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Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

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Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#131

Post by compiler-guy »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #29
passerby1 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did Theranos blood test work?

My understanding is that it worked in the sense that the results were accurate. But the results were gotten by means other than what the investors/customers thought. So the end-user patients really had no claim since they got correct results. But the companies and investors got scammed bigtime.

The vast majority of results were not only not accurate, couldn't possibly have been accurate given the methods they were using to conduct the tests. This is well documented. I suggest John Carreyrou's book, _Bad Blood_, which gets into great detail on this.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#132

Post by Legogris »

sharkweek wrote: post #25

This will sound weird but I am a collector of swag from large companies that have collapsed due to anything from mismanagement to outright fraud. While we're a rare breed there are others like me out there. Still, even with this oddly specific marketplace being small, let me tell you, the Theranos swag market is hot right now (check eBay if you're curious). Wish I had gone big on this one earlier, because I have a fe…

I can totally get behind this. Holding tight on my Blockchains LLC swag half-hoping there will have a wider audience of recognition than the other people at that Prague conference. The other half hoping they actually manage to create something of lasting value, of course ;)

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#133

Post by dreamcompiler »

paulpauper wrote: post #9

A $100 million wire transfer. Is this literally how people invest in start-ups, just wiring huge sums of money to someone they do not know , on a promise/hope. that just seems so reckless on so many levels

This is not some random Western Union fly-by-night process. These are serious bank-to-bank transfers with plenty of documentation about who's who on both ends. That documentation is required not only by bank policy but by law (e.g. IRS and anti-terrorism laws). The fact that the wire transfers are highlighted so much in the charges is that they are interstate transactions, which makes them federal crimes rather than state crimes. Which gives the Feds an excuse to get involved.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#134

Post by dathinab »

jonwachob91 wrote: post #40

It blows my mind that she was found guilty for defrauding investors, but not guilty for defrauding patients about their test results. Investors know that every dollar they put into a company could disappear, it's why startups get capital from investors and not bank loans. But a patient does not expect for their blood test results to be completely wrong. Her tests weren't giving false-negatives or false-positives, the…

> defrauding patients about their test results

Because und test results where in general correctish, they where just not gotten in exactly the way it was claimed, which was also not noticable less reliable or anything.

And what the user bought was the test result.

As far as I understood, with my very limited understanding of US law it seems hard to sue as a consumer as you where deceived but not hurt/damaged in any way.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#135

Post by filmgirlcw »

sharkweek wrote: post #25

This will sound weird but I am a collector of swag from large companies that have collapsed due to anything from mismanagement to outright fraud. While we're a rare breed there are others like me out there. Still, even with this oddly specific marketplace being small, let me tell you, the Theranos swag market is hot right now (check eBay if you're curious). Wish I had gone big on this one earlier, because I have a fe…

I am also a fucked company swag collector and Theranos has been my white whale since 2015/early 2016. Now it’s all knockoffs. I wish you luck in your search!

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#136

Post by neom »

latenightcoding wrote: post #101

Question: could Holmes have avoided all of this by pivoting to something else and not losing investors money. It is extremely common for startups to exaggerate their tech just to later pivot to something else without any repercussions.

I followed the case very closely, read the transcripts I could find daily etc. What Elizabeth did wasn't far from what many many many founders do. This was held to a legal standard, sure, but let's be real here... since when was the legal standard the SV standard? Is SV really the bastion of morality and legal ethics? Is that the new norm, good behaviour? Notably some investors refused to participate and iirc Draper basically said she flew too close to the sun, but it wasn't fraud. I'm sure it's going to be an unpopular opinion but personally if this is the new standard, the SEC should have a pretty long list of founders to try at this standard. The saddest thing of it all to me is that she was onto something, people are having success with her ideas today. She should have just not gone to market, she should have just quietly refined the tech behind the scenes, but as I said, she flew too close to the sun. Tesla and uber have literally killed people.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#137

Post by jcranmer »

klohto wrote: post #6
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #2

Count one of conspiring to commit wire fraud against investors in Theranos between 2010 and 2015: Guilty. Count two of conspiring to commit wire fraud against patients who paid for Theranos’s blood testing services between 2013 and 2016: Not guilty. Count three of wire fraud in connection with a wire transfer of $99,990 on or about Dec. 30, 2013: No verdict. Count four of wire fraud in connection with a wire transfer…

These are big wins! Some huge sums up there. How many years is she looking at?

I'm not an expert in US sentencing guidelines, but a quick crack at the sentencing guidelines calculator [1] suggests ~97-121 months, or about 8-10 years.

[If you're not familiar with sentencing, the basic procedure is this:

1. Compute an 'offense level' for each count. For counts that are strongly related (which all of these likely are), combine by taking the maximum offense level. If they're not related, it's more complicated (not simply adding them up).

2. Compute a 'criminal history level'. For Holmes, that's basically "no criminal history."

3. Adjust for things like the convicted person's remorse or cooperation with investigators.

4. Look up a table that maps offense and criminal history to an actual sentencing range.

5. Adjust that (primarily, but not exclusively, in the previously output range) based on the judge's feelings.]

[1] https://www.sentencing.us/

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#138

Post by cercatrova »

celticninja wrote: post #109
Apocryphon wrote: post #38

Looking forward to JLaw's portrayal of Holmes in Adam McKay's Apple Studios adaptation of Bad Blood . Hope they pick up from where the book ended and cover this trial. https://variety.com/2021/film/news/jennifer-lawrence-elizabe...

JLaw?

Jennifer Lawrence

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#139

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

exdsq wrote: post #125
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that it worked in the sense that the results were accurate. But the results were gotten by means other than what the investors/customers thought. So the end-user patients really had no claim since they got correct results. But the companies and investors got scammed bigtime.

This is wrong. I read Bad Blood by John Carreyrou a few years ago and it mentions there were a lot of false results due to mishandling the blood samples (watering them down to run enough tests etc). I recommend the book if you're interested in the case.

> there were a lot of false results due to mishandling the blood samples

This doesn't hold with what was found in the trial. She was found not guilty on those counts. Just because a dude wrote it down in a book doesn't mean it's true. And the legal process found it to be, in fact, not true.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#140

Post by paxys »

Guilty of taking a billion+ dollars from rich and influential people who couldn't bother to do the bare minimum due diligence into their investments due to greed and FOMO.

Not guilty of endangering thousands of lives by running fraudulent and inaccurate tests under sub-par lab conditions.

Our justice system is such a farce.

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