Theranos - fundraising yet again - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Dave3
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2018, 03:12:19 pm
content: Shocked to find that Elizabeth Holmes, the infamous founder of Theranos, is fundraising once again. This week. The Theranos fundraising letter linked below is highly entertaining.Theranos "developed" uber-cheap blood testing equipment using just a few drops of blood and was "valued" at $9 billion according to press reports. Investors lost nearly $1 billion cash and some blood testing patients are claiming "fake" Theranos blood tests caused medical issues.In 2018, US Federal agents formally declared Theranos a "fraud" and have began launching severe penalities on the company's founder, Elizabeth Holmes. The Wall Street Journal recently reported all but ~24 employees were dismissed.Federal and State criminal charges plus civil cases are likely to follow. That said, her high-level political contacts from both parties will try to avoid further embarassment; that will certainly play a role in quashing justice.https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanmac/theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-desperate-letter-shareholders?utm_term=.hfvLOOYb9#.urXPXXVryhttps://nypost.com/2018/04/10/theranos-reportedly-fires-all-but-two-dozen-employees/

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 13, 2018, 04:34:03 pm
content: Quite interesting; after reading that"private equity firm Fortress Investment Group, (...) agreed to loan Theranos $100 million"I can only guess the carrot is really huge. Perhaps because"Theranos has 1,175 granted or pending patents around the world"There's really a lot of folks out there that know how to milk the money cow...

author: JimRemington
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2018, 03:39:52 am
content: Rumors of a new Elizabeth Holmes (AKA "the next Steve Jobs") startup.https://gizmodo.com/disgraced-theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-is-allegedly-lo-1826710013Be the first on your block to invest!

author: Dave3
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 16, 2018, 08:09:31 am
content: Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and boyfriend/COO Sunny Balwani were charged with Federal Wire Fraud, US Federal charges which have teeth and potentially long prison terms for regular citizens.Due to Holmes' embarassing personal relationships and dealings with the highest level politicians in both the Republican and Democratic parties, she may avoid prison altogether. . .http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-theranos-elizabeth-holmes-20180615-story.html

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 11, 2021, 07:09:26 pm
content: For some updates and those that haven't followed the whole story:

author: Refrigerator
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 08:30:25 pm
content: I find her faked deep voice overwhelmingly cringe.And what's with that death stare, yikes.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 10:34:28 pm
content: Yeah, she's pretty weird.But really, I think it would be a huge mistake to put all the blame on her. She was very young and inexperienced when she started all this. How could so many people, from employees, board staff, and investors get into this? That's mind boggling. Same shit with many startups these past years. Sure when the startup is not dealing with medical tech, that's less of a health risk. But still.I think many people in this affair are to blame. Not just her.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 12, 2021, 11:13:59 pm
content: She's got sanpaku eyes, run!I've known psychopaths and it's as if they are missing a microchip in their brain, the one for weighing emotions in their decisions and judgements. Without the emotions, they easily make ruthless moves, actions and criminal decisions and yet enjoy a full night's sleep.They are the ultimate CEO.The people around her just went along with it, aside from a few whistle blowers. I think the blame is entirely hers as the leader.Strange that Boeing CEO Muilenburg had zero consequences for his killer leadership and the 737 Max., same with Volkwagen dieselgate Martin Winterkorn, just throw a few engineers under the bus and a project manager for good measure. And the CEO walk away.She's had a baby now, bad timing for her court date sympathy and is apparently working on the "trauma is to blame" angle for her actions, it's no excuse for the scam she pulled.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 13, 2021, 01:19:30 am
content: Quote from: floobydust on August 12, 2021, 11:13:59 pmSmart move, and she knows it. Having a new baby will definitely play into the jury and any sentencing decision.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 13, 2021, 07:50:58 am
content: Quote from: floobydust on August 12, 2021, 11:13:59 pmYeah, I find it hard to believe that Google/Facebook/others dont have an AI that would flag people like her as having traits of the dark triad. And then just bury whatever they would do deep in the search results, or literally flag it. We live in a world, where certain valid political opinions are flagged with an algorithm (and I dont need to agree with them), but someone lying their way to millions of dollars is OK. I've seem people like this, it's like there is an alternative reality for them. If "there are four lights" they will say five if it benefits them, no hesitation remorse or anything.

author: Refrigerator
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 13, 2021, 09:05:11 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on August 13, 2021, 01:19:30 amI feel bad for the kid.

