Elizabeth Holmes's Trial Could Reveal Her Side of Theranos Story (wsj.com) 86
Since Theranos began to unravel in 2016, the blood-testing company's founder, Elizabeth Holmes, has sought to tell her side of the story, even pursuing the possibility of a lucrative book deal. Now, at her coming criminal fraud trial, Ms. Holmes finally will get her best shot to tell it. From a report: After Theranos began imploding five years ago -- with federal investigators building cases against her for allegedly misleading investors and patients about the company's technology -- Ms. Holmes remained convinced she had done nothing wrong, people close to her at the time recalled, and wanted a venue to profess her innocence. In 2016, months after Theranos received its first criminal subpoena, Ms. Holmes pitched a book idea to Bob Barnett, a lawyer and book agent known for landing six-figure-plus advances for the political elite, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting, at Theranos's Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters, was brokered by the company's then-general counsel, they said.
Mr. Barnett told Ms. Holmes that there could be a market for her book -- but only if she could emerge successfully from the federal investigations, one of the people said. He told her his Washington law firm, Williams & Connolly LLP, could help with her legal troubles, too, the people recall. The book deal didn't happen. Ms. Holmes was indicted in June 2018 on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud; and Theranos, a startup once valued at more than $9 billion, dissolved three months later. Her criminal trial in San Jose, Calif., is set to begin Tuesday. Four of Mr. Barnett's partners will be defending her.
Mr. Barnett told Ms. Holmes that there could be a market for her book -- but only if she could emerge successfully from the federal investigations, one of the people said. He told her his Washington law firm, Williams & Connolly LLP, could help with her legal troubles, too, the people recall. The book deal didn't happen. Ms. Holmes was indicted in June 2018 on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud; and Theranos, a startup once valued at more than $9 billion, dissolved three months later. Her criminal trial in San Jose, Calif., is set to begin Tuesday. Four of Mr. Barnett's partners will be defending her.
It was an underling! (Score:1)
She was bamboozled!
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It would have to be one hell of a story (Score:4, Interesting)
Based on everything that has come out so far, I won't rule out completely the possibility that there is some kind of "innocent" explanation for everything, but... yeah, it's going to have to be like the greatest story ever told. She may prevail on at least a couple of charges in the court of law, but in the court of public opinion this woman's name is going to be forever associated with massive fraud, right up there with Bernie Madoff, and Charles Ponzi.
Re:It would have to be one hell of a story (Score:5, Insightful)
If she wasn't guilty of massive fraud she was guilty of being the most gullible executive in history. She'll probably claim that underlings told her that this was going to work "any day now", but you can only put forward your own stupidity as an excuse so far. At some point even the dumbest of MBAs are going to realize that they're screwed, but she just kept rolling along.
Re:It would have to be one hell of a story (Score:5, Insightful)
When you pass along this info to investors as a CEO, you're essentially saying that you stand by your statements. These are not off-the-cuff remarks made in the break room or over a drink; these statements are serious and have serious legal consequences. Ignorance really should not be a defense here.
Re:It would have to be one hell of a story (Score:4, Insightful)
She'll probably claim that underlings told her that this was going to work "any day now",
Oh, I absolutely agree. Though I'll also absolutely say that she was committing deliberate fraud and more, the illegal stuff.
It's the usual story actually. "Fake it until you make it" type thinking. You hit some critical milestone, you need to show some level of progress in order to keep the money from your investors and creditors flowing. But you're not there yet. So you fake said progress. Same deal with investment funds turning out to be Ponzi schemes. Hell, another tech example might be the Nikola EV company turning out to be a hollow bubble. They couldn't even produce a prototype EV semi, and had to fake everything. I mean, people have been converting cars to EV since like the '70s. You shouldn't have any excuse for not making at least a *prototype* semi EV, even if it can't make the speed or distance you're selling. Just say it's a prototype and limited by this or that, you'll fix in the next revision.
So anyways, you've faked your progress once. You get more money. But you're already a step behind, and the *next* milestone is coming up. You need to show even more progress. Well, you've faked it once, fake it again! Eventually, you're spending more resources on faking and not actually advancing, and faking has become the new norm. Then it's only a question of time until the house of cards collapses, with those committing the fraud often having a sick fascination with just how long they can keep it going.
Decades in some cases, like with Bernie Madoff.
Re: It would have to be one hell of a story (Score:2)
Very true.
