"Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged With Massive Fraud"
Jonathan Cline
Theranos, CEO Holmes, and Former President Balwani Charged With Massive Fraud
Holmes Stripped of Control of Company for Defrauding Investors
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2018-41
Washington D.C., March 14, 2018 —
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Silicon Valley-based private company Theranos Inc., its founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes, and its former President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani with raising more than $700 million from investors through an elaborate, years-long fraud in which they exaggerated or made false statements about the company’s technology, business, and financial performance. Theranos and Holmes have agreed to resolve the charges against them. Importantly, in addition to a penalty, Holmes has agreed to give up majority voting control over the company, as well as to a reduction of her equity which, combined with shares she previously returned, materially reduces her equity stake.
The complaints allege that Theranos, Holmes, and Balwani made numerous false and misleading statements in investor presentations, product demonstrations, and media articles by which they deceived investors into believing that its key product – a portable blood analyzer – could conduct comprehensive blood tests from finger drops of blood, revolutionizing the blood testing industry. In truth, according to the SEC’s complaint, Theranos’ proprietary analyzer could complete only a small number of tests, and the company conducted the vast majority of patient tests on modified and industry-standard commercial analyzers manufactured by others.
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 and that the company would generate more than $100 million in revenue in 2014. In truth, Theranos’ technology was never deployed by the U.S. Department of Defense and generated a little more than $100,000 in revenue from operations in 2014.
“Investors are entitled to nothing less than complete truth and candor from companies and their executives,” said Steven Peikin, Co-Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division. “The charges against Theranos, Holmes, and Balwani make clear that there is no exemption from the anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws simply because a company is non-public, development-stage, or the subject of exuberant media attention.”
“As a result of Holmes’ alleged fraudulent conduct, she is being stripped of control of the company she founded, is returning millions of shares to Theranos, and is barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for 10 years,” said Stephanie Avakian, Co-Director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division. “This package of remedies exemplifies our efforts to impose tailored and meaningful sanctions that directly address the unlawful behavior charged and best remedies the harm done to shareholders.”
“The Theranos story is an important lesson for Silicon Valley,” said Jina Choi, Director of the SEC’s San Francisco Regional Office. “Innovators who seek to revolutionize and disrupt an industry must tell investors the truth about what their technology can do today, not just what they hope it might do someday.”
Theranos and Holmes have agreed to settle the fraud charges levied against them. Holmes agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty, be barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for 10 years, return the remaining 18.9 million shares that she obtained during the fraud, and relinquish her voting control of Theranos by converting her super-majority Theranos Class B Common shares to Class A Common shares. Due to the company’s liquidation preference, if Theranos is acquired or is otherwise liquidated, Holmes would not profit from her ownership until – assuming redemption of certain warrants – over $750 million is returned to defrauded investors and other preferred shareholders. The settlements with Theranos and Holmes are subject to court approval. Theranos and Holmes neither admitted nor denied the allegations in the SEC’s complaint. The SEC will litigate its claims against Balwani in federal district court in the Northern District of California.
The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Jessica Chan, Rahul Kolhatkar, and Michael Foley and supervised by Monique Winkler and Erin Schneider in the San Francisco Regional Office. The SEC’s litigation will be led by Jason Habermeyer and Marc Katz of the San Francisco office.
##
BBC News' Interpretation of the story
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-43406050
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes charged with $700m fraud
14 March 2018
The founder of a US start-up that promised to revolutionise blood testing has agreed to settle charges that she raised over $700m (£500m) fraudulently.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, a top US financial regulator, said Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos deceived investors about the firm's technology.
The agency also said the firm had falsely claimed its products had been used by the US army in Afghanistan.
Ms Holmes will lose control of the firm and be fined $500,000.
An SEC official called the fallout an "important lesson for Silicon Valley".
"Innovators who seek to revolutionise and disrupt an industry must tell investors the truth about what their technology can do today - not just what they hope it might do someday," said Jina Choi, director of the SEC's San Francisco regional office.
Theranos was founded in 2003 when Ms Holmes was only 19, and sought to develop an innovative blood testing device.
The firm said its Edison device could test for conditions such as cancer and cholesterol with only a few drops of blood from a finger-prick, rather than taking vials from a vein.
In 2015 Forbes magazine estimated Ms Holmes' wealth at $4.5bn
However, in the same year reports in the Wall Street Journal suggested the devices were flawed and inaccurate.
By 2016 Forbes had revised its estimates of Ms Holmes' fortune to "nothing".
Charges
The charges were brought against Theranos and its former president Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani as well as Ms Holmes.
The SEC plans to bring a case against Mr Balwani.
The regulator alleged that Theranos, Ms Holmes and Mr Balwani made a series of false and misleading statements in investor presentations, product demonstrations and interviews.
It said: "Theranos, Holmes, and Balwani claimed that Theranos' products were deployed by the US Department of Defence on the battlefield in Afghanistan and on medevac helicopters and that the company would generate more than $100m in revenue in 2014.
"In truth, Theranos' technology was never deployed by the US Department of Defence and generated a little more than $100,000 in revenue from operations in 2014...
"In truth, according to the SEC's complaint, Theranos' proprietary analyser could complete only a small number of tests, and the company conducted the vast majority of patient tests on modified and industry-standard commercial analysers manufactured by others."
##
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## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
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Dennis Oleksyuk
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Dennis Oleksyuk
Damn!
