5 ms·

I can't imagine the stress that Holmes goes through on a constant basis. There is the usual startup founder stress, but this feels like another level.

epistasis 10y ago
Holmes has already cashed out enough to be in a perfectly fine situation. I have little sympathy for her stress level, as it Holmes that has poorly handled the situation while profiting personally. I worry much more about the stress from regular, honest people that are now associated with Theranos. It would suck to spend many years there, assuming that other parts of the company were doing their job correctly, only to be abandoned so completely by upper management's handling of this situation.
- w1ntermute 10y ago
  Whatever Holmes has cashed out aside, she comes from a highly privileged background. There was never any danger to her of ending up destitute, regardless of whether Theranos worked out.
  - kiba 10y ago
    Really? Would her family disown her? What jobs would she get?
    - w1ntermute 10y ago
      Given she was able to swindle investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars, I don't think she'll have any difficulty convincing her family not to disown her. She probably doesn't need a job, given her family's wealth, but her father is well-connected government official. I'm sure he could get her a position at some agency or other, if she really wanted one. > Elizabeth’s father, Christian IV, grew up in California, raised by his mother, a former Powers model, whose second husband was a prominent San Francisco businessman. The family moved in powerful circles. Mr. Holmes took a Hearst daughter to a debutante cotillion in 1967. > Mr. Holmes had a distinguished career in public service, holding a number of senior government positions in Washington.[0] 0: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/business/theranos-founder-faces-a-test-of-technology-and-reputation.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/business/theranos-founder-...
      - lighttower 10y ago
        Do you know for certain that she's worth millions? Aren't her stock options tied to performance? And if she has tons of stock but it goes to zero...
        w1ntermute 10y ago
        Her stock options are tied to whatever the Theranos board decides, and she has full board control. So she can make her options tied to whatever she wants. No, I don't know her net worth for certain, but it isn't a stretch to say that she comes from wealth. It's a lot easier to get wealthy people to give you a ton of money if you're also wealthy.
        gohrt 10y ago
        Just about the only thing a majority shareholder cannot do is vote themselves a massive pay rise, violating their fiduciary duty to the minority shareholder's equity stakes.
Alupis 10y ago
You feel compassion for someone who knowingly attempted to peddle a medical product just shy of snake oil, only to have it blow up in their face? Their product was absurdly broken, and the results were essentially a coin flip (I believe the FDA said results were accurate around 50% of the time). They wanted real doctors and patients to base important medical decisions off of this...
- markk 10y ago
  There's never a good enough reason to withhold compassion. That's the whole point of it.
  - jonknee 10y ago
    Yes there is, she was selling bogus blood tests! Who cares about her feelings when innocent people made actual medical decision based on her junk science? And really what is there to be compassionate about? That she will be less rich?
    - markk 10y ago
      We know that money is not a great thing to measure to ascertain happiness, so I feel her bank account is irrelevant. And compassion is not a finite resource.
      - ceocoder 10y ago
        It is really hard to feel happy when you are poor (first hand experience), Money can buy happiness[1][2]. Conversely we do feel much joy when we see someone we envy fail, more so if we feel (rightly or not) that their success was ill deserved[3]. [1] https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WE-AA766B_HAPPY_16U_20141107152410.jpg https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WE-AA766B_HAPPY_1... - from page 12 of [2] [2] http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/04/subjective-well-being-income/subjective-well-being-income.pdf http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/... [3] https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/tag/schadenfreude/ https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/tag/schadenfreude/
pfarnsworth 10y ago
Isn't this what one deserves if one tries to peddle something that doesn't work to investors, and then gets hundreds of millions of dollars for it?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- markk 10y ago
  This is advocating revenge, and being pleased to see someone suffer. Imagine she had a breakdown due to stress and her life went off the rails - would you feel that was fair? How much would she have to suffer before you are satisfied?
  - jonknee 10y ago
    She benefited greatly from a cult of personality on the way up and is now finding out it goes both ways. I myself don't feel bad for someone who enriched herself while peddling snake oil and knowingly giving junk test results to real patients. It is despicable.
    - markk 10y ago
      I hear you, and I also don't necessarily approve of her actions. However at a human level, this is simply a human in pain (assuming she is stressed). Bear in mind, she only benefited in cash, we don't know what her experience of her life is like.
      - jonknee 10y ago
        I feel much worse for all the people she hurt (investors, employees, patients, partners, etc). I'm sure Kenneth Lay was in pain too, but I didn't feel bad for him either.
        pessimizer 10y ago
        Won't someone cry for Bernie Madoff?
ben_jones 10y ago
Person from privileged background drops out of Stanford and raises hundreds of millions of dollars, in part due to family connections, to produce a fundamentally unsound blood testing product. Person then proceeds to sell a broken blood testing product to consumers as a way of digging themselves out of their obligations to shareholders. Person then lies to regulators, instructs employees to lie to regulators, and witnesses one of their chief scientists commit suicide after, according to his wife, the scientist claimed "nothing was working". I don't care about this person. I care about all the people hurt due to this person's actions. And I am greatly saddened by the high likelihood that this person will, despite the absolute carnage, profit tremendously from the situation.
zootam 10y ago
yea, fraudulent and illegal activities generally up the stress level of anyone she definitely deserves every bit of it.
pc-kills-minds 10y ago
I am just curious, would you have the same level of concern for Madoff?
kawaiio 10y ago
yeah, zero sympathy from me since this was someone who was from a privileged elite class who after going at it alone for nearly a decade decided to pull the ol' switcheroo (hype up a broken product, IPO and cash out) except playing with the livelihood of real human users. If this was like some HR product okay the HR people and the company who buy them get hosed but the human cost of people using Theranos and discovering that their trust was violated by lack of scientific rigor reminds me sort of the vaccine scandal happening in China, where expired and crap vaccines were bought and flipped all over China the end user being infants and very pissed off and sad parents. Holmes is right up there with Skhreli kid in my book if not worse.
mathattack 10y ago
Similar to the stress Bernie Madoff must have felt?
zeemonkee3 10y ago
I feel quite a bit more sorry for the family of Dr. Gibbons.

