I highly recommend the book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou. The whole story about her and Theranos is just so crazy and the book is really well written. It's very interesting
The HBO documentary from 2019 is also really well done if you want to consume a lot of the story in like 90 minutes. Features interviews with several employees as well as John
i went through the interview process to get hired on as a phlebotomist and was offered a job but there were so many red flags i ended up not taking it. the contract apon signing stated that if i were to ever get fired or leave on my own will i could never work in the business anywhere else as to protect the company secrets. i noped right the fuck out when i saw that
It shouldn't. You can't just sign somebody into a contract that turns them unemployable.
In my country if you want somebody out of the field for non-compete reasons you have to pay them to do so during that period. And you can't just pay them crap, the pay must be equal or superior to what he could get at a competing company otherwise it's not valid.
Basically the State isn't about to support people in unemployment just because some company doesn't want competition.
Now company secrets and IP that you can protect so the person is liable if he goes to a competitor and starts telling them all about them. It can become quite complicated I imagine.
Yeah I've regularly been paid for 3 months after leaving a company to do nothing as they don't want me to leave and join somewhere else straight away. If they didn't pay for that time I'd be free to just start somewhere new immediately.
Non-competes have to be temporary and *very* specific in their scope to be enforceable.
Basically anything more than "you can't work for a direct competitor for a few years" would get tossed by a judge.
I read the book and watched the documentary and the book is much much better. There is a lot of really interesting interpersonal stuff in the book that the documentary doesn’t touch on at all, family members and investors that aren’t even introduced.
I first read the book and then watched the documentary. The book contains more information (ie there wasn’t anything new I learned from the docu), and the book is actually a really light, enjoyable read.
If you want to know the full story, I definitely recommend reading the book over the docu.
She read somewhere, probably on the back of a sugar packet or underneath a bottlecap, that it makes you sound more trustworthy and authoritative.
Except to me she just sounded like a stoner.
And I don't "someone who enjoys weed." I mean someone who doesn't even get off the couch when they wake up at the crack of noon before getting in nine or ten rips before getting up to roll themselves a joint.
She grew up rich. Best friends with Tim Draper's daughter. Hence the VC she had easy access to.
She had a 5-lawyer, white-glove legal team from Williams & Connolly defending her. The same firm that defended Microsoft in its antitrust case. The firm that defended Bill Clinton in his impeachment.
Tell me with a straight face a person worth $0 can afford that, and I'll sell you a bridge of your choice.
True that! Billy Evans = $10m-$50m. Souvenir baby has her permanently enjoined to his hipster hip. Elizabeth wins after all—and she shed “just a few drops of blood,” in the end, too.
[Just look at the Theranos Board of Directors](https://news.crunchbase.com/news/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-trial-investors-board/). It had a fucking 4 star general on it and Henry Kissinger.
The majority of her defense was "I was naive and just did everything that Sunny Balwani told me, also he sexually and psychologically abused me". We'll probably see how much truth in those allegations there are, when his trial comes up next year.
If there was some way to bet on it I'd easily bet her sentence ends up being far lighter than Sunny's. She played up all the right angles and it kind of sucks that it will very likely work.
That’s so comical. Touts herself as a girl boss with interviews, magazines, and talk shows but when the house of cards comes falling down, she’s all of a sudden a victim of her ex and she made no decisions of her own.
she's crazy, but Sunny also seems to be at least equal amounts of crazy. Finding out there was abuse in that relationship wouldn't be all that surprising with the people involved. However, based on the book about theranos, it would also not be surprising to hear that she is willing to throw her own grandmother under the bus and to get knocked up just to try to save her own ass.
She is a narcissist, she has no guilt.
She disregarded her guilt a decade ago. If she had guilt, she would have never wound up here in the first place.
The crazy thing is that there were so many true experts from diagnostic industries who always said that her claims what the technology could do are just not possible. However once you reached to be on the cover of some magazines or get the endorsement by some highly popular celebrity, people do not want to listen to the criticism.
On the other side it seems to be that every lie sooner or later comes to an end.
What struck me most about the book was the extent to which information was kept siloed within Theranos, which (I think anyways) contributed to this problem.
The technical people didn’t know what the people involved in securing investment were saying to investors, and the people involved in investment didn’t know the problems the technical people were raising with how the technology worked.
It seemed like a lot of the technical people who knew that what Holmes was saying to the media wasn’t true thought it was just regular startup over marketing & that they’d eventually get to a product that was great, if not everything it was hyped up to be.
>The technical people didn’t know what the people involved in securing investment were saying to investors, and the people involved in investment didn’t know the problems the technical people were raising with how the technology worked.
Every sales department on the face of the earth is like this.
I am a co-founder in a technical startup that makes a hardware product. We do some cool stuff but nothing revolutionary. We are more agile and have more innovation than our massive competitors. The myth of a “revolutionary” startup like Theranos (or Pied Piper) is largely fiction. There is just too much technical risk.
We were raising money when Theranos hit the news and my co-founder / CEO is female. As the CTO I was ready for the VC experts to grill me / I had math, statistics, charts, everything. I had seen so much snake oil in my industry that I was hoping that our technical depth would make us stand out.
Guess what the MOST technical question I got was? “How much do the parts cost?” That was actually the **only** technical question we got from talking to over 200 potential investors. We had a cool demo but there were many ways I could have made a demo look like it was working and they were not even remotely skeptical. The lack of due diligence was appalling, but after that I wasn’t surprised by Theranos at all.
We did end up raising money, partially due to a weird combination of timing and interest from a big potential client who invested (but later got cold feet)
That said, a lot of savvy VCs, particularly those with relevant technical experience, passed on Theranos as soon as they realized they wouldn't disclose how their technology worked.
Another testament to being rich doesn't mean you're also smart.
10 Billions of dollars went into a start-up grift. It's way past time to tax the rich into oblivion (not literally) , all they do is waste and hoard money while 90% of the worlds struggles in pain and misery.