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Cory J. Geesaman
Oliver McClure
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Matt Lawes
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Cory J. Geesaman
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Cathal Garvey
I never permitted this BS when I was heading up IndieBio EU, but I could see it all around in the startup/accelerator space. I recommend healthy skepticism. Especially of people who uses phrases like "stealth mode" or "revolutionary", and always when someone raises billions without a product already in the market. Hell, any time someone raises billions, period.
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Rüdiger Trojok
Jonathan Cline
Theranos Lays Off Most of Its Remaining Workforce
Tuesday’s cuts take blood-testing firm’s head count to two dozen or fewer employees
Blood-testing firm Theranos Inc. laid off most of its remaining workforce in a last-ditch effort to preserve cash and avert bankruptcy for a few more months, according to people familiar with the matter.
Tuesday’s layoffs take the company’s head count from about 125 employees to two dozen or fewer, according to the people familiar with the matter. As recently as late 2015, Theranos had about 800 employees.
Elizabeth Holmes, the Silicon Valley firm’s founder and chief executive officer, announced the layoffs at an all-employee meeting at Theranos’s offices in Newark, Calif., less than a month after settling civil fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Under the SEC settlement, she was forced to relinquish her voting control over the company she founded 15 years ago as a 19-year-old Stanford dropout, give back a big chunk of her stock and pay a $500,000 penalty. She also agreed to be barred from serving as an officer or director in a public company for 10 years.
Neither Ms. Holmes nor Theranos admitted or denied wrongdoing. Ms. Holmes and her former No. 2 executive, Sunny Balwani, remain under criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Balwani has denied the SEC fraud charges, filed in a California federal court, and hasn’t settled with the agency.
The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The latest round of layoffs is the company’s third since The Wall Street Journal revealed in October 2015 that it was misleading investors and the public about the state of its technology. At the time, Theranos was only using its proprietary blood-testing devices for a fraction of the nearly 250 tests it offered consumers and was performing the rest on commercial analyzers, the Journal revealed.
READ THE JOURNAL’S PAST COVERAGE
- SEC Charges Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes With Fraud (March 14, 2018)
- Theranos Has Struggled With Its Blood-Test Technology (Oct. 16, 2015)
- Theranos Dials Back Lab Tests at FDA’s Behest (Oct. 16, 2015)
- At Theranos, Many Strategies and Snags (Dec. 27, 2015)
- Theranos Voids Two Years of Edison Blood-Test Results (May 18, 2016)
- Theranos Whistleblower Shook the Company—and His Family (Nov. 18, 2016)
This belied Ms. Holmes’s claims that she had invented groundbreaking new technology that enabled Theranos to run “the full range” of laboratory tests from just a drop or two of blood pricked from a patient’s finger. Those claims had enabled her to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from investors at a more than $9 billion valuation, making her the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire.
Theranos has since voided nearly one million blood-test results in Arizona and California. Federal inspections of its two labs uncovered numerous problems, including data showing that its proprietary machines were producing unreliable test results. The company shut the labs down in late 2016 and pivoted to trying to commercialize a new device called the miniLab.
At the end of last year, Theranos secured a $100 million loan from the private equity firm Fortress Investment Group LLC to keep it afloat, but it received just $65 million of that upfront, according to an email Ms. Holmes sent to her investors Tuesday.
To access the next tranches of the loan, Theranos has to meet certain product and operational milestones. One of them is obtaining Food and Drug Administration approval for a blood test to detect Zika, the mosquito-borne virus that deforms the brains of infants, on the miniLab.
In her email to investors, Ms. Holmes said the company still was experiencing problems with the reliability of the Zika test’s chemistry. She said the layoffs should enable Theranos to keep its cash reserves above $3 million until the end of July.
Once its cash falls under that threshold, the terms of the Fortress loan agreement allow the New York private-equity firm to seize the company’s assets and to liquidate them, she said.
In the email, Ms. Holmes appealed to the company’s investors for more funding, saying she was willing to sell a large stake at a favorable price. But she acknowledged that, even with a new cash injection, the company’s future remained “highly uncertain.”
Until Tuesday, Ms. Holmes still had two personal assistants and two security guards who drove her around in a black Cadillac Escalade SUV, according to the people familiar with the matter.
Write to John Carreyrou at john.ca...@wsj.com
Appeared in the April 11, 2018, print edition as 'Theranos Deepens Workforce Cuts.'
Matt Lawes
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Ryan Vitug-Gavieres
Update CBS News has done a segment on Theranos for 60 Minutes.
Ryan Vitug-Gavieres
Ryan Vitug-Gavieres
Update a book on Theranos is coming out and its an exposé of its leader.
Matt Lawes
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> On Jun 9, 2018, at 6:52 PM, Ryan Vitug-Gavieres <ryanvitu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> https://kjzz.org/content/645805/bad-blood-new-book-explores-theranos-medical-scandal
>
> Update a book on Theranos is coming out and its an exposé of its leader.
>
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Matt Lawes
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>
> Update a book on Theranos is coming out and its an exposé of its leader.
>
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Ryan Vitug-Gavieres
Another update Theranos was accused of doing unproven experiments on Arizona residents.
Ryan Vitug-Gavieres
Jonathan Cline
On Sunday, June 10, 2018 at 4:53:56 AM UTC-7, Ryan Vitug-Gavieres wrote:
Now ReasonTV has made a Documentary on the Theranos scandal. Elizabeth Holmes is suspicious for one reason she is one of a few people who claimed to have started a biotech company without a college degree. As far as I Know most biotech startups leaders tended to have MD's, Pharmacy degrees or PhD in Biology plus MBA. I'm surprised that the medical boards or the FDA did not see that as a red flag.
