Why the World’s Youngest Self-Made Female Billionaire May Be in Big Trouble

[UglyCasanova]

I’m late to the party on this. I know she was seen as being a visionary and committed some kind of fraud but that’s the extent of my knowledge. Was this a gene testing company? And did they just hand out bogus results? What happened?

 

[Greenman]

I’m late to the party on this. I know she was seen as being a visionary and committed some kind of fraud but that’s the extent of my knowledge. Was this a gene testing company? And did they just hand out bogus results? What happened?

Blood testing equipment that was going to revolutionize the industry. At this time, it appears that they never produced a working machine, and that the entire thing was pretty much a scam. She did get rich, and it looks like she gets to keep the money she conned out of investors.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Blood testing equipment that was going to revolutionize the industry. At this time, it appears that they never produced a working machine, and that the entire thing was pretty much a scam. She did get rich, and it looks like she gets to keep the money she conned out of investors.

And they likely never would have, as they were basically promising a holy grail that wasn't possible (which most legit scientists in that field knew). I think early on they just wanted to make a better blood testing machine, but then someone started making up what would be possible (or the "from a single drop of blood" was kinda a goal to keep working towards, but it became their marketing mantra that they sold people on, not divulging that their machine very probably wouldn't be doing that anytime soon; meanwhile they galvanized a lot of this spirit - not unlike those that go to work for Tesla, SpaceX, Oculus, Waymo, etc - so there were people legitimately trying to make such a device not realizing that the management was basically going into full on cult mentality; there's videos of some of the people there reacting to the one guy that basically had enough clout and information that it really led to fallout finally, and they are like fucking insane cult members joking about killing him and other shit).

Not sure where you're getting that from. Most of her "worth" was in the stock, which is now worthless. And other people will be paid before she can get money ($750 million has to be paid out and it was listed at being valued at $800million). Its also reported that she owes $25 million to the company. She had a $500,000 fine (which yes, isn't anywhere close to what it should be for her actions). Plus the whole potential prison sentence. And since she can't be CEO or run another company for a decade, plus the fact that she's burned a lot of people (so have fun trying to get anyone to invest in anything).

If you look at her board of directors its not terribly shocking that the company turned out like it did.

So I guess we should expect Turmp to name her as new Attorney General sometime soon.

 

[SKORPI0]

She did get rich, and it looks like she gets to keep the money she conned out of investors.

Not sure how that's even possible when she scammed them out of $$$ millions. Any article that says she can?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/04/health/theranos-investors-murdoch-devos-walmart.html
(May 2018) NYT article).

 

[dud]

The saga continues. Holmes trial has been set for over a year from now:


https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-ordered-to-stand-trial-in-2020-idUSKCN1TU01N



Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, top deputy ordered to stand trial in 2020


Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and her former second-in-command at the Silicon Valley blood-testing startup were ordered on Friday to stand trial next year on fraud charges stemming from their claims about the company’s technology, court documents show.

During a hearing in federal court in San Jose, California, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila set jury selection to begin in the trial of Holmes, 35, and former Theranos President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, on July 28, 2020, according to minutes of the proceedings.

Davila ordered the trial to begin in August 2020. It was expected to last three months.

Holmes and Balwani, 54, were indicted in June 2018 on 11 counts of conspiracy and wire fraud. They have pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors say Holmes and Balwani engaged in a pair of schemes to defraud investors, doctors and patients with claims that Theranos had developed a revolutionary new blood testing system.

Holmes and Balwani are accused of using advertising and solicitations to encourage doctors and patients to use the company’s testing laboratory services even though they knew it could not produce accurate and reliable results consistently.

Holmes, a Stanford University dropout who started Theranos at age 19, was celebrated as a rising star of Silicon Valley. In 2015, Forbes magazine anointed her America’s youngest self-made female billionaire.

Balwani joined Theranos in 2009 and ran day-to-day operations until 2016.

Questions were first raised about the accuracy and reliability of her signature blood-testing device in a series of articles in the Wall Street Journal in 2015. This touched off a string of state and federal investigations into the company.

In March of 2018 Holmes settled civil fraud charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under which she was barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for 10 years.

 

[SKORPI0]

Trial already started Sept.8 Wed last week.

Theranos' blockbuster trial starts Wednesday. Whose story will the jury believe?

At the heart of the matter are thousands of patients: a mother misled about her pregnancy, a patient told to stop taking heart medication, and people who received false HIV-positive results.

www.nbcnews.com

Elizabeth Holmes: Has the Theranos scandal changed Silicon Valley?

Could a Theranos scandal happen again or has Silicon Valley learnt its lesson?

www.bbc.com

 

[dawp]

DeVos family was misled by Theranos founder before investing $100 million, rep says

The DeVos family office initially said it would invest $50 million but doubled it after a meeting with Elizabeth Holmes.

www.nbcnews.com

couldn't have happened to a nice person

 

[herm0016]

DeVos family was misled by Theranos founder before investing $100 million, rep says

The DeVos family office initially said it would invest $50 million but doubled it after a meeting with Elizabeth Holmes.

www.nbcnews.com

couldn't have happened to a nice person

on that list, barely a footnote compared to Walgreens, Larry Ellison, a former director of the CDC, former CEO of Wells Fargo... etc.