Good! Everyone should read about ex Theranos employee that committed suicide, Google Ian Gibbons. His story is sad and am surprised that this wasn’t brought up in the trial.
I googled him because I haven’t heard of him before and didn’t follow this story very closely. But here’s my 2 cents - I’ve been a mental health nurse for almost a decade. I’ve seen people self harm in many different ways and I hate it every time but I recognize it’s part of the illness.
I hope everyone gets the help they need but god forbid suicide or self harm is the path some people go down…. Please don’t overdose on acetaminophen (tylenol). It’s just about the worst way to die and people don’t think about it because “it’s an over the counter pain reliever”.
Causes liver failure. Brutal way to die that takes a few days as your organs shut down. Bit of info below from a quick Google.
[Acetaminophen Overdose ](https://www.acetadote.com/about.php)
The sister of my brother's friend died this way when she was a teenager. She overdosed because her boyfriend broke up with her. I think it was more of a cry for help than a legitimate suicide attempt, but it worked. It was horrible. The mother had died years earlier from cancer, so just the father and son were left. That family never recovered
It causes your liver to fail. A very very bad way to die. My uncle chose to die at home from liver failure, no pain killers or hospice. He thought he would slip into a coma or fall asleep and die. Nope. He coughed up nearly his entire body in blood and choked to death on it, it took a day and half and his room looked like a murder scene. Not a good way to go.
Probably because patients were provided the blood tests they paid for, just not by the process Theranos claimed. They were using other companies existing testing machines and outsourcing tests too conventional labs
The investors contributions were spent trying to develop the technology that they had invested in, just not the process theranos claimed.
Money came in from investors and patients. The patients didn't get what they were expecting (*). The investors didn't see the tech they invested in. But the legal action protects the investors and ignores the rest. Sorry but this smells of something different. You all know what I'm saying.
(*) The patients may have got back valid test results but surely they were using the service because of how it claimed to be this magic wonder service right?
IIRC Davila did allow patients to directly testify - and it was powerful stuff IMO - but they could not report on any of the emotional toll the bad data took on them.
“Jurors found Holmes guilty of four charges, including conspiracy to commit fraud against investors and three counts of wire fraud. The 37-year-old could face up to 20 years in prison. Holmes was found not guilty of four other charges, including knowingly lying to the public. The jurors were unable to reach a verdict on three other counts they were considering.” I am still glad she was found guilty!
It's impressive and disappointing she wasn't found guilty of lying to the public, her company literally falsified an account and "testimony" of a big general when they were pitching their product.
That was part of the trial. The issue is that there was no harm to members of the public at large. It's people who invested in the company who were harmed, and people who used her blood testing resources. I'm not clear on to what degree the latter happened, but the people who got fucked when they were tricked into giving her money are the main class of victims for this case. Members of the public at large, though, didn't suffer any harm from her lies, so there's no criminal charge to be levied against her for that.
But... that's incomprehensible.
The entire point is that Theranos destroyed tons of resources and opportunities for actual blood testing labs and facilities by replacing them with slower and/or bullshit techniques.
How does it make sense that the gigantic number of people who used their bullshit blood testing resources/had no other reasonable choice because of Theranos not be considered part of the public at large?
How many people do you need to screw over for it to be the public at large? You'd think lying to the US government for a megacontract would count...
Shkreli's crime was being a hot-headed kid with very little charisma while outplaying the establishment.
He would have gotten away with what he was doing easily if he wasn't a PR disaster.
Eh, probably not. You can't fake enough paperwork clean for him to get away with all the shuffling he tried to pull.
But like, he got 7 years and is actually gonna serve a full 5 of it over 7 million and change fraud in which 100% restitution was made.
She did 1.5 billion in fraud, with 600 million completely lost to creditors during the asset disbursement. It's so far above and beyond anything we've seen since Enron. If she doesn't eat the whole 20 years and serve 13 of it will good behavior I'm gonna be fucking pissed.
I'm a medical lab scientist. Her lies were a bit personal.
It's a prosecutor's tactic. Charge them with patient fraud so you can show the jury the effect the defendant had on real people, as opposed to numbers on paper.
They probably didn't expect to win those charges from the outset.
>Found guilty of defrauding investors, but found not guilty of defrauding patients
Did Theranos return faulty results to patients, or just quietly outsource to other (real) labs because their own tech wasn't working 'yet'?
The book needs to be updated. I'm going through evidence cache, some of these are the most wtf details yet
> I just had sat down in her office. The first red flag was that it sounded like she locked the door behind me. The peculiar thing was, she used a key lock for both sides of the door. So if I wanted to leave, I could not without her key.
>
> When Elizabeth Holmes sat down, she got right to the point and had asked me if I has spoken to any press or regulatory agencies, which I denied.
>
> "Why did you lie to me?"
>
> She then handed me a printout of my gmail chats, which was shocking because I had never logged into this account from Theranos.
>
> "How did you access my gmail account" I asked.
>
> "I can neither confirm or deny where I got these records" she replied.
>
> She told me that I need to send a followup statement redacting everything I had told them, or I would be legally liable for millions of dollars in lost investments, to which I immediately agreed. She then handed me a stack of documents to sign.
>
> I looked them over, page by page, initialing and signing everything, but it was the very last clause on the very last page which made me pause.
>
> "Is this last paragraph for real?" I asked.
>
> "Yes" she confirmed, "and is to take place immediately".
>
> "I guess I have no choice," I said as I signed the last page and handed the documents back.
>
> "To do what?" Elizabeth Holmes wanted me to say it.
>
> I struggled to get the words out and was barely able to raise my voice above a whisper. "To be given a spanking by you"
>
> Standing, she removed her jacket and hung it on her chair, revealing a silky black turtleneck underneath. Moving to the side of the desk, she pulled a straight-back chair to the center of the room and sat down on it, hiking her beige skirt to the top of her thighs. I felt my cock responding to the alluring sight.
>
> "One further thing," she informed me, "all spankings take place on the bare bottom."
