"He's a wolf."
February 21, 2019 11:46 AM Subscribe
“She never looks back”: Inside Elizabeth Holmes's Chilling Final Months at Theranos - At the end, Theranos was overrun by a dog defecating in the boardroom, nearly a dozen law firms on retainer, and a C.E.O. grinning through her teeth about an implausible turnaround. (prev, prev, prev, prev)
Yeah I came away from the article feeling bad for that dog. Anyone too untroubled to google how to house-train a puppy and then put in the few hours required to do it certainly isn't going to be a good dog owner.
posted by allkindsoftime at 12:01 PM on February 21, 2019 [19 favorites]
posted by allkindsoftime at 12:01 PM on February 21, 2019 [19 favorites]
When reputable sources are screaming at you that a startup's claims are physically impossible.... you might want to check into things.
posted by Cosine at 12:11 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Cosine at 12:11 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
I like how the board eventually came around to demanding a basic apples-to-apples comparison with other, similar products, she agreed, and then just kept bullshitting them over even those outcomes.
posted by salt grass at 12:14 PM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by salt grass at 12:14 PM on February 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
Not negating her role or actions, but discussing who's telling the stories, and how: Elizabeth Holmes’ Downfall Has Been Explained Deeply—By Men (Virginia Heffernan for Wired, July 19, 2018)
In May, the journalist John Carreyrou, who made Theranos his white whale for years, published Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, a potboiler about the company; I devoured it. But it didn’t slake my thirst for enlightenment about that epochal evildoer: Holmes herself. Holmes herself.posted by filthy light thief at 12:18 PM on February 21, 2019 [40 favorites]
Holmes is no one’s maidservant or adjunct. She’s not Imelda Marcos or Ivanka Trump or Kellyanne Conway. Holmes is the master puppeteer of Theranos. It’s clear in Bad Blood that it was she—and no one else—who managed to drive the company’s value up to $9 billion without a working product; and she alone who was able to win unholy investments of trust, as well as a whopping $900 million from superstar investors, including education secretary Betsy DeVos and her family ($100 million) and good old Rupert Murdoch ($125 million). Holmes, in the book and now the indictments, comes off like a cheat, a pyramid schemer, an evil scientist, for heaven’s sake.
She’s also a woman. And we’re not used to self-made young female oligarchs lying outrageously, fleecing the hell out of other billionaires and conducting thunderous symphonies of global deception. There’s no American template for a powerful woman gone so gravely wrong. Holmes wasn’t insane. She wasn’t dissembling all those years to care for a sick child, or pursue another altruistic, if desperate, end. It wasn’t men, either. Though some have tried, she can’t—as the facts are laid out in Carreyrou’s book—be explained away as a victim of her deputy, sometime boyfriend and codefendant Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. She wasn’t caving in to patriarchy.
...
In Bad Blood, Holmes is almost always filtered through a man’s apprehension of her. As man after man reports it in the book, her signature misdeed was seduction and betrayal. She’s described as “hypnotic,” and men repeatedly regard her as an enchantress, a blond cipher who spun a mesmeric tale about a world-historical blood-sucking widget. But in these stories the flip side of Holmes is—brace yourself—a bitch who crushed the men who questioned her.
“She had these older men in her life whom she manipulated,” Carreyrou said recently on This Week in Startups.
That’s fun for a cartoon. And each of the guys in Carreyrou’s book has a full spectrum of vices and virtues: greed, honesty, irony, arrogance, etc. But while the men get to be flesh-and-blood moral agents, with full subjectivities and rich imaginative lives, Holmes in their telling falls flat.
That’s why I decided to listen to Holmes herself. She didn’t talk to Carreyrou for his book, understandably; she has no jailhouse ramblings—yet. But she has been giving talks now for a decade. So I watched them all.
...
Like many who sell blind faith, Holmes’ pitch turned on gravitas, pathos, and invocations of pain and suffering. She trafficked, quite literally, in blood; she promised Theranos would save lives in hospitals, in homes, and on the battlefield. Bernie Madoff would never have sounded so earnest. P. T. Barnum would never have played his con as morally urgent. But that’s why Holmes was—for a time—the billionaire they never were.
Eventually Holmes, like so many of us, got what she feared most: a whole universe of people who don’t believe in her. Holmes’s extraordinary gift was for tragedy. With Theranos, she pulled it off.