author: daqq
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 13, 2021, 09:45:38 am
content: QuoteShe viciously persecuted naysayers and sceptics. She very well knew that the whole thing was a scam.See @ ~22:40:Maybe not all the blame, but something like 95%-99%. As for being young and inexperienced - what has that have to do withanything? I was once young and inexperienced and I did not create BS ideas and lie about them. We are not talking about someone stealing a loaf of bread where the alternative was to have your loved one starve to death, we are talking about someone who abused everything possible to get as much cash as possible at the expense of everyone possible. At literallyevery point she had the option to stop playing the gameand still have been well off. Instead...The way she did the whole thing wasn't walking some fine line, it was waaaay in the scam and theft territory.QuoteFFSPoor kid. It's clear that the child is supposed to be a fleshy Get Out of Jail Free card. Once its served its purpose either very few fcks will be given or it'll be raised by a total psychopath.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 13, 2021, 05:29:47 pm
content: Quote from: daqq on August 13, 2021, 09:45:38 amIt's interesting how so many people seem not to want to make any people that got fooled by this get any responsibility. From your reply, I think you didn't get my point.Seriously. You just don't trust someone that inexperienced in the domain claiming to achieve something that is clearly not realistic right from the start. Especially in the medical device field. I know how american people like this "self-made" entrepreneurs and how those university dropouts creating very successful businesses is part of the dream, but you gotta keep some common sense. You just don't trust someone with zero experience and actually knowing almost nothing useful for the project at hand, claiming to achieve what nobody else has.Anyone who trusted her is just that, a fool. And people who have actively participated in this, in particular engineers and biologists, are to blame as well. It's absolutely impossible that they didn't know what they were doing. Anyone with half a scientific/engineering background would have been able to tell this was just never going to work. Anyone actively participating in this or funding this (without doing proper verification about the ideas, their implementation as the project goes along and the results once it's starting to be used on patients) has been an accomplice, whether they like it or not.I know she has weird eyes, but it's almost like people think she has hypnotized the whole team or something. Scamming customers/end-users is not the same thing at all. The latter are not supposed to know anything about the scientific or technical aspects of what they are sold. Engineers and funders... are. She persecuted people? Yeah. If there were proofs of that, sueing her for this may have shortened the whole affair.As I said, it's the same shit with many, if not most "startups". Here people are shocked because Theranos "played" with people's health, but otherwise the mechanism is always the same. Of course there are scammers out there, "serial entrepreneurs", coming up with one BS idea per month. What's concerning IMHO is that so many people can fall for that. And this very section of the forum keeps showing us that. Those scammers could not do anything without people actively participating in their BS, and those people are supposed to be responsible and educated adults. Just my 2 cents.Of course not saying she shouldn't be sentenced. She should. But I think at least a few other key people should as well.

author: login
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2021, 12:01:38 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on August 13, 2021, 01:19:30 amrubbish. you assume the jury will be gullible and emotionally led. That stratergy failed for Harvey Weinstein and his use of a walker every time he walked to court and Rolf Harris who suddenly had a slow walk to the courthouse in their attempts to gain sympathy for being elderly and fragile. It didn't help Lindy Chamberlain at the time either and she went to jail pregnant.

author: Haenk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2021, 01:44:44 pm
content: Reasonable thinking would have stopped this before it became too large to be stopped (that would have been pre-IPO).In general, this is like most other constructed IPOs - take a bag of hot air, declare it to be worth a billion or ten, scam the small investors and run with the IPO money.I would rather assume she thought she could make it, but the pressure from investors became too strong to admit a failure and continued. Maybe she even believed she could eventually find a way to have the testing working (for real).A couple of years of prison labor, just in memoriam of the victims which fell for this, are well deserved though.

author: login
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2021, 02:11:28 am
content: if previous big scams are anything to go by a few years prison will be more like 20-30yrs. Not all investers were small unless you consider $100mm+ a small investment.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 31, 2021, 08:14:46 pm
content: I am about 3/4 of the way through a very thick book: Robert M Bryce "Cook & Peary: The Polar Controversy, Resolved" (1133 pages, Stackpole, 1997) about the early 20th century polar expeditions. Don't drop it on your foot.Spoiler alert: probably, the first legitimate ground-based journey out and back was on snowmobiles in 1968, followed by a dog-sled tripoutin 1986 and another expedition by dog sled outand backin 1995.Frederick Cook afterwards was involved in shady dealings in the Texas oil patch in the 1920's that sound much like some Silicon Valley shenanigans at the turn of the millennium. He served about seven years in the Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas after conviction of mail fraud, etc.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 11, 2021, 01:49:19 am
content: "Young and inexperienced" - Holmes was over 30 years old when Jinny was let out of the bottle. Hardly young and hardly inexperienced.