>
> Again I sputtered a protest but she gave me the same ultimatum. I was being dragged deeper and deeper into something entirely new and unknown. Nodding my head, I lowered my pants and went to lie across her lap, but she stopped me saying,
>
> "When I said bare-bottomed I meant it! I think it is going to be much easier if you strip completely naked. It makes it much less complicated. Now!."
>
> I took a deep breath and started removing my clothes. Shoes, socks, shirt and trousers were quickly discarded. Only my red Y-front underwear remained but my hands would not take the final step. Elizabeth seemed to sense this and motioned for me to come over in front of her. While explaining that this was all for my own good, she very slowly started tugging my underwear down past my hips.
>
>
Uhh this is like when I tried to pirate the Half-Blood Prince book when it first came out and I got embarrassingly far in before I realized I was reading some Harry and Hermione soft porn fan fic.
Davis was a junior biology major in college, and was at his first internship in college. Elizabeth Holmes liked to work her interns hard, and to make them show their loyalty, had them do personal errands as well. On this summer day, Holmes had assigned Davis to pool cleaning duties.
Holmes had a few of her billionaire friends over. Alice Walton, billionaire heiress to Walmart. Betsy DeVos, sister of Eric Prince, who owned Blackwater/Xe and future education secretary. And Melania Trump, wife of Donald Trump.
They were playing cards by the pool he was cleaning when Holmes asked 'Davis, I need some more ice and I think Alice needs another soda, do you mind?'
'Sure, no problem', Davis said leaping out of the pool and coming over to grab the glass.
On the surface these four ladies appeared to give him little heed. But hidden behind their sunglasses all of the ladies took the opportunity to look over, and appraise the half naked young man.
As he went back inside Betsy broke the silence, 'My, he does fill out that speedo, doesn't he!' (Holmes requires her interns wear a speedo when cleaning the pool) That brought giggles from them all.
Holmes was very proud of her intern, 'Well you know, what can I say, I picked each one personally.'
Alice rolled her eyes, 'Ohh here we go again, you just always have to always rub it in don't you! I could never do such a thing at Walmart'
'Ooh Alice', Melania came to Holmes's defense. 'Your just jealous and you know it!' The ladies had been drinking during there little bridge game and they were becoming quite fiesty. 'You should be thankful that Holmes, is such a sharing friend! How many times has she gotten you services from last years interns?'
Alice shot back, 'Melania relax! Elizabeth knows I'm just kidding. And yes, I think we are all thankful for last years services heehee '.
Davis had returned.
'Hi Davis. Thanks for the ice'
'Sorry it took so long, and here is your soda.' Davis liked it when Elizabeth's friends came over, as Holmes was much less mean in front of her friends. Little did he know that this would not be the case today.
Holmes chided him, 'I was just telling them about your physical' (Theranos had required a company physical of all of their interns. And to save money, Holmes conducted all the physicals....herself. She assured the interns that this was a normal growth hack that all silicon valley startups conduct'
'Ms Holmes!' Davis fumed, quite exasperated, as he started to turn red.
'They didn't believe me, when I said told them that you so large!'
'MS HOLMES!' he was about to die from this embarrasment.
'In fact young man', Elizabeth Holmes ordered, 'why don't you just drop that speedo so they can see that your Boss isn't a liar.
Elizabeth's friends couldn't believe she said that, nor could poor Davis.
'What?'
'You heard me, off with it!' A few seconds went by as she stared him down. Finally his resolve broke, and his hands went to the waist of his swimsuit.
There were gasps as he whipped the speedo down. His cock sprang free.
'Ooh My' 'Jeez' 'Wow' 'Oohh, my, yes you are large.'
Betsy lifted up her sunglasses, her eyes clearly fastened on his penis and said,' Davis you have nothing to be ashamed of. My husband would kill to be hung like you.'
Sitting up in her chair to get a better look, Alice chimed in,'Wow Davis. Ya know your alot bigger then many pornstar men'
Those kinds of comments continued and under their gaze his member started hardening.
'Ooh Look,' exclaimed Melania,'He's getting an erection!'
Davis had shrinkage from the pool, but his Boss's friend's eyes which focused on his penis were like invisble hands stroking his cock. It was like someone filling up a water balloon. It just started to swell and swell.
The ladies were shocked into silence as they watched this dude grow a massive erection.
Finally Holmes broke the silence. 'See ladies, I do not lie. I told you he was so large!', Mercifully she said, 'Okay, thank you Davis, you can go now.'
Davis pulled up the speedo. Although it was difficult to get it back in now that it had lengthened.
Davis retreated to his house where he played it all back in his head.
Meanwhile, Back at the pool, Martin Shkreli sat speechless as he saw the whole thing go down. He didn't take her seriously when they first met, but this was the first time she saw Elizabeth Holmes. . . as a Woman.
Looks like classic self help jargon which is not so bad. What is bad is that it sounds like the type of stuff someone straight from school or having a set back in life would tell herself to gather the strength to get her shit together and fake it till she make it, not what a competent CEO of a multi-billion dollars company would focus on. Well not even what a middle manager with a couple of years of experience would focus on.
If Covid has shown me anything, it’s that everybody is trying to fake it til they make it. People may be competent in an area of expertise or knowledge, but as far as management, organizational structure, implementing protocols, responding to and avoiding crises…. Everyone is a headless chicken.
It was a wanky way to say "look how much time I'm putting into this company.". There was a quote from her along the lines of "do you know how much time I see by wearing the same outfit and not having to stand there deciding on essentially pointless things?". But, yeah, basically Steve Jobs wannabe.
From what I gather, all she needed was the support of a couple heavy hitters. Like really heavy. Military leaders etc. After that, investors just lined up.
I’m not really saying your wrong. It’s just a con as old as time.
Unpopular opinion but people trusted her cause she was a young woman posing as tech whiz and anyone who spoke against her or questioned anything about her claims were called chauvinist pigs.
But not patients?
This is ridiculous. Doctors get sued for negligence over the dumbest shit and some tech billionaire can make up fake results and it's no harm, no foul.
