8 ms·

Theranos CEO Says 'I Don't Know' 600+ Times in Deposition

83 points by kyleblarson 8y ago

devoply 8y ago
is this news? if anyone was in her place they would do no less. it's likely she's going to jail for at least a little while. who wants to go from potential billionaire to jailbird? how would that effect your mental health?
- rdlecler1 8y ago
  Hard to say because it seems like you need to be a bit of a psychopath to have done what she did in the first place.
- ben_jones 8y ago
  Apparently Holmes is trying to raise money again [1] [1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes-new-startup-report-2018-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-founder-elizabeth-h...
  - imjk 8y ago
    This is reminiscent of the story for Billy McFarland, the founder of the Fyre Festival, who's currently serving a prison sentence for his acts. Even while he was under investigation for fraud related to the failed festival, he moved on to starting another scheme related to ticket scamming. There are two related documentaries that recently came out - one on Hulu and the other on Netflix - that are worth the watch if you're interested.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I bet in a few years she will be on top of the world again.
mcintyre1994 8y ago
I doubt it's news to many here, but Bad Blood is an amazing book on Theranos. It doesn't follow as far as the deposition (I had no idea she was facing 20 years!) but I'd highly recommend it for anyone interested in this story. The audiobook is great too.
- burtonator 8y ago
  I was listening to an interview with the author and he made a somewhat valid point that it's part of the 'tech culture' to fake it until you make it. However, at the same time apparently Larry Ellison was advising her. During the early phase of Oracle's history one of their chief criticisms is over-promising on timelines to keep existing customers on their product so that they assumed something was going to ship in 90 days only to ship 1.5 years later. However, Theranos took this to the edge and just flat out lied about products that they didn't have. They were promising revolutionary breakthoughs not evolutionary.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - sah2ed 8y ago
    > However, at the same time apparently Larry Ellison was advising her. Interesting, considering Steve Jobs acknowledged Ellison as his best friend after his return to Apple, at a time when Oracle was considered the 2nd largest software company in the world. It makes sense that she would turn to Ellison for advice all in the name of trying to be like her idol, Steve Jobs. Holmes underestimated the amount of technical risk she needed to overcome to succeed in the marketplace, as did the Google founders when Larry Page initially came up with PageRank but had no clue just how long it would take to download the entire web to disk. But the Google guys unlike Holmes had a lot of help from their advisors combined with Stanford university resources, which allowed them to stay immune to investor pressure to show results for invested capital. For a technology like finger-prick based tests to succeed, you’ll need to expend millions of USD in a university research lab before you begin to see promising results that are repeatable. Essentially, Theranos should have started out as a science project (like BackRub which birthed Google) and not as a startup. She picked the wrong vehicle for her mission. Ellison on the other hand piggy-backed on a seminal 1970 paper by IBM researcher: E.F. Codd to launch Oracle [0]. In those days, hierarchical and network databases were the competing database paradigms. Codd’s paper introduced the relational model as the third competing paradigm which turned out to be vastly simpler than the other models. The simplicity afforded by RDBMSes unlocked a lot of value and ultimately created wealth for the database industry. 0: https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/builders/builders_codd.html https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/builders/builders_c...
fargo 8y ago
is the whole video available?
candiodari 8y ago
You realize that since 2-3 years it is now standard legal practice to make sure deciders don't know the details of important decisions. They know the decision, of course, and what was chosen, and they decide. But they don't know who the email was sent to to implement the decision. Or they don't know the law firm depositing it. Or they only generally know the numbers involved, and have since destroyed the exact numbers (email and any paper copies). This is done explicitly so they can truthfully answer "I don't know" to nearly every question. Given how governments are going after companies, and how politicized everything, including testimonies at the police, have become, I can't say I blame them. Even if an answer is true, and not criminal, but somehow controversial, it will end up in the media. I can't say I blame them. We need to get back to the situation that it just doesn't happen that any statement leaks from investigations, at the very least unless the person is found guilty, and even then, only if strictly relevant to the crime. For example the many times ceo's have been called to "testify" on tax minimization strategies, knowing full well the IRS (controlled and of course authorized by the government) has come to an agreement about those taxes, and that agreement has passed through the hands of elected politicians. The only purpose is to demonize these people without admitting that the government created half the controversies.
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Anecdata: my sister proposed automated tire sensors for a trucking firm to the President of said firm. They asked "If a tire comes off a truck on the highway and causes an accident or fatality, will this sensor be able to show if the tire was incorrectly mounted or had bad pressure?" She replied, "Yes, exactly". They then said "Then we definitely don't want this on our trucks" This was 15 years ago.
  - est31 8y ago
    That's because in the trucking industry, at least here in europe, there is fierce competition. This means that companies that don't use material and employees until their absolute limits are being filtered out by market forces. The only way to improve the situation is by government involvement, both through stricter laws and more regular controls. E.g. there are rules to prevent exhaustion of truck drivers by mandating pauses for certain lengths. Or in Germany there's a discussion now whether turning assistants should be made mandatory or not.