"Holmes had also spent $100,000 on a single conference table."
Jesus Christ, I know this is hardly the craziest expense in the world for dumbass businesses, but I would still like to see anyone involved with the production or purchasing of a 100,000 table or any other furniture be forcibly chained to the table for the rest of their lives. No furniture should cost 100,000, full stop. No business should purchase a 100,000 piece of furniture when a cheap equivalent is available and there are employees around to feed and pay. If profit is wages stolen from the worker, then I don't know what the fuck horrible thing your company dropping 100k on a table is.
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:33 PM on February 21, 2019 [42 favorites]
Jesus Christ, I know this is hardly the craziest expense in the world for dumbass businesses, but I would still like to see anyone involved with the production or purchasing of a 100,000 table or any other furniture be forcibly chained to the table for the rest of their lives. No furniture should cost 100,000, full stop. No business should purchase a 100,000 piece of furniture when a cheap equivalent is available and there are employees around to feed and pay. If profit is wages stolen from the worker, then I don't know what the fuck horrible thing your company dropping 100k on a table is.
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:33 PM on February 21, 2019 [42 favorites]
Yeah, that dog is a wolf the way Theranos was a blood-testing company.
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:38 PM on February 21, 2019 [11 favorites]
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:38 PM on February 21, 2019 [11 favorites]
No furniture should cost 100,000, full stop.
Depends on the table, really. Something the size of a conference table, entirely hand-made using exotic woods by some lone artisan off in their north-woods workshop? If that's the case, then, yeah, I could see that easily being $100k.
No business should purchase a 100,000 piece of furniture when a cheap equivalent is available and there are employees around to feed and pay.
I agree with this, though. It's an outrageous spend for a company to make.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:41 PM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
Depends on the table, really. Something the size of a conference table, entirely hand-made using exotic woods by some lone artisan off in their north-woods workshop? If that's the case, then, yeah, I could see that easily being $100k.
No business should purchase a 100,000 piece of furniture when a cheap equivalent is available and there are employees around to feed and pay.
I agree with this, though. It's an outrageous spend for a company to make.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:41 PM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
GoblinHoney, did you know that is less than half what Kean University spent on a conference table?
posted by fings at 12:43 PM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by fings at 12:43 PM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
No furniture should cost 100,000, full stop.
You think that's bad? She had a publicist on retainer for $25K a month. That's 3 conference tables a year.
posted by allkindsoftime at 12:46 PM on February 21, 2019 [16 favorites]
You think that's bad? She had a publicist on retainer for $25K a month. That's 3 conference tables a year.
posted by allkindsoftime at 12:46 PM on February 21, 2019 [16 favorites]
And Holmes desperately wants to write a book.
What's stopping her? Even if no one wanted to publish it, in this day and age there's no shame in a self-published book either. Heck, if Bezos can write that Medium post about his dick pics, surely there's room for Holmes to share her story.
posted by nubs at 12:47 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
What's stopping her? Even if no one wanted to publish it, in this day and age there's no shame in a self-published book either. Heck, if Bezos can write that Medium post about his dick pics, surely there's room for Holmes to share her story.
posted by nubs at 12:47 PM on February 21, 2019 [1 favorite]
People cosplaying the CEOs they see in movies and in TV.
Definitely this.
But something I've been thinking about as I listen to "The Dropout" podcast is how much the gullibility of the investors comes into this. Like, there was some guy on the podcast literally saying he believed her because of who some of her grandparents were. Like, he says she had one grandfather who was an entrepreneur and another a doctor so this literally means she's smart in those areas. Like it's inherited. I mean, if that kind of skill is inherited, then I should have my father's law degree, and more knowledge of actual blood testing than Elizabeth Holmes because that's what my mother did for a living for over 10 years.
And I said this earlier today in the tail end of last month's Theranos thread: if you're Stanford University, shouldn't you maybe be a little embarrassed at having George Shultz still on your faculty after this? I mean would you take a business class from a man who gleefully bought into a billion dollar fraud just because a pretty white girl "impressed" him? And then bullied his own grandson for confronting him with proof of the sham?
posted by dnash at 12:49 PM on February 21, 2019 [40 favorites]
Definitely this.