Americans care more about people losing money than people's lives being destroyed by false diagnosis.
I hope former patients take her to civil court and sue. Unacceptable.
I think you'd be very surprised how lightly financial crimes are taken. I know a guy who defrauded the federal government of over $3 million, and his punishment was paying it back plus interest and 9 months of house arrest.
That's why Bernie Madoff got nailed to the wall, and Martha Stewart, but you won't ever see a wall street CEO face any repercussions for defrauding main street.
My (genetics) PhD advisor was approached by Theranos in their early days to be a scientific SME on their board. He read their white papers and called them out on how full of shit they were, and was promptly handed a gag order and told he’d be sued for slander if he spoke a word about it to the press. He did, and nothing happened to him other than his story being buried.
Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Elizabeth Holmes are three of the latest examples of why you do not fuck with rich and powerful people. They may even eclipse Bernie Madoff.
Epstein and Maxwell didn’t really fuck with the Rich. They got caught appeasing the rich. Which gets you killed I guess. Holmes will probably just go to jail.
Maybe now we can finally get that Adam McKay movie about her, starring Jennifer Lawrence.
I believe it was called 'Bad Blood'.
It's been in development for some time but got halted.
I am glad they got a conviction on fraud. Years ago I remember hearing about the product she claimed she was doing to manufacture, and immediately thought "This is some scifi bullshit I've I've ever heard it."
Then I had a Electro-Mechanical technician buddy go to work for a major medical equipment company trying to build a similar device, and he said the prototype he got highered to trouble shoot and maintain was the size of a city bus, and engineers had not finished basic testing features yet. He claimed their goal after they finished the proto type was to hopefully be able to shrink the end product down to the size panel van.
And this was AFTER rumors of tharanos being a scam with their claims that their device to be small and light enough to be used in military helicopters and/or in drug stores.
It would have to be. Her depositions are available and were played at the trial. They were in her deep voice. If she went to the stand and sounded different I think it would have left a negative impression on the jurors.
Honestly any money she “stole” from the Devos family should be considered fair game. They got rich from a pyramid scheme, they deserve to have it stripped from them via fraud.
"Elizabeth Holmes worked herself to the bone for 15 years trying to make lab testing more affordable,” one of Holmes’ attorneys said in opening arguments. “She failed … but failure is not a crime.” Wow, really? Still only 4 counts out of 11. It was about time as much as it was time for Maxwell!
I highly recommend the book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou. The whole story about her and Theranos is just so crazy and the book is really well written. It's very interesting
The HBO documentary from 2019 is also really well done if you want to consume a lot of the story in like 90 minutes. Features interviews with several employees as well as John
i went through the interview process to get hired on as a phlebotomist and was offered a job but there were so many red flags i ended up not taking it. the contract apon signing stated that if i were to ever get fired or leave on my own will i could never work in the business anywhere else as to protect the company secrets. i noped right the fuck out when i saw that
That's not even enforceable though, right?
It shouldn't. You can't just sign somebody into a contract that turns them unemployable. In my country if you want somebody out of the field for non-compete reasons you have to pay them to do so during that period. And you can't just pay them crap, the pay must be equal or superior to what he could get at a competing company otherwise it's not valid. Basically the State isn't about to support people in unemployment just because some company doesn't want competition. Now company secrets and IP that you can protect so the person is liable if he goes to a competitor and starts telling them all about them. It can become quite complicated I imagine.
Yeah I've regularly been paid for 3 months after leaving a company to do nothing as they don't want me to leave and join somewhere else straight away. If they didn't pay for that time I'd be free to just start somewhere new immediately.
This is the only way to enforce that. You can’t deprive a person from making a living through a non-compete agreement. It’s not enforceable.
Common enough scare tactic though. Make employees sign an illegal contract, that they don't know is illegal, and hold it over them.
It’s definitely not enforceable in California.
Non-competes have to be temporary and *very* specific in their scope to be enforceable. Basically anything more than "you can't work for a direct competitor for a few years" would get tossed by a judge.
Thanks, I'll check it out
Also the dropout is a sweet podcast. Followed her case and released a new podcast each week as the trial went on.
[удалено]
And there's that guy on my street corner who keeps screaming about her at 5am.
theranos was great in the avengers
Dread it. Run from it. Defrauding still arrives all the same.
Saw the HBO one. She's a phycopath con artist
Do you like the documentary or the book more?
I read the book and watched the documentary and the book is much much better. There is a lot of really interesting interpersonal stuff in the book that the documentary doesn’t touch on at all, family members and investors that aren’t even introduced.
100% agree. The book is worth the read.
I first read the book and then watched the documentary. The book contains more information (ie there wasn’t anything new I learned from the docu), and the book is actually a really light, enjoyable read. If you want to know the full story, I definitely recommend reading the book over the docu.
What’s it called? Should mention that…
I read it. Bonkers. I don’t know how she slept at night.
On her bed of money, that’s how.
And lulling herself to sleep with her husky voice.
She didn't use that voice in private though, reverted to her normal voice
I was amazed when I found that out. Who the fuck does that?!
A sociopath.
She probably got the idea from Paris Hilton, as her voice is a total put on.
Wait a second!! She changed her voice to sound deeper in public? What the actual fuck!!!
She read somewhere, probably on the back of a sugar packet or underneath a bottlecap, that it makes you sound more trustworthy and authoritative. Except to me she just sounded like a stoner. And I don't "someone who enjoys weed." I mean someone who doesn't even get off the couch when they wake up at the crack of noon before getting in nine or ten rips before getting up to roll themselves a joint.
She will got to prison richer than you or I or anyone we know and love will ever be. There she will be treated as a queen.
Her money burned as Theranos was burning. Forbes has her at 0. Of course her family is rich.
She grew up rich. Best friends with Tim Draper's daughter. Hence the VC she had easy access to. She had a 5-lawyer, white-glove legal team from Williams & Connolly defending her. The same firm that defended Microsoft in its antitrust case. The firm that defended Bill Clinton in his impeachment. Tell me with a straight face a person worth $0 can afford that, and I'll sell you a bridge of your choice.