OmarGonzalez 8y ago
Steve Job's legacy: the cult for sociopaths leaders
ilamont 8y ago
Whoever— (1) having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any case in which a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered, that he will testify, declare, depose, or certify truly, or that any written testimony, declaration, deposition, or certificate by him subscribed, is true, willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true; or (2) in any declaration, certificate, verification, or statement under penalty of perjury as permitted under section 1746 of title 28, United States Code, willfully subscribes as true any material matter which he does not believe to be true; is guilty of perjury and shall, except as otherwise expressly provided by law, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. This section is applicable whether the statement or subscription is made within or without the United States. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 773; Pub. L. 88–619, § 1, Oct. 3, 1964, 78 Stat. 995; Pub. L. 94–550, § 2, Oct. 18, 1976, 90 Stat. 2534; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(I), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1621 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1621
blue4 8y ago
Related, The Dropout is available on Spotify [1] [1]: https://open.spotify.com/show/7lrJqILWfMuQhqDHJEFUK6 https://open.spotify.com/show/7lrJqILWfMuQhqDHJEFUK6
buboard 8y ago
I wonder if her investors ever had her psychiatrically evaluated.
kodablah 8y ago
> But rather than a follow-up from Holmes, Shultz received an email, obtained by "Nightline," from Sunny Balwani. > In the email, Balwani wrote in part: "...The reckless comment... based on absolute ignorance is so insulting to me that had any other person made these statements, we would have held them accountable in the strongest way. The only reason I have taken so much time away from work to address this personally is because you are Mr. Shultz’s grandson ... the only email on this topic I want to see from you going forward is an apology." I hope to have my belief in karma bolstered by the results of the criminal charges against Balwani. So often I've found at some point down the line this kind of stuff catches up with people (if not criminally or financially, at least in happiness).
- dmix 8y ago
  If you read the book Bad Blood, Balwani makes Elizabeth look like a fumbling fool by comparison while he's the evil tyrant building a culture of yes-men and firing anyone with the least amount of dissent (and if you didnt work 12hrs/day). But I'm sure they were both nearly equally culpable. You never really get insight on who (of the two) were the main drivers to start the lying and eventual out-right fraud but it was very likely a mix of both. There was a great story in the book about how the engineers would mess with Balwani by repeating a random technical word that didn't make sense in context, to see if he would start parroting it in his conversations. Which of course he started doing, more than once. He was a fraud who knew nothing about technology but thought he could manage an advanced technology project (which is not too uncommon in silicon valley - but he did it to fraudulent levels and like a dictator). My intuition points to Elizabeth starting the snowball in motion - once she over-promised, built a huge personal image, was in over her head - before it turned into an avalanche from the work of Balwani. The person who had a history of getting rich flipping useless companies with no value during the dot-com boom. I hope he gets punished as much or more than Elizabeth. And if I had to choose I'd 100x rather have worked for Elizabeth than Balwani.
  - SilasX 8y ago
    And if she had visited reddit or HN or any one of numerous sites they would have repeated the meme that "no one knows what they're doing anyway, just fake it till you make it", and she would have shrugged and kept on trucking.
DigiMortal 8y ago
She comes off as a grade-A sociopath, even more so after learning some of what was done and her demeanor regarding it
tmp092 8y ago
Having worked in tech for a few years now, it's pretty clear that Holmes is far from the only liar/sociopath/fraudster in the Valley. There's many just like her.
- lenticular 8y ago
  I suspect this wouldn't be as much of a problem in the valley if so many investors and VCs weren't so incapable of critical thinking. The Juicero debacle comes to mind. edit: As someone coming into tech from physical science, I have never seen the Dunning-Krueger effect anywhere like I do in tech. It's mainly in the management, but folks do have a very serious problem accepting expertise from scientists or engineers outside of tech industry.
  - sah2ed 8y ago
    Juicero was more of gross incompetence than fraud. The outcomes were similar, but the root causes are not quite the same.
    - lenticular 8y ago
      Investors should have consulted researchers in the biomedical field before investing. They would have told them that what Theranos was promising is impossible. Everyone who invested in this fraud did not do their due diligence.
      - emaginniss 8y ago
        I'm not sure why this is being downvoted when it is definitely true. Real biomed companies were approached, but universally turned Theranos down because they knew the limitations what what Theranos was attempting. In the face of that rejection, Holmes turned to military/gov't people and investors with big names, but no real healthcare clout.
- roadnottaken 8y ago
  Yeah, but it matters when you’re in healthcare
jermaustin1 8y ago
Is it purgury to say "I dont know" when you actually do?
- Verdex 8y ago
  They would have to prove that you actually do. Also it might be the lesser charge regardless, so it's worth it to take the chance. For example, if there's an email with Holmes talking about how she's about to lie by saying "I don't know" on the following issues that she totally knows about, then if that's discovered, she's going to get charged. However, that probably doesn't exist, so it's unlikely to otherwise prove that she really does remember. (Not a lawyer)
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Is it purgury to say "I dont know" when you actually do? It is perjury, but often a particularly hard (though not impossible, as legal proof is not the same as logical proof) to prove form of it.
iaw 8y ago