On Thursday, March 15, 2018 at 1:45:49 PM UTC-6, Jonathan Cline wrote:The vaporware and hyped promises of Theranos surprisingly did not get much attention on this group thruout the company's history. There has been a lot of vaporware and fraudulent claims in synbio, which obviously goes against fundamental principles of science.""Holmes agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty, be barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company for 10 years, return the remaining 18.9 million shares that she obtained during the fraud, and relinquish her voting control of Theranos""
Ryan Vitug-Gavieres
Ryan Vitug-Gavieres
On Thursday, March 15, 2018 at 12:45:49 PM UTC-7, Jonathan Cline wrote:
Ryan Vitug-Gavieres
Now criminal charges has been dropped on Elizabeth Holmes
https://gizmodo.com/disgraced-theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-is-allegedly-lo-1826710013
djwr...@gmail.com
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Ryan Vitug-Gavieres
Yes and some of the reports and most notably John Carreyrou mentioned that in the Bad Blood book and in various YouTube interviews that Elizabeth Holmes was obsessed with the Steve Jobs image allegedly and even stalked Apples ad and pr consultants because she wanted Theranos to be the Apple of Biotech.
But that got overshadowed by the medical fraud and financial fraud that took place at the company and how Balwani and Holmes ordered spies, henchmen and stalkers to go after whistleblowers who revealed the false clinical blood tests at Theranos and Walgreens.
Ryan Vitug-Gavieres
Ryan Vitug-Gavieres
Update on Theranos leaders.
Former Theranos president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, who was indicted Friday on two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud, is fighting back with a curious legal defense: while prosecutors accuse Balwani and former C.E.O. Elizabeth Holmes of a “multi-million-dollar scheme to defraud investors,” Balwani’s lawyer says that his client couldn’t have committed a crime because he never made any money. “In over 28 years of practicing law, as both a federal prosecutor and a defense attorney, I have never seen a case like this one, where the government brings a criminal prosecution against a defendant who obtained no financial benefit and lost millions of dollars of his own money,” attorney Jeffrey Coopersmith told me. “Mr. Balwani committed no crimes. He did not defraud Theranos investors, who were among the most sophisticated in the world. He did not defraud consumers, but instead worked tirelessly to empower them with access to their own health information. Mr. Balwani is innocent, and looks forward to clearing his name at trial.”
ecutors see the matter quite differently. According to Wall Street Journal journalist John Carreyrou, whose relentless reporting exposed Holmes and Balwani’s multi-billion-dollar blood-testing start-up as an elaborate fraud, Theranos never managed to build the “revolutionary” technology it promised would deliver better, faster results for patients. In March, after more than two years of federal investigations, layoffs, and class-action lawsuits, the S.E.C. charged Holmes and Balwani with “massive fraud” for raising more than $700 million from investors in a years-long scheme “in which they exaggerated or made false statements about the company’s technology, business, and financial performance.” (Neither Holmes nor Theranos was required to admit wrongdoing as part of a settlement agreement, in which Holmes surrendered voting control and complied with a 10-year ban from serving as an officer or director of a public company.) Holmes and Balwani, her ex-boyfriend, have both pleaded not guilty to the most recent charges, for which they could face as much as 20 years in prison if convicted.
As extraordinary as Balwani’s defense sounds, legal experts say he could have a compelling case. “The fact that he did not benefit financially may help persuade a judge or jury that he had no motive and that he did not do anything wrong,” said Randall Kessler, an Emory University School of Law litigation professor. At the same time, he told me, the argument that Balwani didn’t profit from the alleged scheme could be deemed legally irrelevant. “As a simple example, if a doctor agrees to operate on someone for free, that does not relieve them from acting within the appropriate standard of care,” Kessler explained. “If a lawyer handles a case pro bono (for free), they still must do the same. If a bank robber robs a bank and discovers the money bags he took are filled with shredded paper, it is still bank robbery. But still, the fact in this more complex case, that the defendant may not have profited at all, does seem to help the defense to a degree.”
Ryan Vitug-Gavieres
Tim Draper yes the same Tim Draper who is famous for pushing for a superpac ballot initiate in California to split the state into different parts is named in a rant over the Theranos issue.
Ryan Vitug-Gavieres
Jonathan Cline
positive-leaning article about Theranos between the years 2005-2015.
That's ten years in which any of the journalists could have called any
typical university microfluidics or nanotechnology research lab in the
world to discount Theranos's vaporware statements. Science reporters
are supposed to report science objectively, not inflate dangerous
hype.
On 6/22/18, Ryan Vitug-Gavieres <ryanvitu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> https://www.reuters.com/article/health-theranos/theranos-founder-holmes-seeks-stay-of-lawsuit-after-indictment-idUSL1N1TN28J
>
> More updates.
Matt Lawes
We eve have "Theranos-lite, part deux" winning 'startup competitions' here in Cleveland Ohio. It's simultaneously awful, embarrassing and hilariously funny. I asked the principal after they had spent $1.7M ingrants / investor money if their technology worked. The answer ... 'I'm not sure' ..... lmfao.