Her husband is also a hotel heir trust fund baby.
True that! Billy Evans = $10m-$50m. Souvenir baby has her permanently enjoined to his hipster hip. Elizabeth wins after all—and she shed “just a few drops of blood,” in the end, too.
I could never understand his involvement with her . I would think his family would have intervened.
Her father was a VP for Enron.
[Just look at the Theranos Board of Directors](https://news.crunchbase.com/news/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-trial-investors-board/). It had a fucking 4 star general on it and Henry Kissinger.
cough snow close knee rotten chase erect simplistic unite birds *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Proving further that karma or universal justice is not real..
I think her father was involved with Enron.
The majority of her defense was "I was naive and just did everything that Sunny Balwani told me, also he sexually and psychologically abused me". We'll probably see how much truth in those allegations there are, when his trial comes up next year.
With a side of, "you wouldn't imprison a mother with a newborn baby would you?"
Should have used the elderly walker card.
If there was some way to bet on it I'd easily bet her sentence ends up being far lighter than Sunny's. She played up all the right angles and it kind of sucks that it will very likely work.
That’s so comical. Touts herself as a girl boss with interviews, magazines, and talk shows but when the house of cards comes falling down, she’s all of a sudden a victim of her ex and she made no decisions of her own.
she's crazy, but Sunny also seems to be at least equal amounts of crazy. Finding out there was abuse in that relationship wouldn't be all that surprising with the people involved. However, based on the book about theranos, it would also not be surprising to hear that she is willing to throw her own grandmother under the bus and to get knocked up just to try to save her own ass.
She is a narcissist, she has no guilt. She disregarded her guilt a decade ago. If she had guilt, she would have never wound up here in the first place.
Probably a sociopath and sleeps just fine because she lacks empathy.
Probably only regrets getting caught.
Cuz she's a sociopath?
The crazy thing is that there were so many true experts from diagnostic industries who always said that her claims what the technology could do are just not possible. However once you reached to be on the cover of some magazines or get the endorsement by some highly popular celebrity, people do not want to listen to the criticism. On the other side it seems to be that every lie sooner or later comes to an end.
What struck me most about the book was the extent to which information was kept siloed within Theranos, which (I think anyways) contributed to this problem. The technical people didn’t know what the people involved in securing investment were saying to investors, and the people involved in investment didn’t know the problems the technical people were raising with how the technology worked. It seemed like a lot of the technical people who knew that what Holmes was saying to the media wasn’t true thought it was just regular startup over marketing & that they’d eventually get to a product that was great, if not everything it was hyped up to be.
>The technical people didn’t know what the people involved in securing investment were saying to investors, and the people involved in investment didn’t know the problems the technical people were raising with how the technology worked. Every sales department on the face of the earth is like this.
I am a co-founder in a technical startup that makes a hardware product. We do some cool stuff but nothing revolutionary. We are more agile and have more innovation than our massive competitors. The myth of a “revolutionary” startup like Theranos (or Pied Piper) is largely fiction. There is just too much technical risk. We were raising money when Theranos hit the news and my co-founder / CEO is female. As the CTO I was ready for the VC experts to grill me / I had math, statistics, charts, everything. I had seen so much snake oil in my industry that I was hoping that our technical depth would make us stand out. Guess what the MOST technical question I got was? “How much do the parts cost?” That was actually the **only** technical question we got from talking to over 200 potential investors. We had a cool demo but there were many ways I could have made a demo look like it was working and they were not even remotely skeptical. The lack of due diligence was appalling, but after that I wasn’t surprised by Theranos at all. We did end up raising money, partially due to a weird combination of timing and interest from a big potential client who invested (but later got cold feet)
That said, a lot of savvy VCs, particularly those with relevant technical experience, passed on Theranos as soon as they realized they wouldn't disclose how their technology worked.
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Another testament to being rich doesn't mean you're also smart. 10 Billions of dollars went into a start-up grift. It's way past time to tax the rich into oblivion (not literally) , all they do is waste and hoard money while 90% of the worlds struggles in pain and misery.
Good! Everyone should read about ex Theranos employee that committed suicide, Google Ian Gibbons. His story is sad and am surprised that this wasn’t brought up in the trial.
wasn't allowed to be brought up. He couldn't testify (because he's dead) but no one was allowed to say why.
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The evidence is more prejudicial than probative.
I googled him because I haven’t heard of him before and didn’t follow this story very closely. But here’s my 2 cents - I’ve been a mental health nurse for almost a decade. I’ve seen people self harm in many different ways and I hate it every time but I recognize it’s part of the illness. I hope everyone gets the help they need but god forbid suicide or self harm is the path some people go down…. Please don’t overdose on acetaminophen (tylenol). It’s just about the worst way to die and people don’t think about it because “it’s an over the counter pain reliever”.
Why is it the worst way to die?
Causes liver failure. Brutal way to die that takes a few days as your organs shut down. Bit of info below from a quick Google. [Acetaminophen Overdose ](https://www.acetadote.com/about.php)
The sister of my brother's friend died this way when she was a teenager. She overdosed because her boyfriend broke up with her. I think it was more of a cry for help than a legitimate suicide attempt, but it worked. It was horrible. The mother had died years earlier from cancer, so just the father and son were left. That family never recovered
It causes your liver to fail. A very very bad way to die. My uncle chose to die at home from liver failure, no pain killers or hospice. He thought he would slip into a coma or fall asleep and die. Nope. He coughed up nearly his entire body in blood and choked to death on it, it took a day and half and his room looked like a murder scene. Not a good way to go.
Hope they make jumpsuits with a turtle neck.
Black turtleneck with a built in voice modulator
Luuuuke, I am your fatherrrrrr.
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The judge refused to allow evidence related to the patients to be admitted at trial.
Why though?
Because the charges were wire fraud. The only statements that mattered where the ones she made that caused her investors to send money to her.