And it happens to a tiny extent in almost all new projects / startups so when it starts naturally progressing to higher levels it's difficult for even the key people to identify it's crossed over into fraud territory.
By the time you become sure of it and try to convince others to buy-in to the reality and try to convince top mgmt for changes (which inevitably are gonna be painful and hence procrastinated) it's usually too late.
Offcourse in the medical / healthcare sector (or sectors where the prod
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The documentaries on netflix and hulu about the failed fyre festival are another good watch to basically see the same sort of fraudster in action.
What I think is probably a good thing to consider between Theranos and the Fyre festival, is how they both got a lot of media coverage, which no doubt amplified their fraud. Holmes for looking the part of being a female 'Steve Jobs', became a darling of tech journalists, while the Fyre festival engaged influencers who were happy to throw lots of publicity, as inva
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It's one thing to overly emphasize a rare test that succeeds (perhaps by luck) and to be overly-optimistic about how close you might be to resolving a stumbling block. It's quite another to claim test results that never happened.
The really big problem came in when she and others allowed the faking to include people whose life or health depended on the results being real. In all the murk, non-sociopaths would see that as a bright line that must not be crossed.
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Combined with the sense of entitlement that she apparently had.
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but in the court of public opinion this woman's name is going to be forever associated with massive fraud
Fraud that endangered lives.
Re:It would have to be one hell of a story (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It would have to be one hell of a story (Score:4, Interesting)
Read up on how she received her degree. It was given to her because of her father’s name.
Re: It would have to be one hell of a story (Score:2)
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If she wasn't guilty of massive fraud she was guilty of being the most gullible executive in history.
It was her own invention supposedly.
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But this is the literal opposite of what happened. The people who worked for her constantly told her that her vision was impossible, and urged her to aim for an achievable goal, but her reaction was to fire and/or intimidate them.
I'm a strong believer in assuming stupidity over malice, and I'm sure this is what has happened here. Holmes is a person who got high on her own supply, had not even a basic understanding of the industry she entered, d
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From the profile of her given in "Bad Blood", she has an awful lot of ASPD or NPD ("sociopath") personality traits. Think Jobs but without any of the talent in picking and listening to the right people that Jobs had. Also, Jobs had a pretty good grasp of the tech and knew when he couldn't push the state of the art any further, while Holmes didn't.
I also don't think Theranos could have been successful if she'd listened to her employees, because then they would have been just another one of a dozen compani
Re: It would have to be one hell of a story (Score:2)
Excellent post. The Steve Jobs comparisons weren't an accident. She adopted his trademark turtleneck, and the media was clamouring for a 'female Steve Jobs' they could celebrate because wamen power. She played them like a pro. Even with the advantage of corporate and media worlds being obsessed with wamen, what she did required a great deal of manipulative skill.
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I've had some dealings with startup mentors and incubator type people. They encourage you to aim for the moon (actually, Mars in this case). Reasonable stepping stones and contingencies? Forget it, it just detracts from the story.
*Hopefully* when you fall short you've still got something useful, and you know when to "pivot." It's tricky to get right though.
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I'm HALF joking.
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That's why Bernie Maddoff and Michael Milken ended up in jail, because they ripped off the rich. The scumbags who filled pension plans with Enron stock or carried out the sub-prime mortgage frauds? They got bonuses.
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Using a fake voice suggests she's the mastermind, not a dupe.
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Re: It would have to be one hell of a story (Score:1)
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You are an interesting troll. I wonder if the random capitalization indicates that English is not your primary language. Pro tip: if you want your syntax to represent the quality of your opinions yOu SHouLd WrITe LikE THiS.
Perhaps I'm being too hard on you. Maybe you're just pretending to be an incel and the sarcasm has gone over my head.
Re: It would have to be one hell of a story (Score:3)
How do you tip that fedora and post? Type with one hand, tipping with the other, or would you use speech dictation software?
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Re:It would have to be one hell of a story (Score:5, Informative)
tl;dr version: She had an idea and started a company. It turned out that the idea was completely unworkable and impossible, but her gigantic ego couldn't handle the truth, so she decided to lie. And endanger people's lives in the process with completely fraudulent blood tests.
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It turned out that the idea was completely unworkable and impossible,
The idea is completely workable and possible, just not yet. Companies like Abbott and Siemens are invested heavily in improving point of care patient testing using rapid testing on miniature devices of small amounts of blood.. A lot of their goals for the future sound like what Theranos was claiming to be able to do today.