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Dakota Hamill
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Matt Lawes
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Dig fan
Jonathan Cline
& science groups so unaware of the biotech business environment
especially considering very obvious headlines. No one is simply
skimming the headlines of Forbes, etc? That's simply not a good route
for a startup environment (basically, it's a pretty uneducated
approach). Holmes was very, very prominent in the news, and the
stories blatantly stood out because they were so unbelievable.
(Young researcher makes a so-called amazing discovery, drops out of
Stanford, and is rapidly estimated as having one of the largest net
worths of all time for a young scientist?)
It is also indicative of how easy it would have been for any
journalist to debunk the company's story. A research breakthrough of
such magnitude should be conceptually verifiable to any student and
especially any expert in the field. If any of the company's claims
were possible, Holmes would have been well known in biotech research
circles, and definitely in the microfluidics area. All these science
and business journalists didn't place a single 10 minute investigative
phone call in this regard?
On 6/22/18, Dig fan <ryanvitu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Start with this during the time Holmes was coming into play. As a person
> who did take biotech and biology major classes and graduated all the
> biotech experts in my area never heard of Elizabeth Holmes until the
> scandal was released to the public. Somehow Holmes is a complete unknown
> in cities where biotech is a big deal like South San Francisco, Vacaville
> and Davis areas. Nobody in Indiebio the Biotech accelerator or even the DIY
>
> Biology groups like Biocurious or any maker space group heard of her crew.
> The problem here was that the heat and backlash was focused on something
> else though.
>
> On Friday, June 22, 2018 at 10:05:56 AM UTC-6, Jonathan Cline wrote:
>>
>> Start a list of every journalist who wrote a nonobjective,
>> positive-leaning article about Theranos between the years 2005-2015.
>> That's ten years in which any of the journalists could have called any
>> typical university microfluidics or nanotechnology research lab in the
>> world to discount Theranos's vaporware statements. Science reporters
>> are supposed to report science objectively, not inflate dangerous
>> hype.
>>
>>
Matt Lawes
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Cathal Garvey
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Dig fan
Cory J. Geesaman
Matt Lawes
I've taught myself in areas outside of my primary discipline- ideally graduation through a good PhD program will give you the skills to learn on your own........
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Dakota Hamill
Cory J. Geesaman
Cabalen sciences
https://mobile.audible.com/pd/Nonfiction/Bad-Blood-Audiobook/B07CXTQZRR
Check out this audiobook in detail its a 12 hour file and the podcast is better if you listen to the details.
Cabalen sciences
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/05/644844174/theranos-blood-testing-company-accused-of-massive-fraud-says-it-will-dissolve
Theranos — the Silicon Valley blood-testing startup whose former top executives are accused of carrying out a massive, years-long fraud — is shutting down.
David Taylor, who became CEO in June, said Theranos will dissolve after it attempts to pay creditors with its remaining cash. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, which published the letter.
The letter explains that the company "intends to enter into an assignment for the benefit of creditors." This arrangement would allow for all of Theranos' assets, other than its intellectual property, to be assigned to a third party in trust for the company's creditors. The company says it has about $5 million remaining in cash.
"Because the Company's cash is not nearly sufficient to pay all of its creditors in full, there will be no distributions to shareholders," the letter states. After the assignment process, the company intends to dissolve. The Journal reports that most of the company's remaining employees worked their last day on Aug. 31, while Taylor and a few others have just a few more days on the payroll.
Under founder and now-former CEO Elizabeth Holmes, Theranos raised more than $700 million from investors and was valued at $9 billion at its peak.
Holmes had claimed that the company's technology could run comprehensive lab tests using just a few drops of blood — a pitch that appealed to Walgreens, which partnered with Theranos to offer the blood tests in its stores.
Instead, in a criminal indictment, the Justice Department says that Holmes and her then-boyfriend, former President and COO Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, perpetrated "a multi-million dollar scheme to defraud investors, and a separate scheme to defraud doctors and patients."
They each face nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
"Holmes and Balwani knew that many of their representations about the analyzer were false," the Justice Department said when the charges were announced in June. "For example, allegedly, Holmes and Balwani knew that the analyzer, in truth, had accuracy and reliability problems, performed a limited number of tests, was slower than some competing devices, and, in some respects, could not compete with existing, more conventional machines. "
As NPR's James Doubek reported in March, Holmes has already settled civil charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, agreeing to pay a $500,000 penalty and to refrain from serving as a director or officer of a publicly traded company for 10 years. As part of the settlement, Holmes and Theranos did not admit or deny the allegations.
Cabalen sciences
https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/05/technology/theranos-elizabeth-holmes/index.html
Cabalen sciences
Please be advised that on September 12, 2018, Theranos, Inc. (“Company” or “Theranos”) entered into an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors (“Assignment”) and appointed Theranos (assignment for the benefit of creditors), LLC as assignee (“Assignee”). An Assignment is a state level insolvency proceeding undertaken under state law, in this case California, with the primary governing law found in California Code of Civil Procedure sections 493.010 to 493.060, sections 1800 to 1802, and section 1204.
Under California law, creditors will be notified within 30 days of the Assignment by a written notice. This notice will outline the process by which creditors may file a proof of claim to establish a claim for any obligations due.; the deadline to file a claim is approximately 180 days (as required by law) from the date of the Assignment (March 11, 2019). All inquiries should be directed to Thera...@proofofclaims.com.
For the Company, the Assignee will compile all claims of creditors and distribute recoveries, if any, on a pro-rata basis to creditors based on each claim’s priority following the filing deadline.
