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> 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: "...Th

> 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.
  - dmix 8y ago
    [citation needed] I'd love to see examples of this idea being promoted here. I personally remember Theranos being attacked on HN first for being full of shit, well before it became popular in the press. Not to mention the ~2yrs where 'lean' stuff that was endless parroted here which is all about not faking it but actually talking to customers. I also highly doubt any YC type company would fit that criteria either. Maybe you see that stuff on Reddit but HN is full of some of the most skeptical and critical people when it comes to reviewing startups.
    - SilasX 8y ago
      That's cheating though: "Hey, I already know your idea doesn't work, so obviously I don't endorse it." The problem is what to do when you personally don't know the viability of your own idea and have to take advice while not having access to the same knowledge. If you stripped off the specifics, in every other context, HNers would by-and-large repeat the tropes about "oh yeah, you feel like you don't know what you're doing, but so does everyone else! It doesn't matter!" Obviously, you can come after the fact and say "See, now that the idea failed and I expressed skepticism before, I obviously don't mean the fake-it-till-you-make-it crap for that startup, just the good ones." That's not impressive. What matters is whether you know whether self-confidence is justified being the person in that situation.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    I don't believe this is true unless you are intentionally assuming all ventures are painted with the same brush. It's not true with self driving cars, med tech, or anything else having to do with human safety. Not only is there not one shared voice on these sites, even if you pretended there were it would not be in favor of faking it until you make it when human safety is involved. I think this subscribes to the more-frequent meme of assuming people apply their mindset on some types of tech business to all types of tech business.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  Yet, somehow, we all know a “Balwani” from work. We’ve all been employed somewhere where he was in charge: a total phony, who knows little to nothing about technology, used his smooth tongue or connections to fake his way into Senior Director of This or VP of That. How do organizations keep falling for these people's shtick and promoting/recruiting them into positions of power? For every Theranos where the phony is outed, there are hundreds of other companies where their “Balwani” is raking in millions in deferred comp and faking his way through to more and more power, seats on other companies’ boards and a lavish retirement. And nobody calls them out!
  - dmix 8y ago
    > Yet, somehow, we all know a “Balwani” from work I've had more than one sadly. Say what you want about Mark Zuckerberg but his idea of hiring engineers to fill every role, not just development but project/product management and other leading positions, is spot on.

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.
- dmix 8y ago
  [citation needed] I'd love to see examples of this idea being promoted here. I personally remember Theranos being attacked on HN first for being full of shit, well before it became popular in the press. Not to mention the ~2yrs where 'lean' stuff that was endless parroted here which is all about not faking it but actually talking to customers. I also highly doubt any YC type company would fit that criteria either. Maybe you see that stuff on Reddit but HN is full of some of the most skeptical and critical people when it comes to reviewing startups.
  - SilasX 8y ago
    That's cheating though: "Hey, I already know your idea doesn't work, so obviously I don't endorse it." The problem is what to do when you personally don't know the viability of your own idea and have to take advice while not having access to the same knowledge. If you stripped off the specifics, in every other context, HNers would by-and-large repeat the tropes about "oh yeah, you feel like you don't know what you're doing, but so does everyone else! It doesn't matter!" Obviously, you can come after the fact and say "See, now that the idea failed and I expressed skepticism before, I obviously don't mean the fake-it-till-you-make-it crap for that startup, just the good ones." That's not impressive. What matters is whether you know whether self-confidence is justified being the person in that situation.
- kodablah 8y ago
  I don't believe this is true unless you are intentionally assuming all ventures are painted with the same brush. It's not true with self driving cars, med tech, or anything else having to do with human safety. Not only is there not one shared voice on these sites, even if you pretended there were it would not be in favor of faking it until you make it when human safety is involved. I think this subscribes to the more-frequent meme of assuming people apply their mindset on some types of tech business to all types of tech business.
ryandrake 8y ago
Yet, somehow, we all know a “Balwani” from work. We’ve all been employed somewhere where he was in charge: a total phony, who knows little to nothing about technology, used his smooth tongue or connections to fake his way into Senior Director of This or VP of That. How do organizations keep falling for these people's shtick and promoting/recruiting them into positions of power? For every Theranos where the phony is outed, there are hundreds of other companies where their “Balwani” is raking in millions in deferred comp and faking his way through to more and more power, seats on other companies’ boards and a lavish retirement. And nobody calls them out!
- dmix 8y ago
  > Yet, somehow, we all know a “Balwani” from work I've had more than one sadly. Say what you want about Mark Zuckerberg but his idea of hiring engineers to fill every role, not just development but project/product management and other leading positions, is spot on.