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Great point, but: > it would be hard to resist scamming them I don't think she even scammed them. She really believes she can do all the things. Her fraud w

Great point, but: > it would be hard to resist scamming them I don't think she even scammed them. She really believes she can do all the things. Her fraud was not a scam, it was just covering failures and fake it till you make it without discernment or introspection (doing it in a field where you really need to stop faking it sooner)

logdap 3y ago
> just covering failures and fake it till you make it without discernment or introspection (doing it in a field where you really need to stop faking it sooner) In a word: scamming. Even her voice is fake.
stcroixx 3y ago
Guess we'll have to keep sending people to prison until y'all get that your 'fake it till you make it' is in fact fraud, which most people understand as a kind of scam.
- throwawaymaths 3y ago
  It's not fraud if you tell your investors (and when you have customers, your customers) how you're faking it. "fake it till you make it" generally means "your product is egregiously incomplete for X reason(s)" and in many cases, the investors know this and willing to take the risk. It's on the investors to do due diligence and assess whether or not the risk is up to their level of appetite. I do believe that holmes was doing this for the much of her run with Theranos. That is normal startup behavior, and not really unethical, and certainly not illegal, though it can be spectacularly misguided, as we saw. At the point where she started hiding what she was doing, it became "fake it till you make it" that is ALSO fraud. So no. For chrissakes, Don't generally send people who "fake it till they make it" to prison.
  - scrubs 3y ago
    Nah, I think you take it too far. In that world everybody will need to take a too cynical view and vet everything and everybody. That's dog eat dog. Ultimately Holmes cheated faking test results. That's not faking it it. It is fake. Put another way: how many times N can you BS people until you conclude for some N>0 that the person is BS? That N isn't high.
    - throwawaymaths 3y ago
      BSing things is not faking things, though. for example: you can "bullshit around" and claim that you're working on getting your falcon 9 second stage reusable, and it's totally okay if you don't deliver.
  - stcroixx 3y ago
    Telling the truth is not faking it.
olliej 3y ago
She knowingly made false and fraudulent claims about what she was doing, how she was doing it. She knowingly gave false medical test results to people causing significant harm (not something that she has been penalized for). She destroyed the lives of anyone who reported negatively about her or theranos. You can claim all you like that she thought she could do what she claimed that she was doing. But that doesn't matter. She knew for a fact that they were not doing what she was claiming, and she knowingly lied about that. She is a fraudster. She is a criminal. That amount people bend over to support her - and other similar "founders" - is bizarre. It does not matter if they thought what they was saying was possible, if they know for a fact that that is not what they are doing.
- throwawaymaths 3y ago
  You're misreading my tone. Im literally not disputing that she was a fraudster. And I'm not defending Holmes. All scams are frauds, not all frauds are scams. Being a scamster is a form of psychopathy that evinces a knowing willingness to hurt people in the name of self interest. Arguably my claim is scarier. Fraudsters like Holmes are scary because they don't think they are doing anything wrong. The fake it till you make it narrative even gives the perception of a long leash to commit pecadillos on the long road to success, in the context of the "make the world better" narrative of SV. There are more people out there like her, and it's harder to restrain them because they think they are doing something good and to boot they appear (maybe even are, if slightly) less psychopathic at a first glance.

logdap 3y ago

> just covering failures and fake it till you make it without discernment or introspection (doing it in a field where you really need to stop faking it sooner) In a word: scamming. Even her voice is fake.

stcroixx 3y ago

Guess we'll have to keep sending people to prison until y'all get that your 'fake it till you make it' is in fact fraud, which most people understand as a kind of scam.

throwawaymaths 3y ago
It's not fraud if you tell your investors (and when you have customers, your customers) how you're faking it. "fake it till you make it" generally means "your product is egregiously incomplete for X reason(s)" and in many cases, the investors know this and willing to take the risk. It's on the investors to do due diligence and assess whether or not the risk is up to their level of appetite. I do believe that holmes was doing this for the much of her run with Theranos. That is normal startup behavior, and not really unethical, and certainly not illegal, though it can be spectacularly misguided, as we saw. At the point where she started hiding what she was doing, it became "fake it till you make it" that is ALSO fraud. So no. For chrissakes, Don't generally send people who "fake it till they make it" to prison.
- scrubs 3y ago
  Nah, I think you take it too far. In that world everybody will need to take a too cynical view and vet everything and everybody. That's dog eat dog. Ultimately Holmes cheated faking test results. That's not faking it it. It is fake. Put another way: how many times N can you BS people until you conclude for some N>0 that the person is BS? That N isn't high.
  - throwawaymaths 3y ago
    BSing things is not faking things, though. for example: you can "bullshit around" and claim that you're working on getting your falcon 9 second stage reusable, and it's totally okay if you don't deliver.
- stcroixx 3y ago
  Telling the truth is not faking it.

olliej 3y ago

She knowingly made false and fraudulent claims about what she was doing, how she was doing it. She knowingly gave false medical test results to people causing significant harm (not something that she has been penalized for). She destroyed the lives of anyone who reported negatively about her or theranos. You can claim all you like that she thought she could do what she claimed that she was doing. But that doesn't matter. She knew for a fact that they were not doing what she was claiming, and she knowingly lied about that. She is a fraudster. She is a criminal. That amount people bend over to support her - and other similar "founders" - is bizarre. It does not matter if they thought what they was saying was possible, if they know for a fact that that is not what they are doing.

throwawaymaths 3y ago
You're misreading my tone. Im literally not disputing that she was a fraudster. And I'm not defending Holmes. All scams are frauds, not all frauds are scams. Being a scamster is a form of psychopathy that evinces a knowing willingness to hurt people in the name of self interest. Arguably my claim is scarier. Fraudsters like Holmes are scary because they don't think they are doing anything wrong. The fake it till you make it narrative even gives the perception of a long leash to commit pecadillos on the long road to success, in the context of the "make the world better" narrative of SV. There are more people out there like her, and it's harder to restrain them because they think they are doing something good and to boot they appear (maybe even are, if slightly) less psychopathic at a first glance.