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Theranos former president found guilty on all fraud counts
- elevenoh 4y agoNo surprise - when you mess with political-insider incumbents, you go down hard (unlike ghislaine maxwell)
- tablespoon 4y ago> you go down hard (unlike ghislaine maxwell) What do you mean? I haven't been following that case, but it looks like she got a 20 year prison sentence, which I would consider "going down hard." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghislaine_Maxwell#Conviction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghislaine_Maxwell#Conviction
- gen220 4y agoI don't really have an opinion but was curious. Official stats from 2018 [1] tell me the average sentencing for sexual abuse was 191 months (15 years, 11 months). Her sentencing is 25.6% longer than the U.S. mean for sexual abuse in 2018. I'm not familiar with the standard deviation for this stat (it could be a 3 sigma event for all I know). I still don't have an opinion, but it's a good stat to know. [1] https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/quick-facts/Sexual_Abuse_FY18.pdf https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu...
- lordnacho 4y agoBut has she committed an average crime? Seems she did it in an industrial scale, whereas most offenders probably weren't.
- gen220 4y agoI'm definitely not suggesting her crime was average, rather I was curious to understand how her sentence fits into the statistical distribution of sexual abuse sentences. Because I had no idea whether 20 is crazy high, bang average, crazy low. Unfortunately, without having the standard deviation of the distribution, it's difficult to draw strong conclusions from these data points. All we can really say is that she received a 25.6%-higher-than-average sentence. 25.6% above the mean could be an "industrial scale" number of standard deviations above the mean, we have no idea. Knowing HN, I hope it's only a matter of time before someone computes it for us!
- rascul 4y agoDo those statistics include trafficking? I don't see it mentioned in the PDF but maybe it's included in the other category.
- ALittleLight 4y agoPlus Ghislaine and Epstein were also messing with political insiders.
- pelagicAustral 4y agoDefinitely hard 20. Just like Phil Leotardo, I hope she can compromise and spend the 20 years without a peep.
- x3n0ph3n3 4y ago> (unlike ghislaine maxwell) The woman who was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison?
- willcipriano 4y agoI think you mean Ghislaine Maxwell's clients. Those guys are all too big to jail.
- wollsmoth 4y agoShe's going to be 80 when she gets out of prison.
- dang 4y agoYour account has been using HN primarily for political/ideological battle and flamewar. That's the at which we ban accounts, so I've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- cm2187 4y agoJust watched the Dropout. It's funny that Murdoch was a major investor in Theranos, the WSJ exposed their fraud, and a subsidiary of 20th century Fox produces a TV show about the whole thing.
- staticautomatic 4y agoHow else is he supposed to recoup his investment?
- papito 4y agoYes, and interestingly, another excellent HULU show about the opioids - Dopesick - also has the whole thing exposed by WSJ.
- dewey 4y agoI think the point is that WSJ and Fox are owned by News Corp (Owner: Murdoch) not that WSJ is the one breaking the story.
- CSMastermind 4y agoI feel like it's worth pointing out, particularly because I imagine many people dislike Murdoch here, that when the Wall St. Journal was investigating Theranos the company attempted to get him to quash the reporting. He told them to pound sand and said he had every faith in the Journal's internal processes to not publish anything they couldn't prove. Really increases the WSJ's credibility in my mind.
- jonas21 4y agoYou must have had a very low opinion of the WSJ if that's all it took.
