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While Theranos was flying high, much was made of the company's connections to DC power elite - Kissenger on the board, etc.[1]. And the implication usually see

While Theranos was flying high, much was made of the company's connections to DC power elite - Kissenger on the board, etc.[1]. And the implication usually seemed to be that the deep bench of Serious And Important And Powerful People allowed the company to get away with things that otherwise would not have been possible. I think it's worth pausing to consider: when's the last time you heard of a startup CEO/CTO team getting indicted for wire fraud? I'm not saying it doesn't happen, and I have no position on whether Holmes and Balwani are guilty of these or other charges. But I do have to wonder whether the degree of attention from the DOJ has more to do with avenging the reputational and possibly financial losses of those same board members, than garden-variety "the DOJ prosecutes fraud". In which case, there'd be a civics lesson as well. Live by .gov, die by .gov. (Edit to clarify, lest I be accused of insufficient virtue signaling: fraud is bad, don't do it, if they committed fraud they should be punished, etc etc.) [1] e.g.https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/03/14/theranos-board-mattis-kissinger-schultz-holmes.html https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2018/03/14/theranos...

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> I do have to wonder whether the degree of attention from the DOJ has more to do with avenging the reputational and possibly financial losses of those same board members The response to evidence against a conspiracy theory is not to flip the conspiracy theory. If you defraud investors out of billions of dollars and lie to Medicare and Streisand effect the Wall Street Journal when it investigates you, you're going to get busted.
- Chris_Chambers 8y ago
  The response to interesting speculation is not to use an impotent pejorative term to dismiss it followed by painfully boring 2D checkers-tier speculation.
- zeth___ 8y ago
  The banking crisis says otherwise.
minimaxir 8y ago
> when's the last time you heard of a startup CEO/CTO team getting indicted for wire fraud? One pled guilty a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16313612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16313612
rossdavidh 8y ago
I recall Carreyrou (the journalist who wrote this article and exposed them originally) saying a few weeks ago that he thought it was a bad idea for them to keep operating the company, that it was probably antagonizing the DOJ. This is just a hunch, but it may be that they (the DOJ) were convinced that if not indicted, they would try to do it all again (find a new bunch of investors to fleece). If so, I think they might have been correct.
cat199 8y ago
> But I do have to wonder whether the degree of attention from the DOJ has more to do with avenging the reputational and possibly financial losses of those same board members, than garden-variety "the DOJ prosecutes fraud". Or these two are convenient patsies.. Did they really lose money? Theranos had huge contracts for blood testing at major national pharmacy chains for a year or two, and if you follow the timeline, there's a ton of related activity requiring well connected people which seems to indicate rushing things out the door to make sure they could get these contracts..
- dralley 8y ago
  Read the book. The timeline is easily explainable without needing conspiracy theories.
  - cat199 8y ago
    What 'book'? AFAIK not nearly all the information has been discovered or presented, and much of this never will. How about the 'convenient' intervention of mattis into military trials of the technology? Just because it sounds like tinfoil hat doesn't mean it's not true (see also: snowden)
    - dralley 8y ago
      https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Blood-Secrets-Silicon-Startup/dp/152473165X/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1529349440&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=Bad+blood https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Blood-Secrets-Silicon-Startup/dp/... One chapter talks about Mattis, including various emails that were sent. He comes across as genuinely wanting to do the best thing for his men and hoping that Theranos could save lives in the field. There never were any field tests, because Mattis listened to his underlings when they said it would need to get FDA approval first. They then offered to let Theranos test random blood samples to validate the results but Theranos never took them up on that offer.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> I do have to wonder whether the degree of attention from the DOJ has more to do with avenging the reputational and possibly financial losses of those same board members The response to evidence against a conspiracy theory is not to flip the conspiracy theory. If you defraud investors out of billions of dollars and lie to Medicare and Streisand effect the Wall Street Journal when it investigates you, you're going to get busted.

Chris_Chambers 8y ago
The response to interesting speculation is not to use an impotent pejorative term to dismiss it followed by painfully boring 2D checkers-tier speculation.
zeth___ 8y ago
The banking crisis says otherwise.

minimaxir 8y ago

> when's the last time you heard of a startup CEO/CTO team getting indicted for wire fraud? One pled guilty a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16313612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16313612

rossdavidh 8y ago

I recall Carreyrou (the journalist who wrote this article and exposed them originally) saying a few weeks ago that he thought it was a bad idea for them to keep operating the company, that it was probably antagonizing the DOJ. This is just a hunch, but it may be that they (the DOJ) were convinced that if not indicted, they would try to do it all again (find a new bunch of investors to fleece). If so, I think they might have been correct.

cat199 8y ago

> But I do have to wonder whether the degree of attention from the DOJ has more to do with avenging the reputational and possibly financial losses of those same board members, than garden-variety "the DOJ prosecutes fraud". Or these two are convenient patsies.. Did they really lose money? Theranos had huge contracts for blood testing at major national pharmacy chains for a year or two, and if you follow the timeline, there's a ton of related activity requiring well connected people which seems to indicate rushing things out the door to make sure they could get these contracts..

dralley 8y ago
Read the book. The timeline is easily explainable without needing conspiracy theories.
- cat199 8y ago
  What 'book'? AFAIK not nearly all the information has been discovered or presented, and much of this never will. How about the 'convenient' intervention of mattis into military trials of the technology? Just because it sounds like tinfoil hat doesn't mean it's not true (see also: snowden)
  - dralley 8y ago
    https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Blood-Secrets-Silicon-Startup/dp/152473165X/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1529349440&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=Bad+blood https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Blood-Secrets-Silicon-Startup/dp/... One chapter talks about Mattis, including various emails that were sent. He comes across as genuinely wanting to do the best thing for his men and hoping that Theranos could save lives in the field. There never were any field tests, because Mattis listened to his underlings when they said it would need to get FDA approval first. They then offered to let Theranos test random blood samples to validate the results but Theranos never took them up on that offer.