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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

#331

Post by [deleted] »

api wrote: post #143
atombender wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#332

Post by dmfdmf »

sjg007 wrote: post #315
dmfdmf wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why?

Because you can't define pathology (deviation from a norm) without defining the norm. Modern psychologists dodge this question and implicitly assume various generally accepted moral standards and tenents (a form of circular reasoning) by which they condemn those who don't follow it. It is not science and to make it a science the psychologists should be seeking a rational basis to define ethics. Nobody has done this and until they do psychology will remain a pre-science like alchemy.

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

#333

Post by Terr_ »

vowelless wrote: post #330
sundvor wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They misspoke, Finland fines a percentage of income, which would include money from selling Facebook stock to pay for rent, food, yachts, etc.

IANATaxLawyer, but I imagine gaming the system would require you to take out non-taxable loans using that company stock as collateral, and hope that your lawlessness is caught during the living-on-a-loan years rather than the liquidate-and-repay years.

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

#334

Post by jakobegger »

vowelless wrote: post #330
sundvor wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Make it a percentage of taxable income or something like that. Lots of people have non-salary income.

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

#335

Post by aptwebapps »

recharged93 wrote: post #307
SilverSlash wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Space…

I don't think those examples match very well. Theranos really didn't have anything that worked. Spacex has rockets that work and satisfied customers. They aren't going to Mars yet, but most of their current satellite launch customers probably really don't care.

And of the various self-driving car efforts, Waymo seems one of the most careful, both in their engineering and PR. I don't recall them making any claims they can't back up, but I may have missed some.

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

#336

Post by yborg »

bookofjoe wrote: post #221
gamblor956 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had a good idea of what they wanted to do (blood tests using very thin needles) but never successfully figured out how to accomplish that with the level of accuracy required. Most Medical professionals believe that what they wanted to do was simply impossible from a biological perspective due to the natural variations of blood content. It would have been like trying to determine traffic on a freeway by taking a…

Well stated. I'm a retired neurosurgical anesthesiologist who relied on accurate blood test results to manage major intracranial procedures. No way would I accept a finger-stick hemoglobin/hematocrit as the basis on which to decide on the need for blood transfusion. Why? Because as a medical intern I did them routinely, because I had to get a number to present at morning rounds and even our excellent STAT Lab (LAC-US…

This is the first explanation I've ever heard in 30 years over dozens of physicians/nurses for why a blood draw needs so much sample. And I wonder if young med students/nurses are taught that little fact about squeezing a fingerstick...

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

#338

Post by [deleted] »

Terr_ wrote: post #333
vowelless wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They misspoke, Finland fines a percentage of income , which would include money from selling Facebook stock to pay for rent, food, yachts, etc. IANATaxLawyer, but I imagine gaming the system would require you to take out non-taxable loans using that company stock as collateral, and hope that your lawlessness is caught during the living-on-a-loan years rather than the liquidate-and-repay years.

[deleted]

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

#340

Post by vincentmarle »

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…

> That would solve the reckless behavior and cannot be fixed with money.

I knew a rich person once with a drinking problem: he kept losing his license but his solution would be to just hire a private driver the next day.

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