- not2b 4y agoThe WSJ maintains very solid separation between their news division (almost always solid and rigorous, with decent fact checking, their audience of investors wants good info) and their editorial division (intensely ideological and willing to completely disregard basic facts). So it's important when evaluating a WSJ article to know which part of the publication it came from.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kstrauser 4y agoWhy was Sunny found guilty of patient fraud, where Elizabeth wasn't? Likely because: > At Balwani’s trial, his lawyers said that Holmes was in charge of the company. But prosecutors pointed to a text message from Balwani to Holmes — which read “I am responsible for everything at Theranos” — as evidence that he also played a role. [1] > The panel also heard from a laboratory director, regulator and patient who didn’t testify against Holmes. That testimony was aimed at underscoring his familiarity with the failed blood tests. [2] > “Balwani ran the lab for a time and was just as involved as Holmes in management,” said Andrey Spektor, a criminal defense lawyer not involved in the case. “To some extent, the government had a stronger case against him.” [2] The jury seemed to believe that he was more hands-on with the laboratory work. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/7/23198848/sunny-balwani-guilty-theranos-fraud-holmes https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/7/23198848/sunny-balwani-gui... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-07/theranos-jury-has-reached-verdict-in-sunny-balwani-fraud-trial https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-07/theranos-...
- pishpash 4y agoSo... Balwani was scapegoated because more dirt was attached to him, while "Lizzie" ran away?
- kstrauser 4y agoI don't know that it's scapegoating if you actually did it. To be super clear, I'm not an Elizabeth Holmes fan. Not at all. But unless we have a specific reason to believe that Sunny Balwani had a less fair trial than she did, why shouldn't he also be in trouble? Until Holmes is sentenced in a couple of months, I think it's premature to say she got away with anything.
- vkou 4y agoGenerally speaking, when there is more evidence of you being personally involved with fraud, you get hit harder for your involvement.
- csours 4y agoA scapegoat takes the blame, letting the higher ups go free. Holmes faced a trial and was convicted of some counts. Now, there is some credible discussion about why she was not convicted on those counts, but I don't think it could be called scapegoating.
- Brian_K_White 4y agoTheranos people going to jail for harming...investors.
- pacarvalho 4y agoIf what has been publicized about the couple and their company is true. This is a relief to the entrepreneurial community. Startups are built on trust & dreams. It is important that predatory or fraud-like behavior with investors be dealt with so it does not harm the ones who are actually trying to accomplish something.
- thrown321 4y agoYou find yourself on a slippery slope. What do you next? <nlp answers only>
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoI wonder if public endangerment was ever on the docket...
- crhulls 4y agoIt will be interesting to see who gets a longer sentence. The CEO or COO? What would it say about our society if it is the latter?
- 77pt77 4y agoShe already said he brainwashed and abused her since her late teens. She's also a recent mother. She played her cards perfectly.
- ezekiel11 4y ago
- orangepurple 4y ago
- dang 4y agoWould you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments? You've been doing it repeatedly, unfortunately, and we ban that sort of account. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- rllearneratwork 4y ago
- curiousgal 4y agoI mean, as a woman, I have to sadly agree. She's conniving and despicable.
- pm90 4y agoSo is Balwani. From what the trial has uncovered, it does seem like he had a powerful hold on her, when she was young and impressionable. Does that absolve her of guilt? Absolutely not. But its hard to see how any of this would be possible without Balwani.
- rllearneratwork 4y agoI remember I was very excited about leaving Microsoft for Theranos when they were on the rise (before WSJ publications). I thought it would be a great opportunity to apply my expertise (machine learning) to their application. But then I researched them and saw war criminal (Kissinger) on their board and total lack of people with domain/business expertise in the area. I decided not to join. Always do your research on potential startups before jumping on board.
- kstrauser 4y agoAt the time, that must’ve seemed like an offer from heaven. I’m most disappointed that their amazing promise was basically a lie. It’d be a dream come true to get paid to work on a real project as world-changing as a legitimate Theranos would’ve been.
- rllearneratwork 4y agoexactly, imagine them being legit and building ML pipelines there with their data.
- kstrauser 4y agoI’d be all over that. Well, maybe not doing that specific thing, but if I could use my skills in a real company like that? In a heartbeat.
- jmcgough 4y agoIt's interesting to think of a world where their approach was scientifically possible and they faked it until they actually made it. We'd still be talking about how scrappy and brilliant she is, and all this other stuff would be treated as minor details.