But something I've been thinking about as I listen to "The Dropout" podcast is how much the gullibility of the investors comes into this. Like, there was some guy on the podcast literally saying he believed her because of who some of her grandparents were. Like, he says she had one grandfather who was an entrepreneur and another a doctor so this literally means she's smart in those areas. Like it's inherited. I mean, if that kind of skill is inherited, then I should have my father's law degree, and more knowledge of actual blood testing than Elizabeth Holmes because that's what my mother did for a living for over 10 years.
And I said this earlier today in the tail end of last month's Theranos thread: if you're Stanford University, shouldn't you maybe be a little embarrassed at having George Shultz still on your faculty after this? I mean would you take a business class from a man who gleefully bought into a billion dollar fraud just because a pretty white girl "impressed" him? And then bullied his own grandson for confronting him with proof of the sham?
posted by dnash at 12:49 PM on February 21, 2019 [40 favorites]
*$100K conference table wonders if it needs to hire a lawyer or a publicist*
posted by gwint at 12:50 PM on February 21, 2019 [16 favorites]
posted by gwint at 12:50 PM on February 21, 2019 [16 favorites]
From the article: Around this same time, Holmes says that she discovered that Balto—like most huskies—had a tiny trace of wolf origin. Henceforth, she decided that Balto wasn’t really a dog, but rather a wolf. In meetings, at cafés, whenever anyone stopped to pet the pup and ask his breed, Holmes soberly replied, “He’s a wolf.”
Yeah, this explains a lot about Theranos's approach to science
posted by The River Ivel at 12:51 PM on February 21, 2019 [56 favorites]
Yeah, this explains a lot about Theranos's approach to science
posted by The River Ivel at 12:51 PM on February 21, 2019 [56 favorites]
The LRB review of Bad Blood refers to Holmes having adopted the slogan `What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?'
Which slogan has been utterly infuriating me since it became popular, so I hope it goes down to mockery by association.
posted by clew at 12:57 PM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
Which slogan has been utterly infuriating me since it became popular, so I hope it goes down to mockery by association.
posted by clew at 12:57 PM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
Heck, if Bezos can write that Medium post about his dick pics, surely there's room for Holmes to share her story.
Bezos certainly isn't a saint, but what a weird framing this is. He didn't post dick pics, he was publicly responding to an attempted blackmail.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:58 PM on February 21, 2019 [28 favorites]
Bezos certainly isn't a saint, but what a weird framing this is. He didn't post dick pics, he was publicly responding to an attempted blackmail.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:58 PM on February 21, 2019 [28 favorites]
No furniture should cost 100,000, full stop.
A big fancy conference table can easily cost well into 5 figures, especially if you include installation/transport. It's a big, heavy, custom designed object.
$100K is pricy, but not totally unreasonable for a successful company to spend if they want a impressive way to project the image of their power and success.
For an unsuccessful company to project the same impression it makes even more sense.
posted by AndrewStephens at 1:11 PM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
A big fancy conference table can easily cost well into 5 figures, especially if you include installation/transport. It's a big, heavy, custom designed object.
$100K is pricy, but not totally unreasonable for a successful company to spend if they want a impressive way to project the image of their power and success.
For an unsuccessful company to project the same impression it makes even more sense.
posted by AndrewStephens at 1:11 PM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
No business should purchase a 100,000 piece of furniture when a cheap equivalent is available and there are employees around to feed and pay.
The point of the $100,000 conference table was to con the board of the company that sits at it. An entirely reasonable business expense. Cheap even.
posted by srboisvert at 1:13 PM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
The point of the $100,000 conference table was to con the board of the company that sits at it. An entirely reasonable business expense. Cheap even.
posted by srboisvert at 1:13 PM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
Young bright ambitous person raises serious coin by faking it till they make it...burns through the coin but never quite executes--then post implosion gets to keep the resume entry, past salary and perks and the souvenir Aeron Chair... That's the tech sector's most common trope and it harks back to the mid to late 1990s.
posted by Fupped Duck at 1:18 PM on February 21, 2019 [11 favorites]
posted by Fupped Duck at 1:18 PM on February 21, 2019 [11 favorites]
The thing that strikes me most about all of this villainizing of Holmes is that as far as I can tell this is how modern capitalism works: Some charismatic leader raises funds and emotionally abuses underlings with low self-esteem until they either produce miracles, or don't. The board had to know exactly what was going on, because this is how big plays operate: nobody at the top understands the technology, they're just big enough assholes to convince the other big assholes to toss some money around until the peons who actually can execute manage to do so. Or not.
