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

#501

Post by kwindla » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 11:40 PM UTC

microtherion wrote: post #486

kwindla wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very aware, but information was strictly compartmentalized inside the company so individual employees had to figure out that things were badly wrong in different ways, depending on what their roles were and when in the lifecycle of the company they were there. Overall, though, the employee turnover was insane. As someone who has spent a lot of time around startups, the amount of employee turnover was one of the crazi…

What I found most appalling about the behavior described in the book, and maybe among the most probative in the criminal case, is the heavy handed use of legal threats to stop employees from talking and negative reporting. I'm willing to forgive quite a bit of "fake it till you make it" flim-flam, but anybody who uses such strong-arm tactics deserves having the book thrown at them.

I completely agree.

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

#502

Post by tomxor » Sat, Jun 16, 2018, 11:56 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #450

tomxor wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even speeding tickets or anything most normal people would find a burden are nothing to super rich. I'm not sure how it works in your country but in the UK too many speeding tickets and you will loose your license. The exact number depends on the severity of each offence, but we get max of 12 points over 3 years [1] so they stick with you - repeat offenders are given even stricter rules after getting their license…

Around here in this part of Scotland it is mostly average speed cameras - I am amazed at the number of people who don't seem to have grasped what this means and slow down at the cameras (which are very visible) only to speed up afterwards.

We have some of those down here too but not many, they do make more sense - I see the same thing though, people slowing down and speeding up after the cameras, i think they just don't read - their loss.

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

#503

Post by andybak » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 12:07 AM UTC

delbel wrote: post #304

Ice_cream_suit wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

BTW. It may sound flippant but if you used more paragraph breaks your arguments would be more persuasive.

"Wall of Text" ~= "Probably an incoherent rant"

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

#504

Post by andybak » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 12:47 AM UTC

ShabbosGoy wrote: post #281

pharrington wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High profile sociopaths are extreme outliers, as most sociopaths burn through their social connections well before becoming competent enough at social manipulation and finding enough people that are well-off enough to maintain a parasitic life. Also as a side note, within Scientology you don't actually learn about the Xenu shit until you're way too deep, financially and/or time commitment-wise, to pull out.

> Also as a side note, within Scientology you don't actually learn about the Xenu shit until you're way too deep, financially and/or time commitment-wise, to pull out. It seems they’ve taken a page out of Masonry or mystery religions. Only higher level “initiates” receive the real wisdom. The question is, are the high level initiates plain psychopaths? Or are they just addicted to the free pussy (or dick), drugs, and…

Esoteric religion as an intellectual Ponzi scheme...

Nice. Although I am beginning to suspect that everything is to a greater or lesser degree a Ponzi Scheme in the long run due to thermodynamics. ;-)

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

#505

Post by ryan-allen » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 1:34 AM UTC

glangdale wrote: post #346

ryan-allen wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually, rich people in Sydney just paid their employees to say "oh, I was driving that car at the time". Pretty scandalous.

Not even rich people do this, but I wouldn't want to be party to either side of such an arrangement. Between the cameras and tracking of phones, if someone's out to get you they can get you on fraud.

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

#506

Post by meowface » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 3:04 AM UTC

xorcist wrote: post #380

meowface wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They knew it didn't work, but kept selling it anyway, which is where it went from just faking it to outright fraud. I'm playing Devil's advocate and not justifying or defending their fraud and the physical harm they caused, but if we were to look at Holmes' intentions, I'm suspecting it was something like "we just need to do this for a few months/years until our technology works", rather than "let's just run this sc…

It's easy to fall prey for psychopaths trying to second guess their intentions. "This can't be staged, that would be an unnecessary risk. Had they wanted to get rich quick they would have lied about this other thing instead". True intentions are illogical to other people, because they are the result of a limited, narcissistic and self centered world view. (Not making any real life connections here, I am absolutely no…

You're right. I can't make assumptions about her true intentions. But I don't think you or anyone else can either. It'll be interesting to see if anything new regarding that comes to light at trial. Maybe she's a pure sociopath, maybe she's a college dropout who was in way over her head and dug the company into a hole it couldn't escape, maybe neither, maybe both.

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

#507

Post by meowface » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 3:08 AM UTC

paulie_a wrote: post #278

zebnyc wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you going to say that to the founders of reddit & airbnb?

I would absolutely say that to them. It's doubtful they actually committed a crime but it shows a lack of character and constituition to say the least and potentially fraud to their investors. Fake it until you make it makes you a scam artist, con man, flim flan man etc... People that embrace that philosophy are frauds and cheats that should not be trusted.

Seeding a community where pseudo-anonymous users submit image/link content with images and links might be fraud by some semantic and technical definition (certainly not a legal one), but 1) it's pretty much necessary to get something like that off the ground, 2) no one is really being deceived or misled in a significant way. I'd say it's pretty harmless.

My understanding is reddit did this at the very start of the site's existence and stopped pretty early. They probably would've died quickly if they didn't seed some content.

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

#508

Post by meowface » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 3:20 AM UTC

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.

Extremely brave what he did, especially when it means combatting his own (extremely wealthy and powerful) grandfather. The court of public opinion and the history books will see him as the hero in the end, at least. And he's since started his own medtech company.

In the short-term, his life was a nightmare and Holmes and Balwani held all the cards, but in the long-term he'll probably be successful and considered honorable while Holmes and Balwani will be disgraced at best and convicted felons at worst.

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

#509

Post by astura » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 4:53 AM UTC

tomxor wrote: post #436

astura wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? What is stopping someone who loses their license from just driving anyway? They've already shown not to give a shit, so they'll continue driving without a license. My dad lost his license many years ago and never stopped driving. He gets arrested once in a while, doesn't stop him.

> My dad lost his license many years ago and never stopped driving. He gets arrested once in a while, doesn't stop him. You live in a very strange country, in the UK your dad would have had his car taken away from him and crushed... and if he repeatedly found other cars to drive without a license he would probably end up in prison.

My dad has been to jail before for driving without a license, but driving without a license is not a life sentence so he's back out on the road driving next month.

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

#510

Post by astura » Sun, Jun 17, 2018, 4:59 AM UTC

vcfg wrote: post #426

astura wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? What is stopping someone who loses their license from just driving anyway? They've already shown not to give a shit, so they'll continue driving without a license. My dad lost his license many years ago and never stopped driving. He gets arrested once in a while, doesn't stop him.

That’s odd. Here driving without a licence is a crime and will land you in prison for sure if caught. Why would you have a licence if there are no consequences for not having it?

There are certainly consequences, but my point was some people have established they don't care about consequences.

My dad has gone to jail for driving without a license before, but he'll go out driving when he gets out of jail. But usually his lawyer finds some sort of technically that gets him out of major trouble. I don't know the exact details, I try to ignore him as much as possible.