Re:U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth ...
by MarkMMullin on Saturday June 16, 2018 @12:21PM
(#17328011)
I agree with all but one of your points, the projection of her mindset. I've known many good technologists driving for the next big thing, hell I've done it more than once. Usually we're a bundle of quivering insecurities with an unhealthy focus on all the things that are failing in the approach and a level of fear approaching utter terror that the entire thing is going to end ignominiously. My take is that she may have had a vision, but no real understanding of the process to get there, hence 'she' never would have made the tech work and would have known that she could not anchor any of her claims to reality. That's pretty much deliberate fraud. The other alternative I see is she was pretty much brainwashed by her partner, which might be some defense.
Re:U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth ...
by downandout on Saturday June 16, 2018 @03:51PM
(#17329005)
Interesting take. It's certainly possible that you are right. I based my thoughts on my impression from listening to her in a couple of interviews. I like to think I have a good BS meter, and it seemed to me (and apparently to her investors) that she believed in what she was saying, and was deeply passionate about the issues her company was trying to solve. I think she probably had a healthy dose of naïveté, and thought that with enough money, anything was possible.
Regardless of what was going on in her head, she seems to have made provably false statements in order to induce massive investments in her company. That's fraud, and she'll pay a heavy price for it.
Re:U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth ...
by joering2 on Saturday June 16, 2018 @11:57AM
(#17327894)
Thanks for the overview I always enjoy reading your informative comments, and bookmarked you in the times of GDPR conversations.
It doesn't seem that Holmes boyfriend is ready to plea, but even with 10-12 years, with all their fame and connections and financials behind, what do you think is final reality? Some 3-6 years for good behavior??
Re:U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth ...
by downandout on Saturday June 16, 2018 @03:37PM
(#17328938)
In the federal system, the most that an inmate can earn for good behavior is 15% off of their sentence - so the best behaved inmates serve 85% of their sentence. If the feds can get one of them to testify against the other (probably the boyfriend against Elizabeth), they may offer that witness a deal for perhaps 3-5 years. But at least one of them is going to do over a decade. Anything less would cause a huge PR problem for the US Attorney's office for the Northern District of California, precisely because she is well connected. They'd be accused of doing favors for a formerly wealthy, well connected person.
I don’t think she did it out personal greed (except perhaps greed for publicity) - I think she believed she would probably make the tech work and just never got there. But regardless of the reason, investors are out a ton of money as a direct result of material misrepresentations. You cannot “fake it ‘til you make it” at least where investors are concerned.
Because of the amount of money involved, these two defendants are looking at a stiff sentence. The federal sentencing guidelines would easily put them at the maximum (20 years), though they may get something like 10-12 years if they take a plea early in the process and don’t make prosecutors work too hard to prepare for trial. This will not be a Martha Stewart type of sentence.
It’s a sad day for everyone involved.