And I don't think it's a coincidence at all that her board contained so many people who were instrumental in US foreign policy. That's a long history of dick-waving and abuse and occasionally underlings performing miracles that the assholes take misappropriated credit for.
posted by straw at 1:48 PM on February 21, 2019 [24 favorites]
And I don't think it's a coincidence at all that her board contained so many people who were instrumental in US foreign policy. That's a long history of dick-waving and abuse and occasionally underlings performing miracles that the assholes take misappropriated credit for.
posted by straw at 1:48 PM on February 21, 2019 [24 favorites]
Nobody is saying that the con is exactly unique in the history of capitalism or anything. What's unusual is the scale, and also the audaciousness of it: the product was basically vaporware, and lots of people pointed that out, but people were still throwing good money after bad.
Generally some investor will pull the plug before a startup gets to the size Theranos did.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:55 PM on February 21, 2019 [10 favorites]
Generally some investor will pull the plug before a startup gets to the size Theranos did.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:55 PM on February 21, 2019 [10 favorites]
$100K is pricy, but not totally unreasonable for a successful company to spend if they want a impressive way to project the image of their power and success.
For an unsuccessful company to project the same impression it makes even more sense.
It's absolutely unreasonable, just because the goals it set for itself are likewise absurd doesn't come back around and make me think it's okay to blow money in that way. A company doing this has too much money, that money should either be taken in taxes or distributed to the workers in some way that isn't gilded waste.
posted by GoblinHoney at 1:55 PM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]
For an unsuccessful company to project the same impression it makes even more sense.
It's absolutely unreasonable, just because the goals it set for itself are likewise absurd doesn't come back around and make me think it's okay to blow money in that way. A company doing this has too much money, that money should either be taken in taxes or distributed to the workers in some way that isn't gilded waste.
posted by GoblinHoney at 1:55 PM on February 21, 2019 [6 favorites]
I appreciated the link that filthy light thief posted above; Heffernan is probably one of Wired's better writers, even when I don't agree with her. But I think that explaining Holmes' getting so far on virtually nothing (at least as far as Theranos producing actual, useful products) starts with and was sustained by her family connections. Her dad was a vice-president at Enron before shuffling through a variety of executive branch positions; her great-grandfather married the Fleischmann's Yeast heir and founded a hospital and medical school in Cincinnati. I'm guessing that that's how she got all the heavy hitters on the board from, and likely got a lot of her quasi-messianic, can't-fail attitude from being born on third base and thinking she was Hank Aaron.
And, even if I didn't know anything else about her, I wouldn't trust someone who lies about their dog's breed, whether they have a multigenerational prize-winning pedigree or are the muttiest of mutts.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:59 PM on February 21, 2019 [29 favorites]
And, even if I didn't know anything else about her, I wouldn't trust someone who lies about their dog's breed, whether they have a multigenerational prize-winning pedigree or are the muttiest of mutts.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:59 PM on February 21, 2019 [29 favorites]
What's unusual is the scale, and also the audaciousness of it: the product was basically vaporware, and lots of people pointed that out, but people were still throwing good money after bad.
And that they did all of this in a highly regulated industry. It's one thing to blow a few hundred million building some stupid website that delivers pet food, it's quite another to "build" equipment that aids doctors in the diagnoses of medical conditions. It's at least plausible that Holmes and Balwani's grift could have killed someone.
posted by Frayed Knot at 2:18 PM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
And that they did all of this in a highly regulated industry. It's one thing to blow a few hundred million building some stupid website that delivers pet food, it's quite another to "build" equipment that aids doctors in the diagnoses of medical conditions. It's at least plausible that Holmes and Balwani's grift could have killed someone.
posted by Frayed Knot at 2:18 PM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
What's unusual is the scale, and also the audaciousness of it:
Yeah, remember they actually built fake machines that played videos to make it look like they were working, and then printed out fake test results. I do not understand how Holmes and Balwani can bother claiming "not guilty" when the extent of the blatant fraud includes fake machines running fake tests. I mean, I suppose playing the capitalist investing game usually requires a bit of bravado, but when you build a room full of fake machines that do nothing but print lies, then you're not really even in the actual business world anymore at all, you're all-out scammer.