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And killed some people, but the investors are the ones who are truly harmed according to the courts.
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Welcome to the 21st century. You see, these pesky humans who keep getting into the way of profit, we still pay a bit of lip service to their well-being out of tradition and habit, but really, I mean - grow up. How many billions had those people in the bank? Were they investors? Shareholders? No? So why, then, would their death matter? Removing them from the return-on-investment equation has no impact on the outcome, so it is already charity that we so much as mention them.
That's just an old habit. It will g
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Wow! I thought I was tough on our 'business uber alles' culture, but I have to tip my hat to you. That comment was a full-court all-swish-and-no-rim score - sarcastic and biting, yet sombre and classy. Well done!
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The idea is completely workable and possible, just not yet. Companies like Abbott and Siemens are invested heavily in improving point of care patient testing using rapid testing on miniature devices of small amounts of blood.. A lot of their goals for the future sound like what Theranos was claiming to be able to do today.
Something being possible at some point in the future is doesn't make claiming to be able to do it now any less of a lie. Doing the testing they claimed to be able to do, with the size of device they claimed, in the time they claimed - with the tiny amount of blood was in fact impossible at the time.
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There's more to the idea than some vague handwaving. Holmes' idea was to use microfluidics and standard antibody techniques to do a very large number of tests on a very small volume of blood. She was told it was impossible because it is. You run into actual physical limits.
The idea of doing *some* tests on small volumes of blood isn't a bad one, particularly if you actually innovate beyond the buzzword "microfluidics."
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Do I remember right that she sicced a big law firm on people who tried to blow the whistle (allegedly)?
If not, I won't think as badly of her.
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Lol right. There's no innocent explanation, nor is she a Madoff or Ponzi.
She's a dumb undergrad who thought she knew everything. The problem is, she's also pretty and happened to know everything at a time when people with money were losing their minds. Before she knew it some idiots had given her a few billion dollars and she was up shit creek. Being a dumb undergrad she tried to fake it until she made it, instead of just coming clean and moving to Central America under an assumed name.
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Should be easy (Score:2)
As many on here like to say, she should claim she was entrapped [tumblr.com].
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As many on here like to say, she should claim she was entrapped [tumblr.com].
That cartoon has been posted on Slashdot before. The 2nd example, Grayson, is as much "entrapment" as the "real" entrapment example.
The only difference between the two cases is that Grayson is a filthy minority while Francine is a cute white chick.
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"The only difference"?
Francine refused payment to commit the crime, and was then convinced to do so anyways by a sob story from an agent of the police. Grayson was offered payment to commit a crime and said "yeah, sure". Seems like a meaningful difference.
IANAL.
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Francine refused payment to commit the crime, and was then convinced to do so anyways by a sob story from an agent of the police. Grayson was offered payment to commit a crime and said "yeah, sure".
Read the link again: Grayson doesn't say "yeah, sure".
The cartoon doesn't even say that Grayson immediately accepted. Maybe he was also "asked twice".
If accepting on the first offer was such an important distinction (legally, it isn't), then why doesn't the cartoon just SAY THAT? Instead, it isn't even clear that is what happened.
Seems like a meaningful difference.
Except it is not actually a difference. There is no clear distinction between the two situations.
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It says Grayson took the cash and committed the crime, with no elaboration. It specifically calls out that Francine initially refused. If we make up hypotheticals about what could have happened "off screen" then any one of the cases could be considered entrapment or not, but that's not the point.
The comic explains this. "Francine was in now way predisposed to sell secrets. It was only after [the agent of the police] overcame her resistance that she gave in and changed her mind". That's what makes it ent
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Grayson took the cash and committed the crime.
Francine took the cash and committed the crime.
Francine initially refused.
Grayson may have initially refused. It doesn't say.
If "initial refusal" is such an important distinction, then why doesn't it say that?
In both cases, the police manufactured the opportunity to commit a crime and enticed the target into accepting it.
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Grayson may have initially refused. It doesn't say. If "initial refusal" is such an important distinction, then why doesn't it say that?
The threshold is whether the individual was predisposed to committing the crime prior to police intervention. Initially refusing is an easy way to establish such a thing. The premise of this comic is "Francine = not predisposed to committing the crime" and therefore entrapped. "Grayson = predisposed to the crime" and therefore not entrapped. Forgive the author of this Tumblr comic for insufficient world building and for not fleshing out Grayson as a character.
In both cases, the police manufactured the opportunity to commit a crime and enticed the target into accepting it.
