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Was Theranos a bad deal, or did the people who worked there get paid handsomely for their part in the fraud?

sys_64738 7y ago
This. I wonder why those who worked there and were party to to it were not prosecuted in some way for their part in the deceit. They allowed it to continue by not whistleblowing the issues. They should be charged somehow.
- wpietri 7y ago
  I think a lot of the execs probably should be charged. And ditto for many of the lower-down workers as well if they participated in doing anything fraudulent. However, I don't entirely want to blame the workers. US business culture very strongly leans towards a sort of neo-feudalism, where the CEO is always right, where one's allegiance is to the company, and where there are many techniques for silencing people. E.g., when I got laid off from Twitter they gave me zero notice, and made any severance conditional on signing a nondisclosure and nondisparagement agreement that went much further than the one I signed when I joined. I had good savings and no family, so I turned them down. But a lot of people can't do that. Personally, I think we should make that illegal, and have every NDA specifically exempt reporting malfeasance.
wpietri 7y ago
They burned $1.4 billion dollars and produced nothing useful. It was bad.
- hollerith 7y ago
  "Bad" accurately describes Theranos's effect on society, but the comment you are replying to is probably asking about the effect of deciding to take a job at Theranos on the personal well-being of the individual making the decision. After all, nobody is claiming that the Amazon dirt scam had a positive effect on society. The question in this thread was whether the dirt scammer's decisions were individually personally rational. Your bringing up Theranos does not seem to me (and probably does not seem to grandparent) to shed any light on this question because it might have been individually personally rational for someone to take a job at Theranos: none of Theranos's non-management employees were required to give back their salary after Theranos was discovered to have been a fraud.
  - wpietri 7y ago
    In both cases it was rational in the short term: the money kept coming in. And "individually personally rational" is a weird way to say "greedy sociopath who only cares about how much money was pocketed".

This. I wonder why those who worked there and were party to to it were not prosecuted in some way for their part in the deceit. They allowed it to continue by not whistleblowing the issues. They should be charged somehow.

wpietri 7y ago
I think a lot of the execs probably should be charged. And ditto for many of the lower-down workers as well if they participated in doing anything fraudulent. However, I don't entirely want to blame the workers. US business culture very strongly leans towards a sort of neo-feudalism, where the CEO is always right, where one's allegiance is to the company, and where there are many techniques for silencing people. E.g., when I got laid off from Twitter they gave me zero notice, and made any severance conditional on signing a nondisclosure and nondisparagement agreement that went much further than the one I signed when I joined. I had good savings and no family, so I turned them down. But a lot of people can't do that. Personally, I think we should make that illegal, and have every NDA specifically exempt reporting malfeasance.

wpietri 7y ago

They burned $1.4 billion dollars and produced nothing useful. It was bad.

hollerith 7y ago
"Bad" accurately describes Theranos's effect on society, but the comment you are replying to is probably asking about the effect of deciding to take a job at Theranos on the personal well-being of the individual making the decision. After all, nobody is claiming that the Amazon dirt scam had a positive effect on society. The question in this thread was whether the dirt scammer's decisions were individually personally rational. Your bringing up Theranos does not seem to me (and probably does not seem to grandparent) to shed any light on this question because it might have been individually personally rational for someone to take a job at Theranos: none of Theranos's non-management employees were required to give back their salary after Theranos was discovered to have been a fraud.
- wpietri 7y ago
  In both cases it was rational in the short term: the money kept coming in. And "individually personally rational" is a weird way to say "greedy sociopath who only cares about how much money was pocketed".