posted by dnash at 2:31 PM on February 21, 2019 [23 favorites]
Yeah, remember they actually built fake machines that played videos to make it look like they were working, and then printed out fake test results. I do not understand how Holmes and Balwani can bother claiming "not guilty" when the extent of the blatant fraud includes fake machines running fake tests. I mean, I suppose playing the capitalist investing game usually requires a bit of bravado, but when you build a room full of fake machines that do nothing but print lies, then you're not really even in the actual business world anymore at all, you're all-out scammer.
posted by dnash at 2:31 PM on February 21, 2019 [23 favorites]
Some charismatic leader raises funds and emotionally abuses underlings with low self-esteem until they either produce miracles, or don't.
This is an amazing summary of every job I've ever had and currently have. Thank you.
posted by bleep at 2:44 PM on February 21, 2019 [17 favorites]
This is an amazing summary of every job I've ever had and currently have. Thank you.
posted by bleep at 2:44 PM on February 21, 2019 [17 favorites]
I feel sorry for the dog, and now the conference table as well.
posted by orrnyereg at 2:44 PM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by orrnyereg at 2:44 PM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
'What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?'
Uber, but for conference tables.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:05 PM on February 21, 2019 [17 favorites]
Uber, but for conference tables.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:05 PM on February 21, 2019 [17 favorites]
if you're Stanford University, shouldn't you maybe be a little embarrassed at having George Shultz still on your faculty after this?
Much worse was "Mad Dog" Mattis whose job on the board was to sell this snake oil to his old buddies in the military, the ultimate golden goose. This garbage could have gotten lots of soldiers killed and yet Mattis ended up running the Defense Department a year later.
posted by JackFlash at 3:26 PM on February 21, 2019 [14 favorites]
Much worse was "Mad Dog" Mattis whose job on the board was to sell this snake oil to his old buddies in the military, the ultimate golden goose. This garbage could have gotten lots of soldiers killed and yet Mattis ended up running the Defense Department a year later.
posted by JackFlash at 3:26 PM on February 21, 2019 [14 favorites]
People cosplaying the CEOs they see in movies and in TV.
More specifically, Batman and 007. Doesn't translate well into real life.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:41 PM on February 21, 2019
More specifically, Batman and 007. Doesn't translate well into real life.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:41 PM on February 21, 2019
'What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?'
Fly by flapping my arms?
Move objects with my mind?
Throw away all my remote controls and operate my TV just by thinking at it?
Eat chocolate and Indian snack mix all day without gaining weight?
posted by Bugbread at 3:42 PM on February 21, 2019 [11 favorites]
Fly by flapping my arms?
Move objects with my mind?
Throw away all my remote controls and operate my TV just by thinking at it?
Eat chocolate and Indian snack mix all day without gaining weight?
posted by Bugbread at 3:42 PM on February 21, 2019 [11 favorites]
Balto isn't a wolf, you colossal shithead, stop saying that. The "wolfdog" thing is inane and terrible and gets dogs killed.
Shelters can't take in wolves or part-wolves, in part because they have no approved rabies vaccine. A dog believed to be wholly or partially a wolf is much higher at risk of destruction if it behaves erratically or needs rehomed.
Lying about dogs' wolf content endangers dogs, because people who fall for your crap become likelier to identify anything pointy-eared and light-eyed and fluffy as a "wolfdog."
posted by bagel at 3:45 PM on February 21, 2019 [23 favorites]
Shelters can't take in wolves or part-wolves, in part because they have no approved rabies vaccine. A dog believed to be wholly or partially a wolf is much higher at risk of destruction if it behaves erratically or needs rehomed.
Lying about dogs' wolf content endangers dogs, because people who fall for your crap become likelier to identify anything pointy-eared and light-eyed and fluffy as a "wolfdog."
posted by bagel at 3:45 PM on February 21, 2019 [23 favorites]
This quote from the article stopped me cold
posted by Nelson at 3:52 PM on February 21, 2019 [16 favorites]
Silicon Valley can often feel like a lawless place, and for good reason. Many of the people who run the largest technology companies on earth don’t often suffer the consequences of their actions. Despite their unequivocal role in upending our democracy, Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg still run Facebook. Dorsey is still the C.E.O. of Twitter, even though he has not been forthright about the number of bots on the service, and has done almost nothing to stop the spread of hate speech on his platform. The C.E.O. of Tesla, Elon Musk, has been charged with securities fraud, and yet he’s still running the companyThe Theranos scam is still unique in being health-threatening and so big, literally the entire company's product. But this observation about consequences of their actions seems very insightful. As the article notes, so far Holmes hasn't really suffered any consequences either.