>Holmes forged ahead but was running out cash... This was in the midst of the Great Recession. ... Holmes found someone to help. In 2009, she got an enormous loan from a former software executive named Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani. > "I think it was about $20 million." Holmes recalled to the SEC in a never-before-aired deposition obtained by "Nightline." > there was another detail revealed that Holmes had been less forthcoming about: She admitted that she and Balwani had been living together and had engaged in a romantic relationship. It was something she admitted under oath but had kept from investors.
nartz 8y ago
How do people think it will play out both tech-culturally and politically if she gets convicted / acquitted? If convicted, justice would be had but would it send a negative message to entrepreneurs? If acquitted, might it reinforce the "break things and move fast even if it harms people mentality"?
- amluto 8y ago
  > If convicted, justice would be had but would it send a negative message to entrepreneurs I would consider a message that entrepreneurs are not above the law to be a positive message.
  - Verdex 8y ago
    Hear hear. This is exactly the type of message that I want to be sent to entrepreneurs. If you ruin people's lives and externalize your failures in order to perpetuate fraud, then you'll go to jail. Additionally, someplace out there is somebody with an idea that could allow the single blood drop idea to actually work. That idea is going to get buried because after Theranos, nobody is going to want to risk getting involved with Theranos 2.0. A conviction is the best possible thing for entrepreneurs who actually help society and is only a negative thing to entrepreneurs who want to get rich by stealing from others.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > If convicted, justice would be had but would it send a negative message to entrepreneurs? It might send a cautionary message, but cautionary messages aren't inherently negative.
dingaling 8y ago
Wisdom is knowing when to say "I don't know". It seems that she is very, very wise ..
DoreenMichele 8y ago
This is just sad. When Reagan defaulted to "I don't recall" as his stock answer, he was like in his 70s and getting a bit senile. This is either serious incompetence or lying. She doesn't get the polite out of "I'm just getting old. Oops." Plus, there was another detail revealed that Holmes had been less forthcoming about: She admitted that she and Balwani had been living together and had engaged in a romantic relationship. It was something she admitted under oath but had kept from investors. I've said publicly on HN and on my personal blog(s) that I think things got so crazy out of hand with Theranos precisely because she was a charming, pretty young woman. I've said privately to my sons that if I were an investigative reporter, I would be looking for evidence that she slept her way into power. She long claimed to be celibate because she was so devoted to her work. What better way to try to shut down accusations of sex for favors than to claim she's not sexually active at all? I'm still waiting to learn that she actually slept with a number of her investors and board members. Some of the men involved with her company were notorious ladies men. In my experience, most men like that won't be deterred by the detail that they are old enough to be my father or grandfather. This is one reason I'm relatively patient with the sexism that I feel closes so many doors for me. I'm well aware that "business meetings" between a man and a woman can be a polite cover story for an illicit relationship. I'm also well aware that if it is a polite cover story, it's probably not a case of "It's actually a productive business relationship with a bonus of sex on the side." It's probably a case of "No, the only thing of value she has to offer is sex and the man in question is willing to lie and pretend she's a real business person to get that, but would have ditched her incompetent sorry ass long ago as a business partner if business for profit was his actual motive." I still am not sure how to solve this for myself. Things are very slowly getting better for me. But I think there are inherent challenges in trying to make sure it's really business if you are a woman and this will likely always be true, though I hope we can develop some best practices for opening doors for women who are serious and deserve a shot at earning their way on merit in spite of being born with the wrong bits between their legs.
mabbo 8y ago
George Shultz really comes off as a moron in all of this. > 'They can try to convince me that you're wrong and in this case I do believe you’re wrong,' Then he tricks his grandson into coming over to chat, and oh by the way there's two lawyers from the company sitting in the next room with NDA paperwork for you to sign. Later, he manages to weasel out of ever saying "I was wrong". > "Tyler’s handling of the troubling practices he identified at Theranos is an example. He did not shrink from what he saw as his responsibility to the truth and patient safety, even when he felt personally threatened and believed that I had placed allegiance to the company over allegiance to higher values and our family." He didn't believe it, you jackass, he witnessed it. Your retroactive history lessons wherein you are actually the hero in all of this is astounding. I can only hope Tyler Shultz has learned to stay the hell away from his grandfather.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  "George Shultz really comes off as a moron in all of this." This is a good lesson for how big decisions in politics and business are made. Leaders are very prone to being conned by charismatic people and often don't check the facts.
- sv123 8y ago
  After reading Bad Blood, the entire board comes off sounding completely incompetent.
- Balgair 8y ago
  Everyone looks up to someone. I suggest that you look up to Tyler Schultz. That guy stuck to his guns and faced a hell of a toll for it. He had his life destroyed. He knew that was going to happen. He went ahead anyway. Why? Because it was the right thing to do. Tyler saved countless lives, real actual people's lives; Elizabeth and Sunny's greed and hubris undoubtedly would have killed many people, no question. Tyler Shultz is a hero. Never let anyone tell you that you don't matter. Do the right thing. Be like Tyler.
objektif 8y ago
God I am really scared that she will not go to jail somehow. I hope justice is served.

