Ex-Theranos CEO, Elizabeth Holmes’ Trial Delayed Until August 2020 | Hacker News Reader

Ex-Theranos CEO, Elizabeth Holmes’ Trial Delayed Until August 2020

stanforddaily.com

> The defense hopes to prove government agencies were more influenced to investigate Theranos than other companies based on communications with Carreyrou, as opposed to pure suspicion of illegal activity.

"Your Honor, the suspicion of illegal activity wasn't generate by the FDA from first principles, therefore is not valid, as it warped the agency!"

This is (one of) the leg[s] they are standing on?!?

Things look pretty bad so they're looking for any legal rationale they can come up with to try to keep themselves out of jail.

I wonder if she was knowingly committing fraud for the purpose of amassing wealth, or if she genuinely believed they would be able to deliver if they could keep the R&D going.

The thing is they had... nothing.

They weren't anywhere near what they claimed, and used competitors equipment to fake their own results at times.

They had gone nowhere, made no progress.

They couldn't provide the results with their own machines any better than anyone else, let alone with the tiny amounts of blood they claimed.

The fraud comes from the distinction between "We _will_ be able to X" and "We _are_ able to X"

They couldn't do things they claimed they could to lure investments. That's fraud.

Also; I wonder how much the release of HBOs "Out for Blood in Sillicon Valley" affects public perception and the judgment/rulings, if at all

It is more likely to be a slippery slope where you begin completely believing your technology will work and then over time it becomes more and more fraudulent. At the beginning I think she completely believed the technology would work. After a year and no progress, what do you do? You raise more money and double down. Fast forward another couple of years, do you admit you were wrong and tell the investors the bad news? Do you take the humiliation of the failure? In her case she doubled down again and although must have known by now it would never work, she carried on with the pretence. Like a kid caught in a lie keeps on making more lies to keep the façade going.

I know specious politicising of stories is bad, but the inclusion of backers from the US political spectrum moved over into their (real, longerm) corporate/relationship/lobbying role really is part of the story: she had access -The difference between the small con and the big con, is that the big con has access.

I would reach further and whisper Ivanka but I think thats probably not sensible. But I do see the parallel. Believe in yourself and anything is possible is true for people with access, except for the wise words of Scotty about the laws of physics, and medicical diagnostics from blood is just applied chemistry which in the end, is physics mapped into the biological world.

She used access to sell shares in a model of science which at root, was a-scientific and because she had access, the model was believed despite the evidence, and the FDA in the end had to act, but because she had access, it went on far longer than it should have.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com