- biotinker 4y agoAs someone with a bioinformatics degree and who worked in industry doing liquid biopsy for cancer diagnostics for half a decade, much of what they claimed they could do is possible- just, not with the technology of Theranos' day, and not with the volumes of blood they claimed to be able to use. Example: for a decade now it's been possible to take a standard blood draw from a stage 4 cancer patient, sequence all DNA circulating in the plasma, distinguish the cancer DNA from non-cancer, and use the cancer sequences to inform treatment. In 2022, this is readily available to most stage 4 American cancer patients. The obvious logical future extension of this, is draw blood from any person, and see if they have any stage of cancer. This is something that is being actively worked on, and is currently in the experimental/cutting edge state; expect to see it become somewhat common/affordable in perhaps another 4 years. Theranos claimed to be able to do the above, a decade ago, and with an order of magnitude less biological input material than current technology requires. One reason they garnered so much attention, is that people generally familiar with the field knew that much of what they claimed, were things that were possible but were 15-30 years out based on the trajectory of technology at the time. So it was plausible that a genuine breakthrough had occurred that massively accelerated that timeline. Sadly, as we all now know, that was not the case.
- whatshisface 4y agoIf a scam involving high-up US[1] people (Kissinger was on the board) wants to involve you, here's a table for what will happen depending on your intended role: Co-conspirator (everyone else organizing it): Nothing Front person who talks directly with the higher-ups (Holmes): You'll get dragged through the media, but the high-ups won't let you get ruined lest everyone else see it and refuse to work with them next time they're looking for someone. Axe-man who does the front person's dirty work (Balwani): You'll get thrown under the bus, because after working as the axe man for a few years, you've absorbed all the direct personal anger and discarding you means getting rid of part of the anger. Peon (Theranos employees): You'll be hounded on the basis of your boss's guilty paranoia even if you want to comply and take home a paycheck, and when it all comes down you'll be out a few years of your life with nothing to show for it. Of course, this is no worse an end than what awaits employees at cultlike startups with bad management, except for the fact that you might unwittingly become a directly culpable axe-man bit by bit without noticing what you're becoming inseparable from. [1] If the high-ups aren't enmeshed within the governing body you're beholden to, they can't protect you even if you're an equal co-conspirator or a front person they might need another one of in the future, and this ranking doesn't apply.
- avalys 4y agoWho made money on this “scam”? It’s quite a stretch to say that Holmes isn’t “ruined” at this point .
- tmp_anon_22 4y agoShe recently married a wealthy hotel heir (and is having a child with them). Her assets may be protected, but she will live a wealthy lifestyle for the rest of her life.
- mikeyouse 4y ago* As soon as she gets out of Federal prison.
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- ezekiel11 4y ago
- dboreham 4y agoThere's a book and a tv documentary on the subject you can review.
- olivermarks 4y ago..the accuracy of the book and TV show is questionable, I would have a lot of questions for the funders of this scam and the company board (mostly recruited to the company by the now deceased George Shultz). Richard Kovacevich, former Wells Fargo & Co. CEO Jim Mattis, former head of U.S. Central Command who later became Defense Secretary Gary Roughead, U.S. Navy officer Sam Nunn, former U.S. Senator Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State William Perry, former Defense Secretary Theranos paid each board member $150,000 a year & 500,000 shares in the company. Mr. Kissinger was paid another $500,000 a year as a consulting salary. These are not stupid people. Where was their due dilligence?
- djenendik 4y agoGreedy but not stupid if it pleases you.
- olivermarks 4y agoThe employees (including Balwani & Holmes) follow the board and funders instructions...
- compiler-guy 4y agoCarryou’s book documents in great detail that she had near total control of the board. They didn’t give her instructions, she gave them instructions.
