6 ms·
Forbes Revises Estimated Net Worth of Theranos Founder to $0
- paulpauper 10y agoI thought she was worth $400 million, but liquidation preferences means she is possibly worth nothing
- josh_fyi 10y agoPreferences.
- reitzensteinm 10y agoLiquidation preferences. Journalism is bad, but it's unlikely Forbes would simply forget half the company is still worth something.
- paulpauper 10y agothat makes sense
- charlesdm 10y agoI'd assume she cashed out some? Nowhere near $400m or $4.5bn, but at least tens of millions?
- NDizzle 10y agoNope. The highs and lows came too quickly.
- maxxxxx 10y agoI am sure one or the other million made its way into her bank account over the last few years so I wouldn't be too concerned.
- gaius 10y agoIf it turns out she has defrauded investors/customers by spending their money on conventional testing rather than developing new technology, then it is a matter for concern even if she "only" gets away with a few mil. But that's for the courts.
- weston 10y agoDupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11814512 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11814512
- TYPE_FASTER 10y agoThis is an article by Forbes, about an article by Forbes, with a clickbait headline. Nice.
- brainflake 10y agoWhile looking at the cap structure might lead to this conclusion, I would bet the farm on the fact that she's gotten some cash out of all of these rounds, or simply through bonuses. Being the CEO of a high profile company (at least in fundraising circles) she can easily make the argument for it.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago"Net worth of 0" is still doing a lot better than plenty of people in this country.
- madiathomas 10y agoHahaha. You are so right. Majority of people have negative net worths. They owe more than they own.
- jbmorgado 10y agoWell, turns out she was full of crap like many have been stating for years now, but all the media could look at was at such an empowering story for woman around the world and created all this hype around her. Same happened to Marisa Mayer btw, if she was a men she would be long gone after her awful performance in Yahoo (with probably a very big bonus is true... but still gone), since she is a woman (perhaps also importantly an attractive young woman) then let's pretend she knows what she is doing, because empowerment is the word of the day, even when they do nothing of notice except showing up and make up stories about the company they are running.
- Grishnakh 10y ago>since she is a woman (perhaps also importantly an attractive young woman) She's not looking so hot in her latest photos. She's only 32 IIRC, and she looks pretty worn-out.
- Grishnakh 10y agoThe moderation on this site is absolute shit. Why is this modded down? It's absolutely relevant. He's right: she used to be attractive. But look at her recent photos: she looks haggard. Considering the subject matter of this article, this is not a coincidence I'm sure. Extreme stress does have a physical effect on people.
- dang 10y agoYou were downvoted by users, and rightly so. Comments about how "hot" a woman looks are below HN's standard both for civility and for substance. If that isn't obvious to you, you should probably stop commenting here until it is. (I say "woman" instead of "person" here because that's pretty much always the case.)
- Grishnakh 10y agoI did NOT call her "hot"; I said "she is not looking so hot now", which is a common idiom, and is unrelated to calling a woman "hot". If you don't understand common English idioms, then maybe YOU should stop posting here until you can learn some common English. I just took the previous comment, and pointed out that she no longer looks that way, and that I think current events have a lot to do with this apparent change in her appearance. I do not see how this is either uncivil or lacking substance.
- slackstation 10y agoMan, Forbes and others just keep hammering her with hit pieces. We get it, you don't like her. Her company's tech didn't pan out. Everyone wanted so desperately for her to succeed that they praised her as a fully formed, late stage Steve Jobs in a dress. It's as if they want to hurt her feelings more than report any actual substantive news.
- pwthornton 10y agoHow is this a hit or anything else a hit piece? She very well may be a major-league fraud. This is exactly what we want the press to do.
- atonse 10y agoThere's a difference between what we want the press to do, and what we want a mob to do. These articles are more like a mob. What the press (including Forbes) SHOULD HAVE done, was ask Holmes and Theranos difficult questions years ago, instead of functioning as PR outlets. They didn't do that. That's what the press is SUPPOSED to do, not just pile on like an angry mob with a soapbox.
- braythwayt 10y agoI agree with this. The value of the press is when it adds bits of information. If it tells us that she and her investors have been perpetrating a fraud after we have discovered the same via discussion son Hacker News, &c, they are adding nothing in the way of journalism. Their responsibility is to break the story, not follow it.
- freyr 10y ago> Her company's tech didn't pan out. That's about the most generous way of possibly framing it. She apparently deceived investors, the media, and the public, potentially putting people's health at risk in the process. And this deception made her one of the richest people in the world, at least on paper. Like it or not, it's a pretty big story and it will be reported on.
- atonse 10y agoI'm all for exposing Theranos' fraud, but here's a story by the same journalist from Forbes, just 8 months ago: http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2014/07/02/bloody-amazing/#3de8ae5f2094 http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2014/07/02/bloody-..., without any real questions about the validity of their technology – just a rehashing of the same PR message. Forbes did absolutely _nothing_ to actually expose Theranos, instead they added to the never-ending hype-machine that the media heaped on to Theranos. So now they've joined the never-ending dance over Theranos' grave. Just a good reminder of how much of an echo chamber media coverage tends to be nowadays.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- tbyehl 10y agoNothing in there about Forbes learning a lesson with regards to sensationalizing someone's "net worth" when their assets are composed solely of sheets of paper with limited liquidity? Heck, can they even support this new $0 number? They're saying Theranos has raised $724,000,000. Elizabeth Holmes didn't take any money off the table?
- a_small_island 10y agoThis article was flagged yesterday on HN and resulting discussion...