83 points by kyleblarson 8y ago

is this news? if anyone was in her place they would do no less. it's likely she's going to jail for at least a little while. who wants to go from potential billionaire to jailbird? how would that effect your mental health?

rdlecler1 8y ago
Hard to say because it seems like you need to be a bit of a psychopath to have done what she did in the first place.
ben_jones 8y ago
Apparently Holmes is trying to raise money again [1] [1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes-new-startup-report-2018-6 https://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-founder-elizabeth-h...
- imjk 8y ago
  This is reminiscent of the story for Billy McFarland, the founder of the Fyre Festival, who's currently serving a prison sentence for his acts. Even while he was under investigation for fraud related to the failed festival, he moved on to starting another scheme related to ticket scamming. There are two related documentaries that recently came out - one on Hulu and the other on Netflix - that are worth the watch if you're interested.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I bet in a few years she will be on top of the world again.

mcintyre1994 8y ago

I doubt it's news to many here, but Bad Blood is an amazing book on Theranos. It doesn't follow as far as the deposition (I had no idea she was facing 20 years!) but I'd highly recommend it for anyone interested in this story. The audiobook is great too.

burtonator 8y ago
I was listening to an interview with the author and he made a somewhat valid point that it's part of the 'tech culture' to fake it until you make it. However, at the same time apparently Larry Ellison was advising her. During the early phase of Oracle's history one of their chief criticisms is over-promising on timelines to keep existing customers on their product so that they assumed something was going to ship in 90 days only to ship 1.5 years later. However, Theranos took this to the edge and just flat out lied about products that they didn't have. They were promising revolutionary breakthoughs not evolutionary.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- sah2ed 8y ago
  > However, at the same time apparently Larry Ellison was advising her. Interesting, considering Steve Jobs acknowledged Ellison as his best friend after his return to Apple, at a time when Oracle was considered the 2nd largest software company in the world. It makes sense that she would turn to Ellison for advice all in the name of trying to be like her idol, Steve Jobs. Holmes underestimated the amount of technical risk she needed to overcome to succeed in the marketplace, as did the Google founders when Larry Page initially came up with PageRank but had no clue just how long it would take to download the entire web to disk. But the Google guys unlike Holmes had a lot of help from their advisors combined with Stanford university resources, which allowed them to stay immune to investor pressure to show results for invested capital. For a technology like finger-prick based tests to succeed, you’ll need to expend millions of USD in a university research lab before you begin to see promising results that are repeatable. Essentially, Theranos should have started out as a science project (like BackRub which birthed Google) and not as a startup. She picked the wrong vehicle for her mission. Ellison on the other hand piggy-backed on a seminal 1970 paper by IBM researcher: E.F. Codd to launch Oracle [0]. In those days, hierarchical and network databases were the competing database paradigms. Codd’s paper introduced the relational model as the third competing paradigm which turned out to be vastly simpler than the other models. The simplicity afforded by RDBMSes unlocked a lot of value and ultimately created wealth for the database industry. 0: https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/builders/builders_codd.html https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/builders/builders_c...