The Assignment entity is a California limited liability company, Theranos (assignment for the benefit of creditors), LLC (“Assignee”). The Assignee is a special purpose entity established to liquidate the assets of the Company, compile claims, and distribute proceeds, if any, to creditors according to the priority established in the California Code and is affiliated with Sherwood Partners, Inc. Except for the relationship created by the Assignment, the Company and Assignee have no corporate affiliations to each other.
Cabalen sciences
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/10/at-harvard-author-weaves-cautionary-tale-for-silicon-valley/
Cabalen sciences
Jonathan Cline
throughout the entire company history, even though it was easily and
obviously deserved, needs more attention to ensure history repeats
itself less often.
""One thing that the [Theranos] documentary makes very visible is this
long list of old men who seem to have been captivated by a very young
woman: journalists Parloff, Ken Auletta and Charlie Rose; investors
Don Lucas, Larry Ellison, Tim Draper and Rupert Murdoch; board members
George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Jim Mattis and Channing Robertson; and
others, including Joe Biden and Bill Clinton.""
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/17/americans-have-a-fascination-with-fraudsters-alex-gibney-on-the-fall-of-theranos-and-elizabeth-holmes
In other long-term fraud news, Monsanto-Beyer lost another court case
related to cancer and glyphosate (Roundup). The documentation
unloaded through prior court cases shows the disturbing history of
scientific research manipulation by the Monsanto executive team, a
strategy pursued for years. Look up the emails in the court
documents to see how Monsanto exec's discussed which studies should be
buried or cut and which studies should be glorified, and by whom.
-- Quote --
Interview
'Americans have a fascination with fraudsters': Alex Gibney on the
fall of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes
by Julia Carrie Wong Sun 17 Mar 2019 06.00 EDT
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/17/americans-have-a-fascination-with-fraudsters-alex-gibney-on-the-fall-of-theranos-and-elizabeth-holmes
The Oscar-winning director presents a sympathetic portrait of the
Silicon Valley CEO who fooled the world into believing she had built a
better blood test
We can’t get enough of Elizabeth Holmes. The founder and CEO of
Theranos once captivated the imaginations of venture capitalists and
magazine profile writers with her too-good-to-be-true tale of a
revolutionary blood testing technology. Three years, numerous federal
investigations, and eleven felony counts later, our appetite has
shifted to devouring the tale of how Holmes fooled the world. The
Silicon Valley morality tale – a true crime saga with a dash of Fyre
Fest-schadenfreude and the added bonus of an icy blonde with a
mysteriously deep voice – has thus far inspired a best-selling book, a
popular podcast, and two documentaries, with a feature film and
real-life criminal trial still to come.
One of the documentaries, The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon
Valley, debuts Monday on HBO. The film, by Oscar-winning director Alex
Gibney, presents a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of Holmes as a
modern-day Thomas Edison-gone-wrong. The Wizard of Menlo Park, Gibney
reminds us, was a master of “faking it until you make it” who raised
money off a promise long before he figured out how to make the
incandescent light bulb work. Of course, Edison eventually came
through, while Holmes is facing up to 20 years in prison, and her
company was forced to void tens of thousands of blood tests for
patients in Arizona.
Gibney has spent a career on what he calls “the fraud beat”, with
subjects including Enron, the Church of Scientology, Lance Armstrong,
and the Catholic church. We spoke to him about the lessons of
Theranos.
What drew you to making a film about Theranos?
I was interested not just about the details of the story but what it
had to say about the psychology of fraud – not only how someone
deceives others, but how they deceive themselves in order to deceive
others, and how the people who are deceived get deceived. How does
that happen?
We’re in the midst of something of a national fascination with
scammers. Do you see Elizabeth Holmes as being part of an American
archetype of a fraudster?
I’ve been on this beat for a while – the fraud beat. I think what’s
interesting about Elizabeth is: What happens when you pursue a dream
and your dream doesn’t work? Do you admit it? Or do you just keep
finding ways to pursue the dream and pretending that it really is
working when it isn’t?
I do think that we as Americans – going back to movies like The Music
Man – there’s a kind of fascination with a fraudster, somebody who
breaks the rules. We want to see them brought down and punished.
But I think that the more important thing about Elizabeth to me is
that she did have a mission – a noble mission, in a way – that she
wanted to accomplish. And what brought her down was this notion that
the police call “noble cause corruption” or “the end justifies the
means”. You know, if you’re pursuing a noble goal, it’s OK to fake it
‘til you make it.
I’m curious how you came to believe that her initial motivation
actually was noble.
There are indications in [Wall Street Journal reporter John]
Carreyrou’s book that early on she was cutting corners and lying to
people. But I do think that if she had wanted to make a lot of money,
she could have made a lot more than she did. If she had been Bernie
Madoff and just was trying to do this in order to make bank and then
leave, she could’ve paid herself a lot more handsomely than she did.
Fraud has been a through-line in your career. What is the connection
between Scientology and Silicon Valley or Silicon Valley and Enron?
I think the connection between scientology and Elizabeth Holmes is the
“prison of belief”. Look at what happens to [Theranos board member]
George Shultz – the grandfather of [eventual whistleblower] Tyler
Shultz; the noted Secretary of State. Even when his grandson comes to
him and says, “You know Grandpa, there’s rampant fraud at Theranos”,
he can’t undo or retract or unwind the belief that he has. He’s in a
prison of belief of Elizabeth Holmes. He’s committed to her, and for
him to say, “Oh wow, that’s terrible”, would mean that he has to go
back to the beginning and admit that he was duped and fooled.