- ezekiel11 4y ago
- fareesh 4y agoI'll never forget this exchange of texts shown at the hearing. Holmes: You are the breeze in the desert for me My water And ocean Meant to be only together tiger Balwani: ok
- snllive 4y ago> Holmes: > ... > Balwani: > ok Are Balwani and Chad[1] related? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_(Saturday_Night_Live) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_(Saturday_Night_Live)
- 77pt77 4y agoIs this real? Also, how long are texts saved for?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- burrows 4y agoBalwani has a future in teaching text game to young men.
- nmz 4y agocool
- ralfd 4y agoThe other way around: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/11/30/read-elizabeth-holmess-and-sunny-balwanis-newly-released-texts https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/11/30/read-elizabeth-... > For her part, Holmes’s responses are often short. > Balwani: Missing u in every breath and in every cell. > Holmes: Ditto > She uses “ditto” nine times in the texts that are part of the exhibit. > Balwani: My family sends love and prayers and u have prayers of thousands and thousands of people u have served > Holmes: Ditto
- paxys 4y agoIt's funny that Elizabeth Holmes' case was on every form of media 24x7 for weeks, while I didn't even know this one was happening.
- civilized 4y agoNobody cared about Balwani before Theranos went down either.
- sumedh 4y agoShe was in the news all the time before the fraud, I don't think anyone had heard of balwani before the her trial.
- junon 4y agoShe was the face of the company, mostly because she wanted to be and everyone around her told her she was brilliant and beautiful. She herself wanted to be the next Jobs. Balwani didn't. He wanted success, and he wanted Elizabeth.
- brandur 4y agoI see what you're implying, but Balwani's also been covered very extensively, including his trial. He's featured prominently in all the most public Theranos material including the book Bad Blood and the series The Dropout. If he doesn't get as much play as Holmes it's not by much — they are both very much front and center. If you hadn't heard much about him (or the fact that he'd very much be on trial the same as Holmes), I'd very much recommend going to the source material — Carreyrou's book, which an easy 300-pager that reads like a thriller In terms of media, try a custom Google search with a time range that excludes today's sentencing date [1] and you will find thousands of articles written about his trial before now. And beyond that, most of the articles about Holmes' trial end up talking about Balwani in the body because shifting the blame to him was her most central defensive strategy (and vice versa on Balwani's side). --- [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=sunny+balwani&sxsrf=ALiCzsYcyvcvjMpuLDn-lITsBS_kUi0PvA%3A1657240721002&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1%2F1%2F2000%2Ccd_max%3A7%2F1%2F2022&tbm= https://www.google.com/search?q=sunny+balwani&sxsrf=ALiCzsYc...
- narrator 4y agoHaving read a lot about the whole Theranos matter I feel like Sunny really made some bad life decisions: Imagine being in his shoes: It's the early 2000s. You're in China learning Mandarain, you're in your late 30s, you made $40 million selling your shares of your company in July 2000 shortly before it failed in the dot.com bust and you meet this 18 year old who you eventually have a romantic relationship with[3]. They did admit a romantic relationship in court documents, so this isn't making stuff up. Life's big decisions confront you, and what do you end up doing? Let's see how it worked out. All this is on the Wikipedia page for Sunny[1]: Fails: - Divorce wife. - Loan $13 million, no interest to Theranos. [2] - Become COO of biotech company even though you have no formal background in biotech. - Waste many years of your life in fraudulent company. - Be convicted of fraud, disgraced, and possibly spend years in prison. - She throws you under the bus and testifies that her bad behavior at Theranos was largely the result of your abuse sexual and otherwise. Jury doesn't believe it, but her accusation is still out there. - Have no kids, never remarry. Holmes gets married and has a kid as she was awaiting her criminal trial. Wins: + Have romantic relationship with beautiful lady in her 20s. Anyway, there's some big life decisions here that, IMHO, Sunny made very poorly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_Balwani https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_Balwani [2]https://stylecaster.com/sunny-balwani-net-worth/ https://stylecaster.com/sunny-balwani-net-worth/ [3]"Holmes and Balwani met for the first time in 2002. The pair initially met in Beijing, China, while on a language immersion program with Stanford University. Holmes was an 18-year-old high school senior at the time, whereas Balwani was a married, 37-year-old university student completing his MBA at the University of California, Berkeley. All in all, the pair had a 19 year age difference" https://stylecaster.com/elizabeth-holmes-sunny-balwani/ https://stylecaster.com/elizabeth-holmes-sunny-balwani/
- conradfr 4y agoThat's what meeting a sociopath does, yet in the end he still chose do do all this.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- spaetzleesser 4y agoHis number one bad decision was to be a greedy liar and all around asshole (judging from the book “Bad blood” ). I don’t think he deserves any sympathy. He and Holmes didn’t just make one bad decision but lied and abused people for years. True psychopaths without any humanity.