fargo 8y ago

is the whole video available?

candiodari 8y ago

You realize that since 2-3 years it is now standard legal practice to make sure deciders don't know the details of important decisions. They know the decision, of course, and what was chosen, and they decide. But they don't know who the email was sent to to implement the decision. Or they don't know the law firm depositing it. Or they only generally know the numbers involved, and have since destroyed the exact numbers (email and any paper copies). This is done explicitly so they can truthfully answer "I don't know" to nearly every question. Given how governments are going after companies, and how politicized everything, including testimonies at the police, have become, I can't say I blame them. Even if an answer is true, and not criminal, but somehow controversial, it will end up in the media. I can't say I blame them. We need to get back to the situation that it just doesn't happen that any statement leaks from investigations, at the very least unless the person is found guilty, and even then, only if strictly relevant to the crime. For example the many times ceo's have been called to "testify" on tax minimization strategies, knowing full well the IRS (controlled and of course authorized by the government) has come to an agreement about those taxes, and that agreement has passed through the hands of elected politicians. The only purpose is to demonize these people without admitting that the government created half the controversies.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Anecdata: my sister proposed automated tire sensors for a trucking firm to the President of said firm. They asked "If a tire comes off a truck on the highway and causes an accident or fatality, will this sensor be able to show if the tire was incorrectly mounted or had bad pressure?" She replied, "Yes, exactly". They then said "Then we definitely don't want this on our trucks" This was 15 years ago.
- est31 8y ago
  That's because in the trucking industry, at least here in europe, there is fierce competition. This means that companies that don't use material and employees until their absolute limits are being filtered out by market forces. The only way to improve the situation is by government involvement, both through stricter laws and more regular controls. E.g. there are rules to prevent exhaustion of truck drivers by mandating pauses for certain lengths. Or in Germany there's a discussion now whether turning assistants should be made mandatory or not.

OmarGonzalez 8y ago

Steve Job's legacy: the cult for sociopaths leaders

ilamont 8y ago

Whoever— (1) having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any case in which a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered, that he will testify, declare, depose, or certify truly, or that any written testimony, declaration, deposition, or certificate by him subscribed, is true, willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true; or (2) in any declaration, certificate, verification, or statement under penalty of perjury as permitted under section 1746 of title 28, United States Code, willfully subscribes as true any material matter which he does not believe to be true; is guilty of perjury and shall, except as otherwise expressly provided by law, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. This section is applicable whether the statement or subscription is made within or without the United States. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 773; Pub. L. 88–619, § 1, Oct. 3, 1964, 78 Stat. 995; Pub. L. 94–550, § 2, Oct. 18, 1976, 90 Stat. 2534; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(I), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1621 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1621

blue4 8y ago

Related, The Dropout is available on Spotify [1] [1]: https://open.spotify.com/show/7lrJqILWfMuQhqDHJEFUK6 https://open.spotify.com/show/7lrJqILWfMuQhqDHJEFUK6

buboard 8y ago

I wonder if her investors ever had her psychiatrically evaluated.

kodablah 8y ago

> But rather than a follow-up from Holmes, Shultz received an email, obtained by "Nightline," from Sunny Balwani. > In the email, Balwani wrote in part: "...The reckless comment... based on absolute ignorance is so insulting to me that had any other person made these statements, we would have held them accountable in the strongest way. The only reason I have taken so much time away from work to address this personally is because you are Mr. Shultz’s grandson ... the only email on this topic I want to see from you going forward is an apology." I hope to have my belief in karma bolstered by the results of the criminal charges against Balwani. So often I've found at some point down the line this kind of stuff catches up with people (if not criminally or financially, at least in happiness).

