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Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

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Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#831
post #786

I'm loving reading through all of the sickening puff pieces that business/tech journalists put out about her and Theranos. It's funny to think back to 2015 and the hagiographical void still left in tech journo hearts after Steve Jobs died. https://www.inc.com/ilan-mochari/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-i... > How Elizabeth Holmes Became America's New Entrepreneurial Icon > She represents the part of entrepreneurship that…

I do feel sorry for her in a way. She was riding a treadmill of expectations. Started off slowly, probably thinking "yeah, we can do this" and by the time the treadmill was moving at light speed, it was too late to get off. Even TED has removed her talk from YouTube. What responsibility do the media bear when their shallow hype turns out to be false and damaging to all parties?

> riding a treadmill of expectations

... which she started up herself. Read about the Stanford prof who saw through her before she even started the Theranos journey.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#832

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said: > writing in the New York Times Magazine about Visionary Tech Entrepreneurs with, um, no conflict of interest whatsoever I'm sure. The only assertion is that she was married to a Visionary Tech Entrepreneur and doing puff pieces for Visionary Tech Entrepreneurs. Like seeing an article by Michelle Obama about how democratic politicians these days are great. Nothing deeper than that I think. It was an eye ro…

My main point from above: > I do get frustrated seeing these sorts of vague cynical quips levying *specific* accusations based more upon a gut plausibility of a scenario rather than a clear outline of information.

I edited in a response to that, to the effect that this kind of vague accusation is not that vague, people are predictable, and we should know who we get our information from.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#833

I wonder what parallels we can draw between Holmes and her blood testing, with Elon and full self driving. I suppose Elon has covered his bases by saying it is still a work in progress while charging for it, but he has also been saying it will be ready in about a year or two since 2016. I think the FSD research Tesla is doing is interesting, but man I would rather all of that money gone into a carbon fiber roof or so…

Consider the James Webb Space Telescope. Are the engineers working on it frauds because it’s been delayed for years? No, they have legitimately been trying their best despite leadership committing to dates. Theranos would be if JWST took taxpayer dollars and launched a non working telescope and sent back fake images. Tesla with FSD is a lot more like the JWST being delayed, or perhaps if they launched a stripped down…

It depends on whether Tesla/Elon actually believe they can deliver FSD.

It would be fraud if internally they knew FSD was not possible on their hardware but they continued advertising that it was (I'm not suggesting this is the case, just saying there is a world where Tesla's FSD claims are fraud)

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#834

Ironic that her board of directors-- one of the most praised aspects of Theranos-- probably hurt her when it came to going after her with criminal charges. These were some of the most well-connected people in the country, and making them look like fools did her no favors. Once it was clear this wouldn't go away quietly, I'd bet they pushed hard to ensure criminal prosecution. (which I think she deserved anyway.) Espe…

Kissinger is known for his war crimes and Nobel Peace Prize. Being associated with this fraud is not a stain on his reputation at all. They joined because they thought they were going to make a lot of money. Kissinger also has the fame of being the first Nobel Peace Prize recipient to bomb another Nobel Peace Prize recipient: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/doctors-without-borders-bombi... More on Kissinger war crimes…

Don't get me wrong, I'm not denying his brutal play of realpolitik game or any of his awful failures. (Also the Nobel Peace Prize has become pretty meaningless. I usually wonder what skeletons will come out of the closets of any recipients--Hitchens had some bad things to say about Mother Teressa too.)

I'm talking about his name recognition, and most importantly his influence & connections. I'm sure he'd rather be remembered for his work with the Soviet Union & China.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#835

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…

Weren't they secretly testing blood samples with actual working machines?

They misused the real machines. I highly recommend reading or listening to Bad Blood. Excellent book, I could hardly put it down.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#836

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She'd want to get on with it; they're mostly fairly elderly. And the optics would be _awful_; no sensible president would do it in the first place.

> And the optics would be _awful_; no sensible president would do it in the first place. That's obviously no longer a constraint. The optics of pardoning Anthony Lewandowski (among many, many others) looked awful and he was still pardoned.

Marc Rich?

This pardon abuse has been going on for awhile.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#837
post #97
post #10

It looks like Balwani's trial is scheduled for next year - is there any reason why they would have the two trials so far apart? Is this common in cases such as these?

I was under the impression that it was set for February of _this_ year (2022) per [1]? [1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-14/balwani-s...

Ah, looks like they updated the OP article as well - this makes more sense!

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#838

Ironic that her board of directors-- one of the most praised aspects of Theranos-- probably hurt her when it came to going after her with criminal charges. These were some of the most well-connected people in the country, and making them look like fools did her no favors. Once it was clear this wouldn't go away quietly, I'd bet they pushed hard to ensure criminal prosecution. (which I think she deserved anyway.) Espe…

> I doubt Kissinger or the people around him want the last of his legacy to be punctuated by Theranos.

I doubt the world's most notorious unprosecuted war criminal would have his reputation tarnished by advising a fraudster.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#839

Ironic that her board of directors-- one of the most praised aspects of Theranos-- probably hurt her when it came to going after her with criminal charges. These were some of the most well-connected people in the country, and making them look like fools did her no favors. Once it was clear this wouldn't go away quietly, I'd bet they pushed hard to ensure criminal prosecution. (which I think she deserved anyway.) Espe…

> Once it was clear this wouldn't go away quietly, I'd bet they pushed hard to ensure criminal prosecution. You're saying that Mattis, Cohen, etc had the ability to influence decisions within Trump's DoJ and exerted that ability in order to ensure that charges were filed against Holmes in 2018? If so, why do you think this?

If so, why do you think this?

Is it not clear that I'm speculating? And is speculating that people with government connections might use them in this situation? After all, that's part of why they were on the board in the first place. Did they actually use that influence? I don't know. But I think it's a reasonable bit of speculation. Influential people using their influence when they're publicly embarrassed shouldn't require much of an imagination.

I'm not sure that Trump's presidency is relevant here. The influence these people have would be with others in the government, not Trump.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#840

Ironic that her board of directors-- one of the most praised aspects of Theranos-- probably hurt her when it came to going after her with criminal charges. These were some of the most well-connected people in the country, and making them look like fools did her no favors. Once it was clear this wouldn't go away quietly, I'd bet they pushed hard to ensure criminal prosecution. (which I think she deserved anyway.) Espe…

Reminds me of magic leap. What happened to itv
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