 

[SKORPI0]

Theranos FOMO kept the DeVos family from doing its investment homework

“We were relying on what we were told.”

www.theverge.com

 

[igor_kavinski]

Anybody think that Elizabeth Holmes can get away with a lax sentence by batting her eyes at the judge? It worked great with old-aged investors

 

[KMFJD]

lol no, she pissed off / commited fraud against the only protected class in Amerikkka, the rich

 

[igor_kavinski]

Does anyone suspect that she got married and had a baby, just to get some sympathy during the trial? Maybe her lawyers will plead her case that her baby needs her so they shouldn't send her to prison and instead should just put her under house arrest with an ankle bracelet.

EDIT: Found this: https://abcnews.go.com/Business/the...-welcomes-1st-child-partner/story?id=79298331

"Right or wrong, that is going to have a bearing on the jury's perception of her," Caroline Polisi, a federal white-collar criminal defense attorney, told ABC News' Rebecca Jarvis in "The Dropout: Elizabeth Holmes on Trial" podcast. "Those types of things actually play a really large role in trials, even though they're not supposed to."

"Not only is that going to help her in her trial, but it will really help her in the event that she is convicted," Polisi added. "The fact that she is a young, new mother is going to play into any potential sentence."
However, defense attorney Jose Baez, famous for defending Casey Anthony, thinks it could backfire.
"I really think that could backfire because once a juror feels that one side is trying to manipulate them over another, they're not going to like it," he said.

 

[pete6032]

Does anyone suspect that she got married and had a baby, just to get some sympathy during the trial?

Yes absolutely. Everything she does is carefully scripted to manipulate others. Billy Evans has been completely brainwashed. I don't know WTF he was thinking marrying her.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Yes absolutely. Everything she does is carefully scripted to manipulate others. Billy Evans has been completely brainwashed. I don't know WTF he was thinking marrying her.

Maybe that's her secret superpower. She's an alien with the ability to brainwash anyone who peers into her eyes.

 

[Torn Mind]

Maybe that's her secret superpower. She's an alien with the ability to brainwash anyone who peers into her eyes.

The simpler explanation is that she got “experience and assets” in the business of kinky and Billy loves it. And maybe she has a secret stash to pay him to propagate the species. She’s only 37, not 57.

 

[Torn Mind]

Yes absolutely. Everything she does is carefully scripted to manipulate others. Billy Evans has been completely brainwashed. I don't know WTF he was thinking marrying her.

Testosterone and pleasure often leads to infatuation and ultimately marriage.

 

[MrSquished]

lol no, she pissed off / commited fraud against the only protected class in Amerikkka, the rich

I mean this X 10000000

 

[Greenman]

Maybe that's her secret superpower. She's an alien with the ability to brainwash anyone who peers into her eyes.

It's certainly something she's tried to perfect. Everything that woman says or does is designed to reach a goal.

 

[igor_kavinski]

It's certainly something she's tried to perfect. Everything that woman says or does is designed to reach a goal.

Elizabeth Holmes private text messages leak during Theranos fraud trial (cnbc.com)

“My new life as of this night and forever more: - total confidence in myself best business person of the year – focus – details excellence – don’t give what anyone thinks – engage employees in meetings by stories and making it about them (ie prepare well),” Holmes texted Balwani in November 2014 while discussing the full moon that evening.

She took great pride in her "accomplishments". Also, full moon?? Was she into manifestation voodoo? If she somehow gets her nuts untangled from this trial, I will have no choice but to regard her as a manifestation guru of the highest caliber!

 

[Torn Mind]

The best scam artists are those who don't show a crack in their veneer. She is just the one of many convincing humans, both male and female, that have walked this planet. Just that she suckered big fishes. She is in essence, no different from any other worker in a profession that values sales. Car salesmen, real estate agents, life insurance. She just wooed venture capitalists.

Probably the best part of armory was indeed both dressing down and changing her voice in a manner to deflect the "dumb, hot blonde" stereotype that gets triggered when they dress in the more normal and common fashions. Smart and "in tune" there.

(This is not praise, just an evaluation.)

 

[igor_kavinski]

In school. she was always the last girl on the running track in races. That might have psychologically damaged her brain patterns to think about winning at any cost, even if it meant deception at a grand scale. She likely even now thinks of her current troubles with the law as just a snag in her road to great fame and fortune. I read somewhere that she already has her next world-changing plan ready to execute, as long as annoying law people stop bothering her and let her get on with doing good for the world (/sarcasm).

 

[SKORPI0]

 

[igor_kavinski]

What's up with her face? Sometimes it looks good. Other times, it seems as if she has a ton of water retention under her skin, making her face look fat and pudgy. Especially that face up there ^^^ reminds me of yoda

 

[Captante]

^^^ reminds me of yoda

Still trying to decide who you remind me of.

 

[sdifox]

Still trying to decide who you remind me of.

Yogurt