dmix 8y ago
If you read the book Bad Blood, Balwani makes Elizabeth look like a fumbling fool by comparison while he's the evil tyrant building a culture of yes-men and firing anyone with the least amount of dissent (and if you didnt work 12hrs/day). But I'm sure they were both nearly equally culpable. You never really get insight on who (of the two) were the main drivers to start the lying and eventual out-right fraud but it was very likely a mix of both. There was a great story in the book about how the engineers would mess with Balwani by repeating a random technical word that didn't make sense in context, to see if he would start parroting it in his conversations. Which of course he started doing, more than once. He was a fraud who knew nothing about technology but thought he could manage an advanced technology project (which is not too uncommon in silicon valley - but he did it to fraudulent levels and like a dictator). My intuition points to Elizabeth starting the snowball in motion - once she over-promised, built a huge personal image, was in over her head - before it turned into an avalanche from the work of Balwani. The person who had a history of getting rich flipping useless companies with no value during the dot-com boom. I hope he gets punished as much or more than Elizabeth. And if I had to choose I'd 100x rather have worked for Elizabeth than Balwani.
- SilasX 8y ago
  And if she had visited reddit or HN or any one of numerous sites they would have repeated the meme that "no one knows what they're doing anyway, just fake it till you make it", and she would have shrugged and kept on trucking.

DigiMortal 8y ago

She comes off as a grade-A sociopath, even more so after learning some of what was done and her demeanor regarding it

tmp092 8y ago

Having worked in tech for a few years now, it's pretty clear that Holmes is far from the only liar/sociopath/fraudster in the Valley. There's many just like her.

lenticular 8y ago
I suspect this wouldn't be as much of a problem in the valley if so many investors and VCs weren't so incapable of critical thinking. The Juicero debacle comes to mind. edit: As someone coming into tech from physical science, I have never seen the Dunning-Krueger effect anywhere like I do in tech. It's mainly in the management, but folks do have a very serious problem accepting expertise from scientists or engineers outside of tech industry.
- sah2ed 8y ago
  Juicero was more of gross incompetence than fraud. The outcomes were similar, but the root causes are not quite the same.
  - lenticular 8y ago
    Investors should have consulted researchers in the biomedical field before investing. They would have told them that what Theranos was promising is impossible. Everyone who invested in this fraud did not do their due diligence.
    - emaginniss 8y ago
      I'm not sure why this is being downvoted when it is definitely true. Real biomed companies were approached, but universally turned Theranos down because they knew the limitations what what Theranos was attempting. In the face of that rejection, Holmes turned to military/gov't people and investors with big names, but no real healthcare clout.
roadnottaken 8y ago
Yeah, but it matters when you’re in healthcare

jermaustin1 8y ago

Is it purgury to say "I dont know" when you actually do?

Verdex 8y ago
They would have to prove that you actually do. Also it might be the lesser charge regardless, so it's worth it to take the chance. For example, if there's an email with Holmes talking about how she's about to lie by saying "I don't know" on the following issues that she totally knows about, then if that's discovered, she's going to get charged. However, that probably doesn't exist, so it's unlikely to otherwise prove that she really does remember. (Not a lawyer)
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Is it purgury to say "I dont know" when you actually do? It is perjury, but often a particularly hard (though not impossible, as legal proof is not the same as logical proof) to prove form of it.

iaw 8y ago

>Holmes forged ahead but was running out cash... This was in the midst of the Great Recession. ... Holmes found someone to help. In 2009, she got an enormous loan from a former software executive named Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani. > "I think it was about $20 million." Holmes recalled to the SEC in a never-before-aired deposition obtained by "Nightline." > there was another detail revealed that Holmes had been less forthcoming about: She admitted that she and Balwani had been living together and had engaged in a romantic relationship. It was something she admitted under oath but had kept from investors.

nartz 8y ago

How do people think it will play out both tech-culturally and politically if she gets convicted / acquitted? If convicted, justice would be had but would it send a negative message to entrepreneurs? If acquitted, might it reinforce the "break things and move fast even if it harms people mentality"?