epistasis 10y ago

Holmes has already cashed out enough to be in a perfectly fine situation. I have little sympathy for her stress level, as it Holmes that has poorly handled the situation while profiting personally. I worry much more about the stress from regular, honest people that are now associated with Theranos. It would suck to spend many years there, assuming that other parts of the company were doing their job correctly, only to be abandoned so completely by upper management's handling of this situation.

w1ntermute 10y ago
Whatever Holmes has cashed out aside, she comes from a highly privileged background. There was never any danger to her of ending up destitute, regardless of whether Theranos worked out.
- kiba 10y ago
  Really? Would her family disown her? What jobs would she get?
  - w1ntermute 10y ago
    Given she was able to swindle investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars, I don't think she'll have any difficulty convincing her family not to disown her. She probably doesn't need a job, given her family's wealth, but her father is well-connected government official. I'm sure he could get her a position at some agency or other, if she really wanted one. > Elizabeth’s father, Christian IV, grew up in California, raised by his mother, a former Powers model, whose second husband was a prominent San Francisco businessman. The family moved in powerful circles. Mr. Holmes took a Hearst daughter to a debutante cotillion in 1967. > Mr. Holmes had a distinguished career in public service, holding a number of senior government positions in Washington.[0] 0: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/business/theranos-founder-faces-a-test-of-technology-and-reputation.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/business/theranos-founder-...
    - lighttower 10y ago
      Do you know for certain that she's worth millions? Aren't her stock options tied to performance? And if she has tons of stock but it goes to zero...
      - w1ntermute 10y ago
        Her stock options are tied to whatever the Theranos board decides, and she has full board control. So she can make her options tied to whatever she wants. No, I don't know her net worth for certain, but it isn't a stretch to say that she comes from wealth. It's a lot easier to get wealthy people to give you a ton of money if you're also wealthy.
        gohrt 10y ago
        Just about the only thing a majority shareholder cannot do is vote themselves a massive pay rise, violating their fiduciary duty to the minority shareholder's equity stakes.