On the other hand, you take something like Enron and you look at
people like Jeff Skilling. Jeff Skilling, I think, was not in it like
Bernie Madoff. He did have a mission. His mission was that the
completely untethered unregulated free market is going to end up
having enormous social benefits.
This idea of the end justifies the means and trying to manipulate
reality in order to conform to the dream, those, I think, are
consistent.
A lot of people around Silicon Valley point to Theranos and say,
“They’re not real Silicon Valley. We’re not like that.”
There’s an element of truth and there’s an element of bullshit. Fake
it ‘til you make it is something that’s imbued in the DNA of a lot of
Silicon Valley companies. And there are a lot of powerful Silicon
Valley companies – the most respectable – who are still lying to
people. Look at Apple and the battery. Look at Facebook and Google in
terms of how they were mining our data and how they were misusing
information and also kind of ruddering to our worst instincts.
In some ways Elizabeth was an outlier, and it is true that a lot of
the powerful Silicon Valley VCs did not invest in her because they
didn’t see the evidence and they were suspicious of her. But I think
that, in the ethic of “move fast break things” without really
considering the damage that might be caused and how that can become
culturally problematic, she does share some DNA with the other Silicon
Valley firms.
You were not able to speak with Elizabeth Holmes.
My producer sat down with her at the very beginning for about five
hours off the record to try to persuade her to participate, and we
were unsuccessful. We kept coming back and trying to get her to talk
to us, and she refused. She kept saying, “When we’re back on our feet,
then you can come see the successful Theranos.” Right. That never
happened.
Early on we had a very tough time talking to employees because they
were all terrified of [Theranos lawyer and board member] David Boies
and being sued. It took a long time to build up momentum in terms of
being able to get people on the record and then we got very lucky in
terms of somebody from the inside giving us a treasure trove of video.
Roger Parloff, the Fortune magazine reporter who wrote the first
magazine profile of Holmes, has carried a certain amount of blame for
helping to create the myth of Theranos, but he was also the only
person in the film that expressed any actual remorse for what
happened, so he comes across as this very tragic figure.
I see him as the beating heart of the film. It ripped him up inside
that he got it wrong and that he put her on the cover. To see those
moments where both his embarrassment but also his anger almost renders
him speechless – it’s a very powerful moment. We live in a time when
we have a fraudster-in-chief for president and everything’s being
angled for everyone’s own cognitive biases, but Roger I think really
took seriously this idea of pursuing the truth.
Journalists are both truth seekers but also storytellers. In coming
across Elizabeth Holmes, this was a powerful story that they really
wanted to tell of a young female entrepreneur in male-dominated
Silicon Valley who’s really coming up with something that was doing
good. But when you see something that is such a wonderful story,
sometimes you have to wonder whether it’s a fairy tale. And they
didn’t wonder hard enough.
One thing that the documentary makes very visible is this long list of
old men who seem to have been captivated by a very young woman:
journalists Parloff, Ken Auletta and Charlie Rose; investors Don
Lucas, Larry Ellison, Tim Draper and Rupert Murdoch; board members
George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Jim Mattis and Channing Robertson; and
others, including Joe Biden and Bill Clinton.
I mean, I think that it is so utterly evident. Phyllis Gardner [a
Stanford professor of medicine] refers to the board and says, “They
evidently succumbed to a certain charm.” We tread lightly on it, but
it’s clearly obvious that they did succumb to a certain charm. She was
young. She was pretty. It blinded them in a certain way.
I think Elizabeth herself infused her own myth with this idea of youth
– youth conquers all. Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College. I’m
going to drop out of Stanford. You don’t need that bullshit education.
All you need is genius. Well, maybe if she had stayed at Stanford for
a few more years and took a few more courses, it might have done us
all a bit of good.
We do kind of revere youth in some ways, and Elizabeth very much
inside the company used that. She had a real distrust of the older
people, either because they were experienced and they were showing her
up, or they just didn’t get it in the way that young Silicon Valley
entrepreneurs get it. You move fast, you break things, you don’t ask a
lot of questions, don’t give me your old paradigm bullshit. Well,
sometimes you know that experience can be very valuable, right?
Thankfully, two very young people are also the whistleblowers who end
up bringing her down. Because they’re not worried so much about
families they need to support, and also I think they’re more
idealistic. They’re coming out of college and they haven’t become
cynical yet.
I think the men fell for her. It’s clear and it’s clear that she
understood. There weren’t any women on the board. How odd was that for
a woman who is the CEO?
Were you ever concerned about falling into the same trap? Personally,
I was a bit surprised that the film came off more sympathetic towards
her than …
Than it should have?
… than I feel, by granting that her motives were altruistic. And I
think the comparison to Edison is generous.
It’s generous in one way, and there’s a couple of reasons I went
there. One is, I really don’t think she is a Madoff character. So I
give her the credit for at least having that sense of mission. But
honestly in my view that’s not necessarily the good news. You can look
at Hitler and say he was a guy who who believed that the end justifies
the means, right? That’s not good news.
