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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…
If Theranos still existed as a company, it would doubtless be getting buried under a blizzard of charges relating to how Theranos, the company, treated their patients. One of several reasons why Theranos the company no longer exists.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What Elizabeth did wasn't far from what many many many founders do I'm not sure this is true. She told a lot of egregious lies to investors while trying to get money from them. She repeated those lies in the press and to anyone who questioned it. And I don't mean a lie like lying that your product is more effective than it is. I mean she told prospective investors about huge contracts with the defense department th…
That's not what she said at all. At least not from the near daily coverage and transcripts I watched[1][2][3][4] She said it was being trialed by the military, in reality what had happened was Mattis said he would be able to introduce the technology to the military. This type of "abstraction" is in very many pitches I've read over the years. [1] https://www.youtube.com/c/LawyerYouKnow [2] https://www.youtube.com/chan…
That's not an "abstraction". It's a lie, and therefore fraudulent.
If you're seeing these sort of lies all over the place, you might be in a weird bubble. Startups are known for creative wordplay, but if you're straight up lying about something happening when it's not happening at all or even started, that's fraud.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> What Elizabeth did wasn't far from what many many many founders do. Hard disagree on that one. It's certainly not common nor acceptable to knowingly lie to investors like Holmes did. There is nothing normal or common about the type of fraud that Holmes perpetuated, despite attempts to downplay or normalize it. > I'm sure it's going to be an unpopular opinion but personally if this is the new standard, the SEC shoul…
As a young and attractive woman she carefully manicured her appearance to resemble Steve Jobs and consistently altered her tone of voice (!) to sound deeper. To investors she was the disarmingly beautiful genius. These old grey men should be so lucky as to get her attention and be part of her myth!
To a much older, rich, well connected, megalomaniac controlling man she was the young disciple. Ready to inflate his sense of self by “needing” direction and castigation. Not to mention the sexual dynamic.
To the jury she’s pregnant mother, victim of a culture that only rewards winning and the fragile, abused partner of an abusive man. She never meant any of it, it’s all a big misunderstanding!
Neumann has nothing on Holmes!
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 w…
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…
The lies to patients and investors were quite well linked anyway, if you want to think about it like that.
Some founders "fake it till you make it", and this news should serve as a cautionary tale.
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…
The lies told to patients and fraudulent test results could be (and were) denied by saying she wasn't aware of what was happening in the labs.
It's not that investors are more important in the eyes of the law or that patients weren't lied to, it's about the quality of the evidence available. Her not guilty verdicts do not mean she's innocent, simply that there wasn't enough evidence available to convince a jury.
What always amazed me is they had nothing… nothing that could do the thing they claimed. To the point they used competitors machines to produce results. Pretty amazing.
It is not pure SaaS companies either, in the EV/self-driving space we have outright frauds like Nikola rolled a truck downhill to make the video and were public at $8 Billion. Others like Rivian/ tuSimple are definitely are not going to meet the projections in sales and plans they have published. Tesla constantly says a lot of things they never delivery or deliver much later than promised.