The premise of this comic (and also my prior und
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Initially refusing is an easy way to establish such a thing.
Perhaps. But the cartoon doesn't say that Grayson initially refused.
It only says that he "did it". Well, Francine also "did it".
Forgive the author of this Tumblr comic for insufficient world building
Nope. No forgiveness is justified.
The cartoonist devoted 5 pages to make a point that would fit in one sentence, yet FAILS TO MAKE THAT POINT.
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Given that the comic keeps circulating as an explanation of entrapment, I think you're in the minority in not getting the point it's making. *shrug*
They were in talks for a book deal .. (Score:2)
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Hey it works for some [youtu.be] people.
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Being a socipathic shyster didnt stop Trump being elected.
Running against a sociopathic shyster didn't stop Trump from getting elected.
There. Fixed it for you.
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Didn't stop publishers from making a contract with sociopathic shyster Lee Iaccoca.
Rumor (Score:5, Funny)
Simple case (Score:5, Insightful)
She said thing that were untrue to investors, and wether she knew what she was saying was untrue or not, she presented herself as a competent executive and told lies.
She can't plead ignorance, she held herself out as a scientist and either she was, or she knowingly lied about that.
I don't see how she escapes responsibility, because she is responsible.
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I don't see how she escapes responsibility, because she is responsible.
You don't see, but she does. She also doesn't think she is responsible. She's also convinced that she's extremely smart, that everything she said was true, and she's being unjustly prosecuted. AND she thinks that if only she could tell her story, everyone else would agree.
Need I say more? That's not rational thought, that's a mental illness right there for everyone to see.
From hero to zero (Score:2)
Her story (Score:2)
Well, I have a collection of traits known as the dark triad, and it allows me to screw my fellow human beings while remaining convinced in the depths of my soul that everyone is at fault but me.
This should be interesting. (Score:2)
Was she delusional or was she the deluder?
how does she have all that money? (Score:1)
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how does she have all that money?
Fraud.
To "tell her side"? (Score:3)
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It's called NPD - narcissistic personality disorder. From what I've read so far, it seems that unlike most of the con-man and liars in the business world, she actually believes all the nonsense herself. People suffering from NPD (they suffer, even though they make everyone around them suffer even more) cannot admit even to themselves that they're wrong, mistaken or not the best, smartest, most beautiful or whatever.
Get ready for a lot more of this. We have a large number of tech companies, social media, etc
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Excellent one-line summary.
Great! (Score:2)
Thottery is deadly to simps, as deserved. (Score:2)
Old men and incels especially are rendered stupid by thots (there is no reason to use respectful adjectives to describe either fraudster or chumps in this case, especially the chumps!
We've all encountered men who should know better but are utter simps. Through nature and perhaps mistaken nurture they make the mistake of failing to regard everyone as a potential threat as the wise do.
Everyone is a witting or unwitting potential threat because most humans are stupid (intelligence is not evenly distributed,
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What does any of this have to do with the case at hand? Are you trying to say that is was only men that fell for Holmes' fraud? There were a lot of females that also got caught up in the hype so I'm not sure what your tirade against men is about.
There is no side (Score:2)
There is no side because there never was any technology. The basic concept was never physically possible. It was always a scam it was always a fraud there was never any chance of their ever being a real product. She just pulled an Elon. hype it up as much as you can and try to get out before it all collapses.
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She just pulled an Elon. hype it up as much as you can and try to get out before it all collapses.
Hardly. For one, none of Elon's companies have collapsed. For two, Elon hasn't gotten out of anything except PayPal, which still exists today. For three, Elon's companies deliver. Later than he says, but they do deliver. Falcon 9s fly to orbit and land their first stages routinely. Another one will be launching cargo to the ISS tonight, as a matter of fact. Tesla sells and delivers working electric vehicles every single day. Even Boring company managed to dig a hole successfully. Nothing collapsed,
Like all frauds she'll play ... (Score:2)
... the victim card.
Sadly, she is more likely to get away with it than a man, because she's a woman.
I hope the judges don't fall for it.
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Fun fact- Her Father was an Executive with Enron (Score:1)
I think I know that story (Score:2)
"It was everyone else's fault and now they've picked on me because I'm a strong powerful woman. The End"
Two possible outcomes (Score:2)
It really shouldn't (Score:2)
criminal fraud trial
Those high-dollar attorneys had best not be letting *her* tell any story at all, her side or otherwise.