficial, almost down to malpractice current so called journalism is Theranos was exposed by a Wall Street Journal reporter investigating and exposing the fraud. He was threatened multiple times and never budged. This is a story of journalistic excellence.

Most of all, this is an inditement of several SV VCs. They should know nearly as much as anyone.

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

#307

Post by recharged93 »

SilverSlash wrote: post #298
emiliobumachar wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That mid level DoD employee should get a bonus, a promotion, and a medal.

How about Tyler Shultz? The main whistleblower and grandson of George Shultz. He was working at Theranos and realized they were a giant fraud. He lost his job, was harassed by lawyers, he and his parents almost had to sell their house to pay legal fees, his grandfather wouldn't speak to him anymore, etc.

Basically the gov't employee, son, and likely others we don't know about lost their jobs and even blacklisted.

I say 90% of VC back companies are blowing smoke to the endpoint investor, public and consumer. 100% of those companies have miracle products that scale forever and work... In 1 specific ise case: the demo booth. They oversell. I see 2 out of 10 startups bring a viable product to the global 2000 table.

Spacex: we can go to Mars, but haven't even launched a Mars rocket. Google: AI is here, and the product? Waymo, logs millions of miles, is just sunny conditions?

The common strategy: lie(aka promise), sell the future, hopefully you get the solution and hit time to market. Holmes was following the same playbook, BUT just gave up, and that's got her investors and comsumers furious. If she apologized, AND stuck with it, investors would still back her, and the public flac would have subsided....VCs were sold on her future.

On the opposite end, aside from real mistakes is a company like Apple: they sell the future and deliver.

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

#308

Post by sjg007 »

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…

It's all in the power saving software.

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

#309

Post by toomuchtodo »

saalweachter wrote: post #259
dralley wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a general issue. See also: Thiel, the Mercer's, the Koch's, Sheldon Adelson, the Illinois Democratic political machine, the Harry Reid Nevada political machine, etc.

Are there still functional political machines in the US? The Chicago machine survived the 40's but was killed by the Shakman Decrees 20 years ago. (There's still a formidable political party to be sure and a bit of graft wouldn't surprise me, but it seems almost sarcastic to compare that to eg the New Deal political machine, or the Chicago machine of ol'.)

> Are there still functional political machines in the US?

Rahm Emanuel, Michael Madigan, and Lisa Madigan come to mind.

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