posted by Nelson at 3:52 PM on February 21, 2019 [16 favorites]
Employees who were still at Theranos at the time describe Newark(,CA) as “crummy” and a “shithole.”The most honest statement ever produced by Theranos employees.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 4:02 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
Employees who were still at Theranos at the time describe Newark(,CA) as “crummy” and a “shithole.”
The real give away was that they had a $1 million a month showroom office on Page Hill Road, VC ground zero, that served no other purpose than to con venture capitalists. All the real workers were in Newark.
posted by JackFlash at 4:21 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
The real give away was that they had a $1 million a month showroom office on Page Hill Road, VC ground zero, that served no other purpose than to con venture capitalists. All the real workers were in Newark.
posted by JackFlash at 4:21 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
Now wait a minute. Lumping Miyamoto's quirky hobby in with some seriously batshit CEO stuff is out of bounds. Miyamoto carries a tape measure in his pocket, Thiel thirsts for the blood of teenagers, they're just all so kooky!
posted by ulotrichous at 4:25 PM on February 21, 2019 [18 favorites]
posted by ulotrichous at 4:25 PM on February 21, 2019 [18 favorites]
that money should...distributed to the workers in some way that isn't gilded waste.
Like to the workers that made the table?
posted by LoveHam at 4:44 PM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
Like to the workers that made the table?
posted by LoveHam at 4:44 PM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
"someone mistook their combination of intelligence and charisma for genius and told them they were geniuses, which they believed"
I believe a more accurate statement would be: Someone mistook their apparent combination of intelligence and charisma, which was actually symptomatic of a disorder somewhere on the spectrum of sociopathy/psychopathy/malignant narcissism, for genius.
posted by CosmicRayCharles at 4:48 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
I believe a more accurate statement would be: Someone mistook their apparent combination of intelligence and charisma, which was actually symptomatic of a disorder somewhere on the spectrum of sociopathy/psychopathy/malignant narcissism, for genius.
posted by CosmicRayCharles at 4:48 PM on February 21, 2019 [2 favorites]
There's a lot about this that left me wondering. Like, who is the guy who is engaged to her? I guess he comes from money too so they might both be grifter sharks.
Re the Stanford faculty -- the doctor who examined the children in the McMartin preschool case, and swore in court they had been abused is still a faculty member at USC and still consults for the county in child abuse cases. You can do a lot of harm in this country and just keep on trucking if you have a faculty position and the Right People behind you.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 4:50 PM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
Re the Stanford faculty -- the doctor who examined the children in the McMartin preschool case, and swore in court they had been abused is still a faculty member at USC and still consults for the county in child abuse cases. You can do a lot of harm in this country and just keep on trucking if you have a faculty position and the Right People behind you.
posted by threementholsandafuneral at 4:50 PM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
When I founded my last startup, I bought used office furniture out of a warehouse in Santa Clara. I got like-new Steelcase Leaps for $225/ea, paid cash on the loading dock, and hauled them home in my mom's minivan. I assume the guys selling them bought them at auction from a better-funded startup that had failed.
posted by ryanrs at 4:53 PM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by ryanrs at 4:53 PM on February 21, 2019 [7 favorites]
I'm still working my way through the article, but there's some serious irony in naming the dog that was supposed to represent the company "Balto"... because the actual lead dog that did the hard work was Togo. Balto just was the dog at the end that got the flashy news headlines.
Rather fitting for a company built on using other company's products and passing it off as their own.
posted by ultranos at 6:03 PM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
Rather fitting for a company built on using other company's products and passing it off as their own.
posted by ultranos at 6:03 PM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]
Although Balto (either of them) is a Good Boy who does not deserve to be associated with any of Theranos.
posted by ultranos at 6:19 PM on February 21, 2019 [14 favorites]
posted by ultranos at 6:19 PM on February 21, 2019 [14 favorites]
One can easily imagine her charming any jury, should it ever come to that. I'm reminded of this bit from The Onion.
posted by fredludd at 7:56 PM on February 21, 2019
posted by fredludd at 7:56 PM on February 21, 2019
A project I'm on just hit $125,000 a month in recurring revenue. Or as I will describe it in the office tomorrow, "a conference table and it's publicist every month".
posted by davejay at 11:46 PM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by davejay at 11:46 PM on February 21, 2019 [5 favorites]
`What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?'
