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Re:Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charge... by asperous on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @12:59PM (#16586227)
I think there is a significant difference between lying about what you can do (fraud) and simply saying you hope to accomplish something.
Re:Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charge... by ChuckMcM on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @01:26PM (#16586513)
I don't disagree, but recognize that an investor can feel defrauded even when one can show precisely what was said and what was not actually said. Most CEOs I've heard pitch are creating a narrative and they leave out facts that would disagree with that narrative. And sometimes they state the 'facts' in a way that imply more than they actually say.

For example, you can say "We are building a tester that can run tests using only a drop of blood." and "We have test results from blood showing markers" and never mention that the "test results" came from an industry tester and not the "tester you are building". The implication is that your tester did that but you didn't actually say that. What I read from the press release was that this sort of messaging was going to be actionable. If you look at various full disclosure rules the SEC has for public companies, this felt like a shot across the bow to startups that they would do well to think about that instead of glossing over bad news.

Re:Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charge... by rabidonrails on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @01:04PM (#16586279)
Agreed. Here's the support to you:

The complaints further charge that Theranos, Holmes, and Balwani claimed that Theranos’ products were deployed by the U.S. Department of Defense on the battlefield in Afghanistan and on medevac helicopters...[i]n truth, Theranos’ technology was never deployed by the U.S. Department of Defense...

Re:Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charge... by leroy_masochist on Wednesday March 14, 2018 @01:18PM (#16586441)
Right, but that doesn't mean that fraud can't happen with very early stage companies....there are plenty of b2b SaaS startups out there who are raising on non-GAAP metrics like "bookings" and who are grossly inflating both the certainty and pro forma value of these projected numbers.