171–180 of 264 posts
She defrauded investors out of so much money, she deserves at least 10 years in prison imo.
The modern wisdom, "fake it till you make it", requires you to make it, otherwise you'll pay for lying to us.
Holmes still made it - she's still rich and probably will serve minimal (if any) jail time.
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This is the SV “fake it ‘till you make it” culture. Right now Tesla is delivering “full self driving” cars that require a human driver at all times. Experts have said that it’s not possible using cameras alone, without LiDAR. Oversell and underdeliver. Fraud works great until it doesn’t.
I mean, we can go the other way by looking at SpaceX. I spent years reading detailed reports from experts that everything SpaceX was doing was impossible. -A rocket made of steel -Landing a rocket anywhere -Landing a bigger rocket anywhere -Landing a rocket on solid ground -Landing a big rocket on the ground and a lot of smaller things in between. I read many plausible looking reports on the non-feasability of these…
Tell stakeholders you're working on it. Tell them you're ahead of everyone else. Tell them that the experts are wrong. Tell them it's coming very soon. Update them on the details of your progress. Don't tell them it's done when it's not.
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If the regulators get out of the way it would be great to make these available direct to consumer with an app companion, and the consumer can share the results with their physician.
Millions and millions, millions of tests per day could be available today, except that the FDA is sitting on the applications, many of which I’ve looked at. And the applications are stellar. There’s absolutely no reason for an inexpensive three- or four-dollar test to be being outright rejected by the FDA right now or just sitting in a queue for many months. It’s no longer a normal time at the FDA, they’re being held…
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She doesn't have a current defense in the court. The defense in court is all that matters in the trial, not media. The prosecution is presenting the evidence right now, she will have her turn afterwards.
"She doesn't have a current defense in the court.The defense in court is all that matters in the trial, not media" Huh? I don't even know what this means. According to you her defense is "that she was not of sane state of mind at the time". Maybe you can post another npr link that explains what you mean by no current defense in court.
At the trial right now (in court), her lawyers hasn't presented that defense yet. Right now the trial is in the first step, the prosecution/state presenting their case. Once the prosecution/state rests their case, the defense begin present their case (at this point they will present their "Balwami abused me argument".
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Not being honest to investors is one thing. Knowingly peddling faulty lab results to consumers making important medical decisions based on the results and unaware that they were pawns in this game is quite different. This is what makes the Theranos case qualitatively different from (say) WeWork, and why she's facing criminal charges. You buy office space from WeWork, you get exactly what you pay for, even if there we…
What I'm struggling with is how this is criminal. Like, there are rapid COVID tests out there. They're marketed as accurate. Yet everyone knows they're not foolproof. If I got a positive rapid test, the first thing I'd do is go get a PCR test. With these Theranos lab tests, it's honestly (to me) a similar thing. If I'm a startup trying to make a cheap HIV test, and I know it's not perfect, it's wrong sometimes, does…
But my limited understanding of this case is that the Edison machine was so inaccurate as to be near useless. So if customers had been informed about how bad it was, they would not have chosen to use it.
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> What just amazed me is how gullible all the investors were, and how they didn't do due diligence, hire outside experts, or anything. Weird. The thing is, the primary goal of an investor is not to invest in companies that are honest and actually do what they claim. The goal is to invest in a company that reaches a valuation high enough to let them recoup their investment at a profit. If that valuation happens throug…
Can you provide any examples of a high-profile company, ultimately shown to be dishonest, where the early investors were able to “cash out” before this dishonesty became known?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the SV “fake it ‘till you make it” culture. Right now Tesla is delivering “full self driving” cars that require a human driver at all times. Experts have said that it’s not possible using cameras alone, without LiDAR. Oversell and underdeliver. Fraud works great until it doesn’t.
I mean, we can go the other way by looking at SpaceX. I spent years reading detailed reports from experts that everything SpaceX was doing was impossible. -A rocket made of steel -Landing a rocket anywhere -Landing a bigger rocket anywhere -Landing a rocket on solid ground -Landing a big rocket on the ground and a lot of smaller things in between. I read many plausible looking reports on the non-feasability of these…
The crazy thing about Theranos is that so many people with experience in microfluidics (developed mainly for DNA sequencing although there are other uses) knew that their claims were impossible, technologically speaking. Working with such small volumes to obtain quantitive estimates of blood chemistry is so implausible, as you are introducing uncontrollable variability - micro-evaporation, even tissue localization is…
If you look at the investors, with few exceptions, they were _not_ sophisticated VC firms with experience in the area. Most of them were, for want of a better classification, elderly rich people. This should probably, in retrospect, have been a huge red flag.
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> What just amazed me is how gullible all the investors were, and how they didn't do due diligence, hire outside experts, or anything. Weird. The thing is, the primary goal of an investor is not to invest in companies that are honest and actually do what they claim. The goal is to invest in a company that reaches a valuation high enough to let them recoup their investment at a profit. If that valuation happens throug…
Can you provide any examples of a high-profile company, ultimately shown to be dishonest, where the early investors were able to “cash out” before this dishonesty became known?