I'm shocked at the sympathy HN has for this criminal.
The same people who blame the investors for being so "naive" to believe her BS.
Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison
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Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison
#242I doubt she ever see a day behind bars. Like Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani. You would think guy is in prison; meanwhile both Wiki and some other pretty decent sources clearly state "free on $500,000 bail".
Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also baffling that she faces consequences for financial fraud and not the impact on patient health of knowingly giving faulty test results.
Yeah, I hate saying stuff like "it only matters when it hits the pockets of the rich" because it's reductive and cynical, but seriously - how are the patients not better protected here? How is that not the bigger story?
It's because she didn't directly lie to any patients, she was insulated from all of that. They got her on lying to investors because those are the kind of people she was actually talking to.
Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison
#244A perverse culture of presumed lawlessness has migrated from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. You see it, here, when top-voted comments scoff at the notion of a perpetrator getting jail time. Hopefully, these sentences result in people being less cavalier about criminality. (Andreessen pivoting back to pumping web3 tempers my hope.)
The top comment is wondering why Musk isn’t in jail too. A sentiment I also hold.
He is too big to jail. He legally/lawfully been spending nice chunk of revenue for lobbying and has many ex-politicians working for him. So unless you operate in gray area (maybe one day your car will self drive) and not in black area (our machines never worked and actually some people even die because of misdiagnosis), you should be good to continue. I also think he has reason to attach himself so much to politics - you already have many republicans like Jim Jordan strongly defending him (like with Trump) regardless of any law breaking.
Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison
#245Reading this entire story, it baffles me that as of today I can still add a "Full Self-Driving Capability" option when ordering a Tesla.
It's also baffling that she faces consequences for financial fraud and not the impact on patient health of knowingly giving faulty test results.
that was what could be proved in court personally (that she had intent)
when it comes to the patient health there was not this clear paper trail
Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're right! Interesting. My original comment about odds wasn't a serious request to make a bet, just hyperbole. It does seem given her high profile if she did flee, she'd be right on the FBI top-10 most wanted list.
She'd instantly get caught, and it would have a profound effect on the next 15 years of her life (for instance: it would immediately put her in a higher security class of detention).
Why do you say she'd instantly get caught?
Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison
#247Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're reading the word "potential" incorrectly for the context. Dictionaries are tricky things to read, because they tend to incorrectly communicate nuances. The capability to do something means that it can be done, not that it might be able to be done. Otherwise, my Honda has the capability to fly.
> my Honda has the capability to fly No, because there is no reasonable potential for it to generate enough thrust to be a lifting body. We understand aerodynamics enough to say that. We don’t understand self-driving cars enough to rule out the sensors on today’s Teslas being adequate, given the right software. Saying someone is capable of climbing a mountain, conditioned on training, isn’t a lie. The caveat is impor…
We do understand flight well enough that I can confidently tell you that given an appropriately sized and shaped ramp, my Honda can fly. It doesn't even need a software upgrade, the car as it is today can do it!
A Tesla today has no self-driving capability without software that doesn't exist. That means it doesn't have self-driving capability. It doesn't mean that someone "played fast and loose with caveats."
Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
She'd instantly get caught, and it would have a profound effect on the next 15 years of her life (for instance: it would immediately put her in a higher security class of detention).
Why do you say she'd instantly get caught?
unlikely that she has the know how, network, grit, etc. to get to the middle of nowhere and stay there forever without drawing attention.
Re: Elizabeth Holmes loses bid to stay out of prison
#250One of the questions I have about any fraudster is where they fall on the goof/sociopath spectrum. It's surprisingly easy to start a Ponzi scheme by accident, after all. You just offer investors good returns (legal), be too optimistic about how it will go (legal), and then give them the promised returns anyhow by using other investor money (very illegal). I suspect a number of companies even get away with it, as they…
I don't like Holmes and am pleased she's getting some comeuppance, but I can play Devil's Advocate in this one space: maybe she always wanted kids, focused on her career (lol), then this all happened, XYZ. Holmes is 39 years old. If she really, truly wanted biological children then now was the time to make sure it happened. She's a villain, but she's also a complex human being that probably has multiple priorities, g…
she, as most sociopaths, was overly ambitious, that got her into trouble after all.
probably has the same mindset now regarding "having kids" or "family"