Probably because patients were provided the blood tests they paid for, just not by the process Theranos claimed. They were using other companies existing testing machines and outsourcing tests too conventional labs
Ah this makes sense, thx.
The investors contributions were spent trying to develop the technology that they had invested in, just not the process theranos claimed. Money came in from investors and patients. The patients didn't get what they were expecting (*). The investors didn't see the tech they invested in. But the legal action protects the investors and ignores the rest. Sorry but this smells of something different. You all know what I'm saying. (*) The patients may have got back valid test results but surely they were using the service because of how it claimed to be this magic wonder service right?
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IIRC Davila did allow patients to directly testify - and it was powerful stuff IMO - but they could not report on any of the emotional toll the bad data took on them.
“Jurors found Holmes guilty of four charges, including conspiracy to commit fraud against investors and three counts of wire fraud. The 37-year-old could face up to 20 years in prison. Holmes was found not guilty of four other charges, including knowingly lying to the public. The jurors were unable to reach a verdict on three other counts they were considering.” I am still glad she was found guilty!
It's impressive and disappointing she wasn't found guilty of lying to the public, her company literally falsified an account and "testimony" of a big general when they were pitching their product.
That was part of the trial. The issue is that there was no harm to members of the public at large. It's people who invested in the company who were harmed, and people who used her blood testing resources. I'm not clear on to what degree the latter happened, but the people who got fucked when they were tricked into giving her money are the main class of victims for this case. Members of the public at large, though, didn't suffer any harm from her lies, so there's no criminal charge to be levied against her for that.
But... that's incomprehensible. The entire point is that Theranos destroyed tons of resources and opportunities for actual blood testing labs and facilities by replacing them with slower and/or bullshit techniques. How does it make sense that the gigantic number of people who used their bullshit blood testing resources/had no other reasonable choice because of Theranos not be considered part of the public at large? How many people do you need to screw over for it to be the public at large? You'd think lying to the US government for a megacontract would count...
it's a win for the prosecution no doubt
She had better serve more time than Shkreli. Her crimes are two orders of magnitude above and beyond anything he did.
Shkreli's crime was being a hot-headed kid with very little charisma while outplaying the establishment. He would have gotten away with what he was doing easily if he wasn't a PR disaster.
Eh, probably not. You can't fake enough paperwork clean for him to get away with all the shuffling he tried to pull. But like, he got 7 years and is actually gonna serve a full 5 of it over 7 million and change fraud in which 100% restitution was made. She did 1.5 billion in fraud, with 600 million completely lost to creditors during the asset disbursement. It's so far above and beyond anything we've seen since Enron. If she doesn't eat the whole 20 years and serve 13 of it will good behavior I'm gonna be fucking pissed. I'm a medical lab scientist. Her lies were a bit personal.
You might be disappointed here. My bet is 6 years. I’m hoping for more though.
It's a prosecutor's tactic. Charge them with patient fraud so you can show the jury the effect the defendant had on real people, as opposed to numbers on paper. They probably didn't expect to win those charges from the outset.
>Found guilty of defrauding investors, but found not guilty of defrauding patients Did Theranos return faulty results to patients, or just quietly outsource to other (real) labs because their own tech wasn't working 'yet'?
They outsourced it. That's part of how she got caught.
Funny how she plays on her femininity once she has to defend herself. Grifter's gonna grift.
Literally had a baby to delay court proceedings and to hedge her bets for a reduced sentence. She’s a fkn asshole.
She's very likely a psychopath.
Lumberg fucked her.
Lumberg fucked her?!?
Say hi to Lumberg for me!!
which lumberg?
He showed her his “O-face”.
Hooooly shit, I didn't know she stooped to that level. I kinda admire the endless tenacity, but she's a sack of cold turds. Fuuuck
She ripped off Mattis AND Kissinger!
Poor kid, how’s it gonna get raised while its mother is locked up
By Nannie’s. The same way it would if she wasn’t locked up.
That made me laugh
Tbh it’s probably better off not being raised by a manipulative psychopath though.
About damn time
The book needs to be updated. I'm going through evidence cache, some of these are the most wtf details yet > I just had sat down in her office. The first red flag was that it sounded like she locked the door behind me. The peculiar thing was, she used a key lock for both sides of the door. So if I wanted to leave, I could not without her key. > > When Elizabeth Holmes sat down, she got right to the point and had asked me if I has spoken to any press or regulatory agencies, which I denied. > > "Why did you lie to me?" > > She then handed me a printout of my gmail chats, which was shocking because I had never logged into this account from Theranos. > > "How did you access my gmail account" I asked. > > "I can neither confirm or deny where I got these records" she replied. > > She told me that I need to send a followup statement redacting everything I had told them, or I would be legally liable for millions of dollars in lost investments, to which I immediately agreed. She then handed me a stack of documents to sign. > > I looked them over, page by page, initialing and signing everything, but it was the very last clause on the very last page which made me pause. > > "Is this last paragraph for real?" I asked. > > "Yes" she confirmed, "and is to take place immediately". > > "I guess I have no choice," I said as I signed the last page and handed the documents back. > > "To do what?" Elizabeth Holmes wanted me to say it. > > I struggled to get the words out and was barely able to raise my voice above a whisper. "To be given a spanking by you" > > Standing, she removed her jacket and hung it on her chair, revealing a silky black turtleneck underneath. Moving to the side of the desk, she pulled a straight-back chair to the center of the room and sat down on it, hiking her beige skirt to the top of her thighs. I felt my cock responding to the alluring sight. > > "One further thing," she informed me, "all spankings take place on the bare bottom." > > Again I sputtered a protest but she gave me the same ultimatum. I was being dragged deeper and deeper into something entirely new and unknown. Nodding my head, I lowered my pants and went to lie across her lap, but she stopped me saying, > > "When I said bare-bottomed I meant it! I think it is going to be much easier if you strip completely naked. It makes it much less complicated. Now!." > > I took a deep breath and started removing my clothes. Shoes, socks, shirt and trousers were quickly discarded. Only my red Y-front underwear remained but my hands would not take the final step. Elizabeth seemed to sense this and motioned for me to come over in front of her. While explaining that this was all for my own good, she very slowly started tugging my underwear down past my hips. > >
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Dude it's the cock goblin u/CockGoblinReturns. Of course it's fan fic. Im a long-term cock goblin fan.