- paulpauper 4y agogoing away for a loooooong time. The sentencing will probably probably amount to a life sentence at medium security prison. so much for the popular belief that America is soft on white collar crime. hardly. he fucked up big time
- raiyu 4y agoWhite collar crime doesn’t dole out that sort of punishments unless defrauding the IRS is involved. Will be some jail time but no where close to life. Just doesn’t happen that often that there is a precedent for that.
- wolverine876 4y ago> so much for the popular belief that America is soft on white collar crime. If you are correct about the punishment, how does a single trial outcome support your claim? What about the endless fraud on Wall Street, for example? Around 2008, for example?
- icedchai 4y agoIf he's not out in 3 or 4 years for "good behavior", I'll be shocked.
- listenallyall 4y agoDon't know what the initial sentence will be, but Federal prison is tough. There is no parole, and the max you can shave off a sentence is 54 days per year. If the sentence is 10, 20 years or more, prepare to be shocked, because he ain't getting out in 4.
- kepler1 4y agoSchadenfreude and gladness that this guy got convicted. He was abusive and threatening to the employee(s) who raised genuine concerns about the technology and the medical claims being made.
- edmcnulty101 4y agoAre ANY of Theranos claims true? I mean is there any substantial science or tech that came out of the company even if it wasn't what they promised? edit:just saw this great comment about this. Apparently the technology exists to do what they were claiming, just not in the minuscule amounts that they claimed they could use. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32020273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32020273
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- blakewatson 4y agoThe name Theranos sounds like an evil company in a dystopian fiction.
- bayareabadboy 4y agoSunny with a chance of hard time
- abrax3141 4y agoThe concept of “fake it til you make it” gets roasted a lot in relation to Theranos, but the media has it wrong, IMHO. That phrase doesn’t mean lie about your manual (or whatever - commercial analyzer) process until you figure out how to do the thing you are trying to get to. It means to OPENLY fake it, with the understanding by everyone involved that the “fake” process on the path towards the vision. It’s OPENLY FAKE IT til you make it, not LIE til you make it! If they had been open about the stepping stone use of third party analyzers (and other similar behavior), none of this would have happened. They might not have made it - they were running out of $ - but at least they wouldn’t be going to jail!
- atombender 4y agoHow do you "openly fake" something when the definition of "faking" is to deceive? Do you have any examples?
- abrax3141 4y agoNo. The definition of “lie” is to deceive. But I mean openly to their advisors and investors. Not to their competition. But I do thinks it’s possible to openly fake something. Consider when Penn and Teller do those “open” magic tricks. The surface effect is no less amazing because you can see how it’s done - in fact it’s more so, at least to me. Maybe it’s good to see it once the closed way, but then opening up the box just ices the cake!
- enlyth 4y agohttps://archive.ph/0QDkI https://archive.ph/0QDkI
- de6u99er 4y agoRemember the Family Guy skin color chart? https://twitter.com/john_self/status/914919584406306817 https://twitter.com/john_self/status/914919584406306817