Alupis 10y ago

You feel compassion for someone who knowingly attempted to peddle a medical product just shy of snake oil, only to have it blow up in their face? Their product was absurdly broken, and the results were essentially a coin flip (I believe the FDA said results were accurate around 50% of the time). They wanted real doctors and patients to base important medical decisions off of this...

markk 10y ago
There's never a good enough reason to withhold compassion. That's the whole point of it.
- jonknee 10y ago
  Yes there is, she was selling bogus blood tests! Who cares about her feelings when innocent people made actual medical decision based on her junk science? And really what is there to be compassionate about? That she will be less rich?
  - markk 10y ago
    We know that money is not a great thing to measure to ascertain happiness, so I feel her bank account is irrelevant. And compassion is not a finite resource.
    - ceocoder 10y ago
      It is really hard to feel happy when you are poor (first hand experience), Money can buy happiness[1][2]. Conversely we do feel much joy when we see someone we envy fail, more so if we feel (rightly or not) that their success was ill deserved[3]. [1] https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WE-AA766B_HAPPY_16U_20141107152410.jpg https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WE-AA766B_HAPPY_1... - from page 12 of [2] [2] http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/04/subjective-well-being-income/subjective-well-being-income.pdf http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2013/... [3] https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/tag/schadenfreude/ https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/tag/schadenfreude/

pfarnsworth 10y ago

Isn't this what one deserves if one tries to peddle something that doesn't work to investors, and then gets hundreds of millions of dollars for it?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
markk 10y ago
This is advocating revenge, and being pleased to see someone suffer. Imagine she had a breakdown due to stress and her life went off the rails - would you feel that was fair? How much would she have to suffer before you are satisfied?
- jonknee 10y ago
  She benefited greatly from a cult of personality on the way up and is now finding out it goes both ways. I myself don't feel bad for someone who enriched herself while peddling snake oil and knowingly giving junk test results to real patients. It is despicable.
  - markk 10y ago
    I hear you, and I also don't necessarily approve of her actions. However at a human level, this is simply a human in pain (assuming she is stressed). Bear in mind, she only benefited in cash, we don't know what her experience of her life is like.
    - jonknee 10y ago
      I feel much worse for all the people she hurt (investors, employees, patients, partners, etc). I'm sure Kenneth Lay was in pain too, but I didn't feel bad for him either.
      - pessimizer 10y ago
        Won't someone cry for Bernie Madoff?

ben_jones 10y ago

Person from privileged background drops out of Stanford and raises hundreds of millions of dollars, in part due to family connections, to produce a fundamentally unsound blood testing product. Person then proceeds to sell a broken blood testing product to consumers as a way of digging themselves out of their obligations to shareholders. Person then lies to regulators, instructs employees to lie to regulators, and witnesses one of their chief scientists commit suicide after, according to his wife, the scientist claimed "nothing was working". I don't care about this person. I care about all the people hurt due to this person's actions. And I am greatly saddened by the high likelihood that this person will, despite the absolute carnage, profit tremendously from the situation.

zootam 10y ago

yea, fraudulent and illegal activities generally up the stress level of anyone she definitely deserves every bit of it.

pc-kills-minds 10y ago

I am just curious, would you have the same level of concern for Madoff?

kawaiio 10y ago

yeah, zero sympathy from me since this was someone who was from a privileged elite class who after going at it alone for nearly a decade decided to pull the ol' switcheroo (hype up a broken product, IPO and cash out) except playing with the livelihood of real human users. If this was like some HR product okay the HR people and the company who buy them get hosed but the human cost of people using Theranos and discovering that their trust was violated by lack of scientific rigor reminds me sort of the vaccine scandal happening in China, where expired and crap vaccines were bought and flipped all over China the end user being infants and very pissed off and sad parents. Holmes is right up there with Skhreli kid in my book if not worse.

mathattack 10y ago

Similar to the stress Bernie Madoff must have felt?

zeemonkee3 10y ago

I feel quite a bit more sorry for the family of Dr. Gibbons.