The comparison to Edison – yes, Edison was a for real inventor. But
also let’s be honest: Elizabeth exists on a spectrum of people who
over-promise and sometimes way under-deliver and sometimes commit
fraud. I didn’t want to do the film in which Silicon Valley gets left
off the hook. Because if she’s just the bad apple – you know that’s
what they said about the people at Abu Ghraib. They’re just bad
apples, and so they have nothing to do with the overall system. Well,
that was bullshit for Abu Ghraib and I think it’s bullshit for Silicon
Valley. I think she does exist within the context of Silicon Valley
culture even though she’s an extreme outlier in many ways. So it’s
that tension I kind of was interested in playing with.
I wonder if I was too generous. But it’s hard to know. She very much
feels she’s a victim. And that is a hard thing to reckon with. And
that’s why I put in Phyllis at the end saying, “You are not a victim.”
You know, the buck stops with you, Elizabeth Holmes.
This interview has been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.
-- End Quote --
On 3/15/18, Jonathan Cline <jnc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The vaporware and hyped promises of Theranos surprisingly did not get much
> against fundamental principles of science.
Cabalen sciences
Cabalen sciences
If HBO's Theranos documentary didn't satisfy your curiosity, you might be in luck. Deadline and Variety have learned that Hulu is ordering The Dropout, a miniseries about the rise and fall of Theranos and its founder Elizabeth Holmes. The show would be produced by and star Saturday Night Live veteran Kate McKinnon, and would have its roots in a similarly-titled podcast that was turned into a 20/20 documentary in March.
Hulu declined to comment to Variety on the show, which hasn't been officially announced.
Provided the series goes forward, it'll add to a seeming frenzy of productions covering Theranos. On top of the Hulu and HBO projects, a movie based on the saga (Bad Blood) is in the works with Jennifer Lawrence set to play Holmes. It's overkill, but also unsurprising. Holmes' real saga is itself a drama: she generated extreme amounts of hype and money promising a breakthrough in blood testing technology, only to fall spectacularly as people discovered the fraud behind the claims. There are still questions about why Holmes did what she did and how partners and investors fell for the ploy, and a biopic might be the closest many people get to real answers.
Cabalen sciences
(CBS SF / CNN) — Erika Cheung and Tyler Shultz blew the whistle on Theranos. Now, the former employees of the shuttered health company are behind a new organization called Ethics in Entrepreneurship, which seeks to help other entrepreneurs from falling to a similar fate.
Cheung, who lives in Hong Kong, is the former Theranos lab worker who tipped off the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to look into the blood testing startup. Shultz, the grandson of Theranos board member and former Secretary of State George Shultz, was an ex-research engineer instrumental in helping Wall Street Journal investigative reporter John Carreyrou expose the company.
Once the darling of Silicon Valley, Theranos had a reported $9 billion valuation and employed hundreds of workers who bought into its mission to create a cheaper and more efficient alternative to traditional blood testing methods. After Carreyrou’s initial investigation into the company in 2015, its technology and testing methods started to unravel.
Last March, the Securities and Exchange Commission settled charges against Theranos and its founder and CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, over “massive fraud” involving more than $700 million raised from investors. In September, Theranos announced plans to dissolve itself. The company remains the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation by the Department of Justice.
Ethics in Entrepreneurship, which is seeking non-profit status in the US and Hong Kong, wants to make talking about ethical practices the norm in the startup world. It plans to help connect early-stage entrepreneurs to ethicists, seasoned entrepreneurs, and other relevant industry experts to guide on how to make ethical decisions when building a company. It also plans to make available tools and frameworks for ethical decisions that benefit businesses, employees and consumers.
“There were so many instances, even for someone like Elizabeth Holmes, to turn back and say, ‘I’m taking things a little too far here,'” Cheung told CNN Business. “She had many opportunities to — even at the very end, she could have said, ‘OK, I’m sorry. I messed up. I’ll stop processing patient samples and I’m going to get my team together, we’re going to work on this and we’re going to make a good product.’ I don’t think she’s ever said that, until she had to go to court and say those things.'”
The organization is accepting donations on its website to help support the development of resources guides and workshops.
Ethics in Entrepreneurship is transparent about what it’s working on, from ethics guidelines for entrepreneurs and connecting with student groups to other ideas it is considering, so donors know what they’re are supporting.
The website for the venture notes recent ethical scandals in the tech industry, ranging from discrimination and harassment in the workplace to lack of product use oversight at companies including Uber, Google, Facebook and Theranos. It identifies the various missteps as all stemming from “a failure to integrate ethical questions into the heart of business decision making.”
The group’s formation comes at a moment when “ethics” has become something of a buzzword in the tech industry. Folks such as design ethicist Tristan Harris and Roger McNamee, an early Facebook investor and adviser to Mark Zuckerberg, have made names for themselves by speaking out against the decisions made by tech’s powerhouses. Last year, the two were part of a group that started the Center for Humane Technology, pushing tech companies to rethink and redesign addictive and intrusive tools they created.
“I do think entrepreneurship can empower people and empower society but we also have to not let things escalate to this degree,” Cheung said.
Cabalen sciences
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Theranos-Founder-Elizabeth-Holmes-Appears-in-San-Jose-Court-in-Fraud-Case-508928601.html
Cabalen sciences
Cabalen sciences
Cabalen sciences
Three Cooley LLP lawyers representing the embattled Theranos founder in a lawsuit want off the case, writing in court papers filed Sept. 30 that Holmes hasn’t paid them in more than a year.
“Further, given Ms. Holmes’s current financial situation, Cooley has no expectation that Ms. Holmes will ever pay it for its services as her counsel,” Stephen Neal, John Dwyer and Jeffrey Lombard wrote in the filing, which was first reported by the Mercury News. “Thus, it is unfair and unreasonable to require Cooley to continue representing Ms. Holmes in this action.”