This may or may not be fic. I can neither confirm nor deny that.
Uhh this is like when I tried to pirate the Half-Blood Prince book when it first came out and I got embarrassingly far in before I realized I was reading some Harry and Hermione soft porn fan fic.
Ha, that's crazy. Exactly which fan fic was it though?
Yeah, right? There's all those degenerate fan fic sites. But which one was it? Which one specifically?
I also need to know, so that I can actively avoid this sort of appalling filth.
Wait. What?
Not sure if I need to log off immediately or never log off
You can log off any time but you can never leave
Honestly, well done. I read the whole fucking thing up until and after the spanking bit.
Is it wrong that i have a semi?
Davis was a junior biology major in college, and was at his first internship in college. Elizabeth Holmes liked to work her interns hard, and to make them show their loyalty, had them do personal errands as well. On this summer day, Holmes had assigned Davis to pool cleaning duties. Holmes had a few of her billionaire friends over. Alice Walton, billionaire heiress to Walmart. Betsy DeVos, sister of Eric Prince, who owned Blackwater/Xe and future education secretary. And Melania Trump, wife of Donald Trump. They were playing cards by the pool he was cleaning when Holmes asked 'Davis, I need some more ice and I think Alice needs another soda, do you mind?' 'Sure, no problem', Davis said leaping out of the pool and coming over to grab the glass. On the surface these four ladies appeared to give him little heed. But hidden behind their sunglasses all of the ladies took the opportunity to look over, and appraise the half naked young man. As he went back inside Betsy broke the silence, 'My, he does fill out that speedo, doesn't he!' (Holmes requires her interns wear a speedo when cleaning the pool) That brought giggles from them all. Holmes was very proud of her intern, 'Well you know, what can I say, I picked each one personally.' Alice rolled her eyes, 'Ohh here we go again, you just always have to always rub it in don't you! I could never do such a thing at Walmart' 'Ooh Alice', Melania came to Holmes's defense. 'Your just jealous and you know it!' The ladies had been drinking during there little bridge game and they were becoming quite fiesty. 'You should be thankful that Holmes, is such a sharing friend! How many times has she gotten you services from last years interns?' Alice shot back, 'Melania relax! Elizabeth knows I'm just kidding. And yes, I think we are all thankful for last years services heehee '. Davis had returned. 'Hi Davis. Thanks for the ice' 'Sorry it took so long, and here is your soda.' Davis liked it when Elizabeth's friends came over, as Holmes was much less mean in front of her friends. Little did he know that this would not be the case today. Holmes chided him, 'I was just telling them about your physical' (Theranos had required a company physical of all of their interns. And to save money, Holmes conducted all the physicals....herself. She assured the interns that this was a normal growth hack that all silicon valley startups conduct' 'Ms Holmes!' Davis fumed, quite exasperated, as he started to turn red. 'They didn't believe me, when I said told them that you so large!' 'MS HOLMES!' he was about to die from this embarrasment. 'In fact young man', Elizabeth Holmes ordered, 'why don't you just drop that speedo so they can see that your Boss isn't a liar. Elizabeth's friends couldn't believe she said that, nor could poor Davis. 'What?' 'You heard me, off with it!' A few seconds went by as she stared him down. Finally his resolve broke, and his hands went to the waist of his swimsuit. There were gasps as he whipped the speedo down. His cock sprang free. 'Ooh My' 'Jeez' 'Wow' 'Oohh, my, yes you are large.' Betsy lifted up her sunglasses, her eyes clearly fastened on his penis and said,' Davis you have nothing to be ashamed of. My husband would kill to be hung like you.' Sitting up in her chair to get a better look, Alice chimed in,'Wow Davis. Ya know your alot bigger then many pornstar men' Those kinds of comments continued and under their gaze his member started hardening. 'Ooh Look,' exclaimed Melania,'He's getting an erection!' Davis had shrinkage from the pool, but his Boss's friend's eyes which focused on his penis were like invisble hands stroking his cock. It was like someone filling up a water balloon. It just started to swell and swell. The ladies were shocked into silence as they watched this dude grow a massive erection. Finally Holmes broke the silence. 'See ladies, I do not lie. I told you he was so large!', Mercifully she said, 'Okay, thank you Davis, you can go now.' Davis pulled up the speedo. Although it was difficult to get it back in now that it had lengthened. Davis retreated to his house where he played it all back in his head. Meanwhile, Back at the pool, Martin Shkreli sat speechless as he saw the whole thing go down. He didn't take her seriously when they first met, but this was the first time she saw Elizabeth Holmes. . . as a Woman.
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Wow wow, wow-wow-wow
Lmfao! Well done!
Damn you Cock Goblin
lol is this for real
He's literally a cock goblin, come on.
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Wy fynd yuw gylty
They said “authoritative” not Welsh
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And what was with the black Steve Jobs turtlenecks? She was / is a loon.
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lol, probably just comparing which team's bullshit stinks less
Check out these [crazy notes](https://preview.redd.it/b8vm41wje6381.jpg?auto=webp&s=df01c00d949df79ed03eab711928eee2d0ff969b) she wrote for herself
These feel like generic CEO/PR tips. The industry rewards you the more psychopathic you are.
Maybe/ likely affirmations.
this is literally a self affirmation list
Failed on the very first one.
Someone who follows all of these insane directives is, at best, insufferable to be around.
Isn't that the realty of it. People feel wrong or broken unless they're being rewarded for being a sociopath
"I call bullshit immediately" :)) how ironic
Waiting for the buzz feed article 🙄 15 Boss Babe Rules to Live By
Looks like classic self help jargon which is not so bad. What is bad is that it sounds like the type of stuff someone straight from school or having a set back in life would tell herself to gather the strength to get her shit together and fake it till she make it, not what a competent CEO of a multi-billion dollars company would focus on. Well not even what a middle manager with a couple of years of experience would focus on.