It's a tangent, but I'm not entirely sure what it says about me that my immediate knee-jerk answer was "Rob a bank".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:27 AM on February 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
It's a tangent, but I'm not entirely sure what it says about me that my immediate knee-jerk answer was "Rob a bank".
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:27 AM on February 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
Silicon Valley can often feel like a lawless place, and for good reason. Many of the people who run the largest technology companies on earth don’t often suffer the consequences of their actions. Despite their unequivocal role in upending our democracy, Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg still run Facebook. Dorsey is still the C.E.O. of Twitter, even though he has not been forthright about the number of bots on the service, and has done almost nothing to stop the spread of hate speech on his platform. The C.E.O. of Tesla, Elon Musk, has been charged with securities fraud, and yet he’s still running the company
I had the opposite reaction to this that Nelson did, I don't think it's that insightful.
None of those people have defrauded their shareholders which is what matters in Silicon Valley (Elon Musk is the only one who broke the law and he only messed with short interests). Like most pirate kingdoms, Silicon Valley has many important unspoken rules. A pirate ship is not a lawless place, an unsuccessful pirate captain will find himself not the captain very soon. I can't recall where I read it, but it was a comment about family revenge killings (In Albania, maybe?), and it said that the problem was not that it was a "lawless" place. The problem was that the law was very clear - you must avenge family honour - and it was bad.
"Silicon Valley" and modern capitalism more generally is bad because it operates according to a ruthless code of its own and not because there is no code.
posted by atrazine at 4:26 AM on February 22, 2019 [6 favorites]
I had the opposite reaction to this that Nelson did, I don't think it's that insightful.
None of those people have defrauded their shareholders which is what matters in Silicon Valley (Elon Musk is the only one who broke the law and he only messed with short interests). Like most pirate kingdoms, Silicon Valley has many important unspoken rules. A pirate ship is not a lawless place, an unsuccessful pirate captain will find himself not the captain very soon. I can't recall where I read it, but it was a comment about family revenge killings (In Albania, maybe?), and it said that the problem was not that it was a "lawless" place. The problem was that the law was very clear - you must avenge family honour - and it was bad.
"Silicon Valley" and modern capitalism more generally is bad because it operates according to a ruthless code of its own and not because there is no code.
posted by atrazine at 4:26 AM on February 22, 2019 [6 favorites]
Jesus Christ, I know this is hardly the craziest expense in the world for dumbass businesses, but I would still like to see anyone involved with the production or purchasing of a 100,000 table or any other furniture be forcibly chained to the table for the rest of their lives. No furniture should cost 100,000, full stop. No business should purchase a 100,000 piece of furniture when a cheap equivalent is available and there are employees around to feed and pay. If profit is wages stolen from the worker, then I don't know what the fuck horrible thing your company dropping 100k on a table is.
I mean, that money probably went to pay artisans for making the table. It's easy to get upset about the kind of amounts and the kind of purchases that we're familiar with because they have emotional salience to us.
I imagine that for everyone reading this, $100k is either an aspirational income ("six figures" is totemic) or of the order of magnitude that they actually make. A realistic person who doesn't make nearly that much could still see themselves doing so (even if they never will or don't quite know how), it feels very real.
Even for "ordinary" working rich people like doctors, lawyers, other professionals, that is a lot of money to spend on a single item of furniture. I've bought tables, I know what they cost.
On the other hand, the $25k a month for publicist feels very different. Despite that being a lot more money. That's because none of us hire publicists with our own money so it gets categorised as just a number rather than real money.
It's actually a good prompt for thinking about why a fraud like this is bad.
The money that was invested in the company went to pay the wages of the people who worked there, this was a subsidy by wealthy people of [upper]middle class professionals which while not the height of social justice is still better than the original owners keeping it from a justice point of view.
The reason this was bad was that society has been deprived of the productive output of all that valuable labour. They could have worked on something real instead.