Holmes dropped out of Stanford University at 19 to form Theranos in 2003. The Palo Alto company promised to revolutionize health care by requiring only a pinprick of blood to run hundreds of tests. At its peak, it was valued at $9 billion and had a partnership with Walgreens.
The company’s decline began in 2015, when a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that its machines weren’t giving accurate results. By last year, Theranos had been shuttered and Holmes indicted on fraud charges that could carry up to 20 years in prison. The downfall of the once-celebrated start-up and its CEO has been chronicled in a documentary, a podcast and a best-selling book.
In the class-action civil case, filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, consumers accuse Holmes, Theranos and Walgreens of perpetuating a “massive fraud.” They also allege Theranos and Walgreens medically battered them by taking blood draws under “false pretenses.” Holmes, Theranos and Walgreens are fighting the allegations.
The judge has not yet made a ruling on the Cooley lawyers’ request to withdraw.
Cabalen sciences
Cabalen sciences
Truvian Sciences wants to run a battery of tests on only drops of blood. Its mobile lab is designed to return answers in 20 minutes. Sound a little familiar?
Truvian’s mission of disrupting lab testing harkens to Theranos, the now-dissolved Silicon Valley firm that’s infamous for faulty blood tests. Truvian CEO Jeff Hawkins knew the question was coming: What makes Truvian different?
Unlike Theranos, he said Truvian is seeking regulatory approval, and it’s led and advised by a pack of life sciences talent — among other differences.
“We’ve surrounded ourselves with investors from the health care space, but also independent scientific and clinical advisers,” Hawkins said.
In a vote of confidence, Truvian recently raised $27.1 million in a Series B round. With that, the company will accelerate the development of its benchtop system. By the end of 2020, Truvian plans to ask for approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, followed by European Union regulators.
But as Truvian distances itself from the Theranos tag it faces competition, including in its backyard in San Diego.
Founded in 2015, Truvian wants to make blood tests a routine exercise at retailers and clinics. Its machine is designed to return results in only 20 minutes, rather than shipping samples to industry behemoths Quest Diagnostics and Lab Corp — and waiting days.
The idea is that patients could order a test and shortly thereafter consult a doctor, sparing another appointment. Rapid tests would also mean less physician guesswork, which can spawn unnecessary or even harmful treatment.
Common Diagnostic Tests
Plans call for Truvian’s device to cover 40 of the most commonly ordered diagnostic tests, such as those assessing thyroid, liver and kidney function. Patients could access results via a mobile app.
Hawkins said with so many tests on one system, both clinics and individuals would save money.
In one sense, he said, Theranos cast a pall over the industry, but in another the company got more thinking about shaking up the blood testing industry. But Truvian — which has raised $47.3 million to date — isn’t the only firm vying to do so.
“There’s a few companies making themselves out to be the anti-Theranos,” said Bruce Carlson, publisher of market research firm Kalorama Information.
Locally, Genalyte is developing a system to run 100 common lab tests within 15 minutes. The company is also working toward FDA approval, and it already has a nonproprietary version on the market.
Cory J. Geesaman
California916
California916
California 916
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/10/kodak-shares-tank-more-than-40percent-as-government-loan-is-put-on-pause-while-allegations-investigated.html
California 916
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/10/kodak-shares-tank-more-than-40percent-as-government-loan-is-put-on-pause-while-allegations-investigated.html
Dakota Hamill
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Biology Discussions
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/12/elizabeth-holmes-trial-delayed-because-shes-pregant.html
Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, whose criminal fraud trial was scheduled to start in July, is asking for a delay because she’s pregnant.
In a court filing on Friday, her defense attorneys and prosecutors asked Judge Edward Davila to delay the start of her trial by six weeks to begin on August 31, 2021.
“On March 2, 2021, counsel for Defendant advised the government that Defendant is pregnant, with an expected due date in July 2021,” prosecutors and attorneys for Holmes write. “Both parties agree that, in light of this development, it is not feasible to begin the trial on July 13, 2021.”
No other details were immediately available.
The trial has already been delayed three times due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Holmes’ legal team was prepared to raise the issue of mental health as part of her defense strategy. In an earlier court filing, Holmes’ attorneys wrote they intend to introduce evidence “relating to a mental disease or defect or any other mental condition of the defendant bearing on.. the issue of guilt.”
This would include expert testimony from Dr. Mindy Mechanic, a clinical psychology professor at California State University Fullerton, who according to the University’s website “focuses on the psychosocial consequences of violence, trauma and victimization with an emphasis on violence against women and other forms of interpersonal violence.”
The judge granted federal prosecutors the ability to conduct their own examination of Holmes’ mental health and be examined by two experts, a psychologist and psychiatrist.
Holmes and her former COO Sunny Balwani are each facing a dozen criminal wire fraud charges and 20 years in prison for falsely claiming Theranos technology could run dozens of blood tests with just a drop or two of blood.
The Silicon Valley start-up was once valued at $9 billion before shutting down in 2018.
Biology Discussions
Biology Discussions
Jonathan Cline
start of her court trial and use motherhood as an excuse for lenient
sentencing.
Anyone want to bet she won't continue to use her fake "low voice"
during the trial ?
Biology Discussions
Biology Discussions
Nathan McCorkle
voice being same or different... which is all I wanted to know.
On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 12:05 PM Biology Discussions
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