amluto 8y ago
> If convicted, justice would be had but would it send a negative message to entrepreneurs I would consider a message that entrepreneurs are not above the law to be a positive message.
- Verdex 8y ago
  Hear hear. This is exactly the type of message that I want to be sent to entrepreneurs. If you ruin people's lives and externalize your failures in order to perpetuate fraud, then you'll go to jail. Additionally, someplace out there is somebody with an idea that could allow the single blood drop idea to actually work. That idea is going to get buried because after Theranos, nobody is going to want to risk getting involved with Theranos 2.0. A conviction is the best possible thing for entrepreneurs who actually help society and is only a negative thing to entrepreneurs who want to get rich by stealing from others.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> If convicted, justice would be had but would it send a negative message to entrepreneurs? It might send a cautionary message, but cautionary messages aren't inherently negative.

dingaling 8y ago

Wisdom is knowing when to say "I don't know". It seems that she is very, very wise ..

DoreenMichele 8y ago

This is just sad. When Reagan defaulted to "I don't recall" as his stock answer, he was like in his 70s and getting a bit senile. This is either serious incompetence or lying. She doesn't get the polite out of "I'm just getting old. Oops." Plus, there was another detail revealed that Holmes had been less forthcoming about: She admitted that she and Balwani had been living together and had engaged in a romantic relationship. It was something she admitted under oath but had kept from investors. I've said publicly on HN and on my personal blog(s) that I think things got so crazy out of hand with Theranos precisely because she was a charming, pretty young woman. I've said privately to my sons that if I were an investigative reporter, I would be looking for evidence that she slept her way into power. She long claimed to be celibate because she was so devoted to her work. What better way to try to shut down accusations of sex for favors than to claim she's not sexually active at all? I'm still waiting to learn that she actually slept with a number of her investors and board members. Some of the men involved with her company were notorious ladies men. In my experience, most men like that won't be deterred by the detail that they are old enough to be my father or grandfather. This is one reason I'm relatively patient with the sexism that I feel closes so many doors for me. I'm well aware that "business meetings" between a man and a woman can be a polite cover story for an illicit relationship. I'm also well aware that if it is a polite cover story, it's probably not a case of "It's actually a productive business relationship with a bonus of sex on the side." It's probably a case of "No, the only thing of value she has to offer is sex and the man in question is willing to lie and pretend she's a real business person to get that, but would have ditched her incompetent sorry ass long ago as a business partner if business for profit was his actual motive." I still am not sure how to solve this for myself. Things are very slowly getting better for me. But I think there are inherent challenges in trying to make sure it's really business if you are a woman and this will likely always be true, though I hope we can develop some best practices for opening doors for women who are serious and deserve a shot at earning their way on merit in spite of being born with the wrong bits between their legs.

mabbo 8y ago

George Shultz really comes off as a moron in all of this. > 'They can try to convince me that you're wrong and in this case I do believe you’re wrong,' Then he tricks his grandson into coming over to chat, and oh by the way there's two lawyers from the company sitting in the next room with NDA paperwork for you to sign. Later, he manages to weasel out of ever saying "I was wrong". > "Tyler’s handling of the troubling practices he identified at Theranos is an example. He did not shrink from what he saw as his responsibility to the truth and patient safety, even when he felt personally threatened and believed that I had placed allegiance to the company over allegiance to higher values and our family." He didn't believe it, you jackass, he witnessed it. Your retroactive history lessons wherein you are actually the hero in all of this is astounding. I can only hope Tyler Shultz has learned to stay the hell away from his grandfather.

maxxxxx 8y ago
"George Shultz really comes off as a moron in all of this." This is a good lesson for how big decisions in politics and business are made. Leaders are very prone to being conned by charismatic people and often don't check the facts.
sv123 8y ago
After reading Bad Blood, the entire board comes off sounding completely incompetent.
Balgair 8y ago
Everyone looks up to someone. I suggest that you look up to Tyler Schultz. That guy stuck to his guns and faced a hell of a toll for it. He had his life destroyed. He knew that was going to happen. He went ahead anyway. Why? Because it was the right thing to do. Tyler saved countless lives, real actual people's lives; Elizabeth and Sunny's greed and hubris undoubtedly would have killed many people, no question. Tyler Shultz is a hero. Never let anyone tell you that you don't matter. Do the right thing. Be like Tyler.

objektif 8y ago

God I am really scared that she will not go to jail somehow. I hope justice is served.