So will Holmes go to prison? A green card holder in Texas was just sentenced to eight years in prison for voting in a US election. Surely Holmes will go away much longer right?
Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings
41–50 of 182 posts
Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure that's true. It's very easy to build a failed business, but to build an overly hyped failed business, you need a taste of success to point to as indicating you are on a rocket ship ride to trillion dollar valuation. It's pretty damn easy to create a fictious $100 million transaction with other insiders, then gloss over the details on the balance sheet.
> It's very easy to build a failed business, but to build an overly hyped failed business, you need a taste of success to point to as indicating you are on a rocket ship ride to trillion dollar valuation. What does that have to do with Silicon Valley VCs intentionally forcing extreme binary outcomes because they are willing to burn down 98 companies to get 2 huge homeruns? There's no debate to be had, we have a lot o…
I think you are actually agreeing with me to some extent, that SV is based (partly? Largely?) on funny money.
I'm just pointing out that in addition to that, insider dealing and cooked books play a greater role in the funny money economy than anyone likes to talk about.
Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you notice what happened to the original whistleblower that exposed Theranos in the first place?
I didn't - what happened?
They called and threatened his mother. Private investigators followed him. He had $400,000 in legal fees from the layers they hired to harass him.
Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you notice what happened to the original whistleblower that exposed Theranos in the first place?
I didn't - what happened?
I was curious and googled a bit. Relevant part:
> In the past year and a half, the grandson and grandfather have rarely spoken or seen one another, communicating mainly through lawyers, says Tyler Shultz. He and his parents have spent more than $400,000 on legal fees, he says. He didn’t attend his grandfather’s 95th birthday celebration in December. Ms. Holmes did.
> “Fraud is not a trade secret,” says Mr. Shultz, who hoped his grandfather would cut ties with Theranos once the company’s practices became known. “I refuse to allow bullying, intimidation and threat of legal action to take away my First Amendment right to speak out against wrongdoing.”
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161117/15475936076/thera...
Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't - what happened?
They called and threatened his mother. Private investigators followed him. He had $400,000 in legal fees from the layers they hired to harass him.
And they probably would've done much worse if he wasn't the grandson of one of the board members at Theranos.
Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you notice what happened to the original whistleblower that exposed Theranos in the first place?
I didn't - what happened?
Theranos and Boies teamed up to make his life hell.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20161117/15475936076/thera...
One might imagine what they'd attempt if he wasn't related to a boardmember, or if his parents didn't have $400K for legal fees...
Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings
#47Hasn't this been known for ages now? (I could only read the start of the article)
Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings
#48Removed the paywall: http://outline.com/DVdmsJ
Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's easy to fool yourself into believing that the fraud is just a temporary necessity while you work out the final kinks in your product.
It's a frequent fine line in tech. To get a contract, Bob Noyce claimed for a buyer that Fairchild could produce & deliver a new type of transistor, in a large quantity, without having any production capability for it yet, as it had never been built. Excite bid on getting a place on Netscape's browser, before having the money to actually pay for it (they figured they'd get it afterward): http://bnoopy.typepad.com/bno…
Promising to do something you aren't entirely sure you can do or haven't done yet, isn't fraud unless you lie about having done it before or being ready to go tomorrow or something.
Arguably, it is not even fraud when Theranos took samples and used a different method of testing (as long as the testing was just as accurate).
Therano's fraud was then telling investors and potential partners/clients that it had been testing using their test, when they really weren't. That is a lie designed to get additional funding or contracts.
Re: Theranos Secretly Bought Outside Lab Gear, Ran Fake Tests: Court Filings
#50Wow. Okay, this takes it from "Shit happens and people can be totally deluded" to actual, genuine fraud. Edit: Also, how can people be that stupid? You have to know the truth will eventually come out? Right? Or, no? I don't get it.
I think Enron makes a good example: because they had insulated themselves from reality for so long, they convinced themselves that what they were doing wasn't really that bad until it was clear it was going to collapse, at which point they were already fucked. Also, a lot of those people got away with it because they left before the fraud was uncovered, despite being part of it. And there are more than enough examples of people getting away with it completely. Fraud has been uncovered by banks in the past couple of years and they just gave the corporation a fine, not jailed the people involved in it. KPMG got away with tax fraud by paying a fine, too. In fact, it might be the case that you're far more likely to get away it than not:http://people.stern.nyu.edu/msubrahm/papers/M&A.pdf.