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Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

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Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#431

Post by jasonfarnon »

manquer wrote: post #370
MarkMc wrote: post #347

Someone mentioned that Holmes will likely get a relatively light sentence because she is an attractive white woman. I've read there is good evidence that black people get harsher sentences than white people and men get harsher sentences than women, other factors being equal. I suspect there is also evidence attractive people get lighter sentences than ugly people. The current system seems like a clear-cut violation o…

First Equal Protection clause from the 14th Amendment applies to only states and not federally. [1] Second, It is extremely hard to prove that discrimination happens while all other things are equal . Rarely all other things are also equal as there are many strongly correlated factors with race[2] that can adversely impact conviction, for example being black on average would be poorer and would more have a court appo…

1. This is a federal not state case. 2. Yes it is hard to prove discrimination controlling for all other things. Yet courts routinely do this. There is a process in place. Moreover, findings of discrimination have led to other structural changes in the judicial system, e.g., administration of the death penalty. 3. OP was talking about blinding the judge, not the jury. Sentencing, not verdict.

I agree that attractiveness is ridiculously subjective.

What I like about OP's argument is, I can think of few legit reasons for a sentencing judge (as opposed to fact-finding jury) to need to see a defendant rather than just hearing the arguments being made, and I can think of many drawbacks to allowing a judge to do so, such as conscious or unconscious biases.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#433

Post by ajmurmann »

metadat wrote: post #250
testplzignore wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on a very quick reading, I think the most serious offense (the $100M one) would at least land in the 97-121 months bucket. If she serves half of that, best case for her is 4 years. Not too bad.

Hopefully she'll get more, SV could use a good example. Otherwise it signals that wantrepeneurs can keep doing it with minimal repercussions.

"Hopefully she'll get more, SV could use a good example."

I knows Theranos was headquartered in Palo Alto for part of its life, but is it really a SV company? Looking at their board I see mostly old-school business people from a construction company, Wells Fargo, and James Mattis and a former head of CDC. Only real tech person seems to be someone from NetApp. On the investor side, I don't see any of the big SV names either. Initial funding came from Rupert Murdoch.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#434

Post by yCombLinks »

niyazpk wrote: post #272
beebmam wrote: post #227

Sending fraudulent people to jail for a long, long time is fundamental to running a healthy society. One of the reasons the US is a decent place to live compared to other countries is because we actually prosecute frauds and criminals here. Let's start seeing some other countries around the world start doing this, like India, Russia, and China. My 80 year old mother was recently tricked into wiring money by Indian sc…

> Sending fraudulent people to jail for a long, long time is fundamental to running a healthy society Really?! Interesting... I agree, a functioning society needs good law and order, and some way to prosecute and bring criminals to justice. But I am personally not convinced that sending someone "to jail for a long, long time" is the solution. How is that productive? I think we need to come up with better ways to serv…

It's net productive because it removes the large negative productivity from fraud / other crimes from society.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#435

Post by tootie »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #425

These days, whenever someone is being presented as an absolute villain (as in the case of Holmes), comments sections tend to have not a few posts about how the things they’ve done, from a different vantage point, are understandable, or morally ambiguous and not objectively evil, or even amoral. I’m completely opposed to what she has done, but could there be any reason why we all seem to be unanimous that she is objec…

Her main excuse is that she was manipulated by her COO but it seems unlikely. As evil as defrauding investors can be she was it. She also seemed pretty comfortable scamming medical techs and patients. There's just no way she didn't know she was selling snake oil. Maybe she started out with pure wishful thinking that if she talked enough she could will her device into existence but once it started actually testing blood it was way past the line. She was the CEO, she knew it was fake technology, she lied at every opportunity.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#437

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#438

Post by bpodgursky »

metadat wrote: post #250
testplzignore wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on a very quick reading, I think the most serious offense (the $100M one) would at least land in the 97-121 months bucket. If she serves half of that, best case for her is 4 years. Not too bad.

Hopefully she'll get more, SV could use a good example. Otherwise it signals that wantrepeneurs can keep doing it with minimal repercussions.

No post body was provided.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#439

Post by hatware »

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…

> It blows my mind that she was found guilty for defrauding investors, but not guilty for defrauding patients about their test results.

Maybe it's just me, but with all the anti-consumer practices going on, it doesn't surprise me in the least. Gotta protect those profits.

Re: Elizabeth Holmes found guilty

#440

Post by dannyw »

bombcar wrote: post #218
Ansil849 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Promo freebies change so often that you can often work out what company and what year made a particular squeeze toy or similar. And rip offs will often have subpar artwork obviously not using original AI/EPS files.

You underestimate the lengths people go to make knockoffs.
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