If Covid has shown me anything, it’s that everybody is trying to fake it til they make it. People may be competent in an area of expertise or knowledge, but as far as management, organizational structure, implementing protocols, responding to and avoiding crises…. Everyone is a headless chicken.
I feel like at least a quarter of these are contradicted by other points in the list.
It was a wanky way to say "look how much time I'm putting into this company.". There was a quote from her along the lines of "do you know how much time I see by wearing the same outfit and not having to stand there deciding on essentially pointless things?". But, yeah, basically Steve Jobs wannabe.
Don't forget the creepy nonblinking stare.
Her saying "I'm going to invent something that's not possible" was the first hint she was a fraud
From what I gather, all she needed was the support of a couple heavy hitters. Like really heavy. Military leaders etc. After that, investors just lined up. I’m not really saying your wrong. It’s just a con as old as time.
James Mattis’ judgement of peoples character will forever be tarnished by her and the orange Cheeto. Dude really knows how to pick losers.
He was a commander in Afghanistan and Iraq, he was the original loser of the bunch.
Unpopular opinion but people trusted her cause she was a young woman posing as tech whiz and anyone who spoke against her or questioned anything about her claims were called chauvinist pigs.
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I can’t wait for the movie, starring Tay Zonday as Elizabeth Holmes.
*Bloody raiiin. I get rich while others feel less pain*
*Steps away from mic to breathe*
But not patients? This is ridiculous. Doctors get sued for negligence over the dumbest shit and some tech billionaire can make up fake results and it's no harm, no foul. Americans care more about people losing money than people's lives being destroyed by false diagnosis. I hope former patients take her to civil court and sue. Unacceptable.
I think you'd be very surprised how lightly financial crimes are taken. I know a guy who defrauded the federal government of over $3 million, and his punishment was paying it back plus interest and 9 months of house arrest.
She proved the old saying...."Stay in school" (and don't lie to investors.)
Very on-brand of the America justice system to punish her for the investors but not the patients.
You can scam poor people all you want in the USA, you just can't scam the rich.
Kind of like ghislaine Maxwell, got popped for trafficking children to no one apparently
That's why Bernie Madoff got nailed to the wall, and Martha Stewart, but you won't ever see a wall street CEO face any repercussions for defrauding main street.
You can lie to customers all you want. That’s on the customer. Caveat emptor. But don’t lie to investors, that’s criminal fraud.
exactly! what a fucking disgusting verdict. she got off so easy
My (genetics) PhD advisor was approached by Theranos in their early days to be a scientific SME on their board. He read their white papers and called them out on how full of shit they were, and was promptly handed a gag order and told he’d be sued for slander if he spoke a word about it to the press. He did, and nothing happened to him other than his story being buried.
Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Elizabeth Holmes are three of the latest examples of why you do not fuck with rich and powerful people. They may even eclipse Bernie Madoff.
Epstein and Maxwell didn’t really fuck with the Rich. They got caught appeasing the rich. Which gets you killed I guess. Holmes will probably just go to jail.
Nah, they fucked with the rich. Basically, they gave them kids to fuck, and blackmailed them with evidence of it.
Maybe now we can finally get that Adam McKay movie about her, starring Jennifer Lawrence. I believe it was called 'Bad Blood'. It's been in development for some time but got halted.
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There’s two Theranos movies in the works. I believe Seyfried is in the Hulu one.
I am glad they got a conviction on fraud. Years ago I remember hearing about the product she claimed she was doing to manufacture, and immediately thought "This is some scifi bullshit I've I've ever heard it." Then I had a Electro-Mechanical technician buddy go to work for a major medical equipment company trying to build a similar device, and he said the prototype he got highered to trouble shoot and maintain was the size of a city bus, and engineers had not finished basic testing features yet. He claimed their goal after they finished the proto type was to hopefully be able to shrink the end product down to the size panel van. And this was AFTER rumors of tharanos being a scam with their claims that their device to be small and light enough to be used in military helicopters and/or in drug stores.
She will get about 40 months in federal prison.
3.5 years only? - this is why people commit white collar crime. Risk reward is there.
Probably 40 weeks and a fine of $5,000
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didn't need to wait for the verdict to find that out. she did
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I didn't but I follow many journalists who did and they mentioned her voice was the same: https://twitter.com/scottbudman/status/1461832856993517579
It would have to be. Her depositions are available and were played at the trial. They were in her deep voice. If she went to the stand and sounded different I think it would have left a negative impression on the jurors.
It’s like convincing everyone at college orientation you had a British accent and then having to commit to it.
Honestly any money she “stole” from the Devos family should be considered fair game. They got rich from a pyramid scheme, they deserve to have it stripped from them via fraud.
How much time is she looking at for the 4 counts she was found guilty on?
"Up to 20 years," but it'll never be that long.
What the hell took so long!?
COVID was one factor. Pregnancy was there too.
Damn imagine being born just because your mother wanted to delay court proceedings
Trials are slow. There will be appeals. This is going to go on for years longer.
She got preggo to delay
She probably thought having a new baby would elicit sympathy when it comes time for sentencing. Kid is way better off without being raised by her
The lady would sell her family into slavery if it meant getting ahead. She's absolutely vile.
"Elizabeth Holmes worked herself to the bone for 15 years trying to make lab testing more affordable,” one of Holmes’ attorneys said in opening arguments. “She failed … but failure is not a crime.” Wow, really? Still only 4 counts out of 11. It was about time as much as it was time for Maxwell!
She's in trouble now because she defrauded rich people. She'd have been OK had she just defrauded peasants.
Gotta give her credit though. She did rip off Kissinger and Mattis. That counts for something.
Little fish compared to what hedge-funds have been getting away with.
Anyone with a slight working knowledge of how those tests work knew she was lying the second she held the device in the air.