For the 1000th time, a total of 0 (zero) VCs that most people would associate with "silicon valley" invested in Theranos, and the board was all made up of political and business figures like Kissinger.
Well, Tim Draper is a VC that people would associate with "Silicon Valley". (portfolio: https://www.dfj.com/)
The first $500k seed came from DFJ.[1]
But somewhat to your point, Elizabeth Holmes did not get his backing via the typical "VC due diligence" channel. Instead, she was childhood friends with Draper's daughter. Apparently, her charm completely bypassed his VC radar for detecting bullshit.
[1] https://news.crunchbase.com/news/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-t....
Can you point to the statement where he supported fraud or asserted that she was innocent of any crime?
If you need me to I can point you to a statement where he said he wouldn't back her as a CEO again.
You know it is possible to signal support to a friend and colleague when they're at rock bottom and with the entire world piling onto them, without endorsing the worst of their actions, right?
The last time I can find him saying anything publicly about her, he said he wouldn't back her as CEO again - though he would back her as "chief science officer", before quickly changing the subject [2]. Again, he's clearly trying to show her some personal support as a friend and colleague when nobody else in the world will do that, whilst very clearly stopping short of endorsing or denying any criminal behaviour.
What can you find that's more damning than this?
And why is it so important to you that Tim Draper should have publicly trashed her? Is it not enough that basically every other media and investment figure in the world was trashing her? Do you not have anyone for whom you would publicly signal support, if they were at rock bottom and the rest of the world was piling onto them, even if you know they may have done the wrong thing?
[1] https://cheddar.com/media/tim-draper-elizabeth-holmes-is-inn...
[2] https://theoutline.com/post/7157/one-of-theranos-first-inves...
You know there are people in the world who think things like: I was the first person to show her support when nobody else did, and so now I'm going to be the last person to keep supporting her when nobody else will. It won't cost me anything to show that I still care about her even if she's done wrong. If I don't, who else will? Some people sleep better at night doing that, rather than joining the mob taking delight in laying the boots in.
At any rate it's either close the "loophole" or accept the fact that proving intent to defraud is much harder than proving stupid. But at least we get to call them stupid.
For example, there was a company called blue turtle that claimed to want to build a bacterium that provided gaucher's disease enzyme as a probiotic supplement. I mean technically speaking it's not impossible, but there are so many things that 'dont exist yet and would need to be engineered' that I couldn't see it making it as a company.
Like seriously, i was able to look this up on wikipedia in the timespan of their demo pitch.
Notably, one early investor said, in interviews, that he was comfortable investing because Holmes' grandfather was a businessman, and another relative was a famous doctor (presumably the theory was that she was thus _genetically_ good at medical tech businesses?!). These were, by and large, very much the opposite of sophisticated investors.