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Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

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Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#161

Post by lotsofpulp »

mherdeg wrote: post #144
lotsofpulp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very little is known of Mr. Balwani, including why he is called “Sunny.” This might be because Saturday in Hindi and other Indian languages is “sunny-var”, and the day of the week you are born on is a common nickname, in conjunction with “sunny” being an easy to pronounce and common English word.

Interesting, and is his birthday Sunday, June 13, 1965?

I have no idea if it is true in this specific case, just from what I know of Indian acquaintances who also go by Sunny. Very well could be he picked his own Englishized nickname to be Sunny because he was born on a Sunday, or any other reason.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#162

Post by filmgirlcw »

sharkweek wrote: post #154
filmgirlcw wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

Well well… I imagine we’ve crossed paths on eBay before - too funny.

Amazing to meet another fucked company collector! I thought this was something only I did, genuinely.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#163

Post by kjaftaedi »

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…

They had a fully functional lab though, it just wasn't using Theranos' devices.

This is what they did to Wallgreens, they sold them on the idea that they would have theranos machines in-store, but instead what they did was do IV blood draws (calling it a comparison check) .. and then would just process the samples the same way as everyone else using standard equipment.

People were getting good results because Theranos was using machines from Siemens in their hidden lab.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#164

Post by nmz »

passerby1 wrote: post #13
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…

Did Theranos blood test work?

There's a podcast called bad blood that goes into detail how little it worked.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#166

Post by miohtama »

neom wrote: post #136
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…

"Scaling too fast" has definitely a better vibe to it than "found guilty" :)

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#167

Post by AdamN »

shmatt wrote: post #143
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know all of the details behind each count, but glad to see this result, which seems good and fair. Basically, looks like the majority of "committing fraud against investors" charges were guilty, but the "committing fraud against patients ", which always seemed like more of a stretch to me, were not guilty.

Can you expand? Investors are risk-heavy VCs who expect more than 50% of investments to fail Patients just saw a blood testing service promising the same accuracy as a blood draw and went for it

I might be wrong but my understanding is that the patients' blood was tested on legit equipment so they did get valid results. It just wasn't using the Theranos technology. So investors (and Wallgreens) were defrauded because they were mislead but the patient experience was valid (since the results were correct and from proper equipment).

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#168

Post by brandall10 »

javajosh wrote: post #51
daenz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a super interesting niche. Do you see returns on your investments?

I don't remember where I first heard this, but it's good advice: don't collect as an investment, collect because you really enjoy the objects. I collect rare books, but never because I think they'll go up in value (although they probably will). I just like having them around. Socially, infamous corpo-swag is really even better - what a conversation starter! But I personally wouldn't want that sort of stuff in my shar…

I could imagine having a little ‘altar’ of failed company swag on a shelf in your office could be fun and motivating in a way.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#169

Post by dmix »

AdamN wrote: post #157
whatever1 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have the epic ENRON intern Tshirt in your collection ?

Why not a stock certificate :-) https://www.apmex.com/product/50847/enron-corp-stock-certifi...

Only 3 left in stock!

Also I love that website. As a recent casual collector of paper currency. I never thought to buy some old stocks/bonds.

Edit: it’d be hilarious I’d the Enron stock was fake

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#170

Post by Ansil849 »

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 a collector of swag from large companies that have collapsed due to anything from mismanagement to outright fraud

That's a really cool collection! I always find it interesting to learn what obscure things folks collect.

> any authentic Theranos gear

How do you tell if it's authentic? If I was a collector in this area, my big concern would be that especially given that the market is hot, someone could just look on ebay for images of branded products, and then make replicas of them by passing the same logo onto promotional printers.

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