From an economic point of view, just giving the employees the money up front and letting them chill with their families for a few years would actually have been better because it would make the employees happy.
posted by atrazine at 4:44 AM on February 22, 2019 [4 favorites]
I mean, that money probably went to pay artisans for making the table. It's easy to get upset about the kind of amounts and the kind of purchases that we're familiar with because they have emotional salience to us.
I imagine that for everyone reading this, $100k is either an aspirational income ("six figures" is totemic) or of the order of magnitude that they actually make. A realistic person who doesn't make nearly that much could still see themselves doing so (even if they never will or don't quite know how), it feels very real.
Even for "ordinary" working rich people like doctors, lawyers, other professionals, that is a lot of money to spend on a single item of furniture. I've bought tables, I know what they cost.
On the other hand, the $25k a month for publicist feels very different. Despite that being a lot more money. That's because none of us hire publicists with our own money so it gets categorised as just a number rather than real money.
It's actually a good prompt for thinking about why a fraud like this is bad.
The money that was invested in the company went to pay the wages of the people who worked there, this was a subsidy by wealthy people of [upper]middle class professionals which while not the height of social justice is still better than the original owners keeping it from a justice point of view.
The reason this was bad was that society has been deprived of the productive output of all that valuable labour. They could have worked on something real instead.
From an economic point of view, just giving the employees the money up front and letting them chill with their families for a few years would actually have been better because it would make the employees happy.
posted by atrazine at 4:44 AM on February 22, 2019 [4 favorites]
Which Weird As Hell Tech Founder Are You?. A topical personality quiz by Metafilter's own Mat Honan. Inspired by this very story, I believe.
posted by Nelson at 7:35 AM on February 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 7:35 AM on February 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
$25K for the publicist? I can't tell if they were over- or underpaid.
posted by doctornemo at 7:42 AM on February 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by doctornemo at 7:42 AM on February 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
Instagram pictures of Holmes and her boyfriend. I feel a bit unclean posting this but since it came from the author of the article, I think it's probably relevant enough to be appropriate.
posted by Nelson at 8:03 AM on February 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Nelson at 8:03 AM on February 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
threementholsandafuneral: "Like, who is the guy who is engaged to her? I guess he comes from money too so they might both be grifter sharks."
Some light Reddit sleuthing suggests that he is indeed an heir to a family-owned hotel chain in Southern California.
posted by crazy with stars at 9:06 AM on February 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
Some light Reddit sleuthing suggests that he is indeed an heir to a family-owned hotel chain in Southern California.
posted by crazy with stars at 9:06 AM on February 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
He's an heir. She has Enron in the family. Wotta match!
posted by doctornemo at 11:08 AM on February 22, 2019
posted by doctornemo at 11:08 AM on February 22, 2019
The impression I get from Homes (and the Fyre Festiva guy) is that at some crucial point in their lives, someone mistook their combination of intelligence and charisma for genius and told them they were geniuses, which they believed. They really thought they could do the impossible, when, really, impossible things aren’t possible. When that started to become clear, the denial crept in and ultimately led to fraud. Knowing fraud, to protect their self image as geniuses who can do the impossible. In both cases they responded to people raising problems by saying they were only interested in solutions. It’s “The Secret” as gospel, cargo cult management. People cosplaying the CEOs they see in movies and in TV.
A recruiting brochure blurb for an Ivy business school if I ever saw one.
posted by srboisvert at 11:10 AM on February 22, 2019
A recruiting brochure blurb for an Ivy business school if I ever saw one.
posted by srboisvert at 11:10 AM on February 22, 2019
Being responsible for the output capacity of a large capital project without executive input into scope nor veto power on executive requirements (showcase!), under a budget, and within multiple regulatory frameworks... I have no problems dropping $100k on a line item on an inventory.
What I would have problems with are the over-design for a conference table and that an ostentatious "corporate HQ" is even considered before real actual revenue coming in justified it.
"Cargo Cult CEO" and "as a prop to more effecitively con investors/ the board" are spot on, though.
posted by porpoise at 8:01 PM on February 22, 2019
What I would have problems with are the over-design for a conference table and that an ostentatious "corporate HQ" is even considered before real actual revenue coming in justified it.
"Cargo Cult CEO" and "as a prop to more effecitively con investors/ the board" are spot on, though.
posted by porpoise at 8:01 PM on February 22, 2019
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posted by Mogur at 11:57 AM on February 21, 2019 [9 favorites]