U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by zaidf » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 4:36 AM UTC

cfadvan wrote: post #118

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.

It’s probably also a reflection of the fact that the flaw in Theranos’ goal was a medical issue, namely uniformity of sampled blood, and this isn’t a site of mostly MD’s. Part of it may well have been fanboyism, but it may just have been that most here lacked the requisite background to see the flaw. I find the self-driving, or near-future Mars colony fanboyism here a little harder to take, because a much larger segm…

If you read the book, it’s very apparent it was a case of fanboyism from a very specific demographic: older males in positions of power (WalGreens CEO, Safeway CEO, mulplitude of investors like Murdoch, Larry Ellison, politicians like Schultz and Mathis.) Many of these individuals had very educated voices on their team that constantly sounded the alarm bells only to be ignored and chastised because those in power were completely smitten and couldn’t fathom re-evaluating their positions. In one instance, Safeway staffers even half-joked that Safeway CEO saw in Holmes the daughter he never had.

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

#322

Post by saalweachter » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 4:38 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #309

saalweachter wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Those are all Chicago politicians, yes.

While people sometimes use "political machine" to mean "a functioning, robust party" nowadays, a "political machine" refers to a specific system of patronage, where campaigning for a politician or political party is rewarded with government jobs, and anyone supporting the opposing party was rewarded with unemployment.

At the height of the Chicago political machine (and New York, and ...) tens of thousands of city jobs were used to reward campaign workers, not just big donors and campaign managers but the people who knocked on doors or district leaders who ensured good turnout in their districts. At the height of the New Deal political machine, the WPA was used to do the same.

Rahm Emanuel, meanwhile, has "good relations" with Chicago businessmen and receives giant campaign donations; Michael Madigan tried to get jobs for a half dozen people and was shutdown hard.

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

#323

Post by macintux » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 4:38 AM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #115

MBCook wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, to be fair, experts in the field called the original iPhone impossible. Turns out in this case they were right.

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.

I definitely remember one supposed LCD expert who said Apple was lying about the iPad battery life. Said there was no way it would last more than 3 hours.

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

#324

Post by zaidf » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 4:40 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #37

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…

> 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. So, just like most VC favorite startups?

Vast majority of VC flameouts don’t put tens of thousands of lives at risk. Theranos had to void blood tests of 76,000 people just in Arizona. If Holmes had her way, that number would be millions.

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

#325

Post by ryan-allen » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 4:43 AM UTC

dghughes wrote: post #303

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.

In Australia we have 'demerit points', so if you rack up enough of them, you can lose your license, which takes away your right to drive a car. If you drive without a license and get caught, you have no insurance and you can go to jail as it's considered contempt of court.

So the fines are no big deal to the rich here, but the right to drive is incentive enough to stop being an asshat.

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

#326

Post by zaidf » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 4:45 AM UTC

nikanj wrote: post #90

dboreham wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been involved with many vc funded startups and have never encountered a situation where nobody knows how to achieve the core product vision. Nobody knows how to achieve profitability...sure.

UBeam springs to mind.

Keep in mind the actual fraud is NOT saying “we will try to do impossible task X” and failing. The fraud is going to extreme lengths to cook up results to drum up sales and investments.

UBeam might very well flameout but I think if you are evaluating a company for fraud potential, there’s no evidence of UBeam making up complete BS to raise investments. In that case, even if their tech doesn’t pan out, as long as they weren’t massively deceiving investors, it would be a failed startup, not a fraudulent one. They are not the same thing.

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

#327

Post by ryan-allen » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 4:45 AM UTC

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…

I'm reading the book Bad Blood at the moment. It's a cracker. Assuming it's true, the level of wilful negligence and fraud is astounding. What is unbelievable is how they got away with it for so long.

I can hardly put it down, I highly recommend it.

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

#328

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 4:46 AM UTC

tluyben2 wrote: post #312

dghughes wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Losing your license is a major deterrent as well: as someone who finds driving a waste of time I cannot understand why rich people do it, but they do and they get extremely upset if that privilege is taken away. So 3 times and you lose your license for life? That would solve the reckless behavior and cannot be fixed with money. Ofcourse for less well off people this would be very bad (maybe not being able to go to wo…

[deleted]

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

#329

Post by zaidf » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 4:48 AM UTC

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.

They were exposed after they raised almost a billion dollars from sales and investments, often on the basis of glowing media. The book is filled with anecdotes abt how the positive media was leveraged by Holmes and often cited by internal champions at Safeway and Walgreens to counter the skeptical voices in the room (“come on, they’re in Forbes, they can’t be a scam!”)

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

#330

Post by vowelless » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 4:49 AM UTC

sundvor wrote: post #318

dghughes wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Try fining in N% of annual salary, Finland style, and see how long it takes for that tune to change.

What about Mark Zuckerberg who has an annual salary of $1.00?