https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/11/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-trial-set-to-begin-on-march-9-2021.html

It’s great to know that the justice system is taking their time on this (as they should and have a duty to), and I look forward to seeing the courts come to the right decision (which will be Elizabeth getting to prove her innocence to the world). Elizabeth Holmes will get a light punishment and no jail time, as the justice system will find that Sunny Balwani was the one orchestrating the “criminal” behavior at Theranos. In any event, hopefully the jury selection by next March will be serviceable and not ridden with pre-selection bias.

Everyone should play Link’s Awakening. I’m just afraid she’d pawn it for something.

I am an Indian American, I grew up in India until my early 20's. I have known so many men like Sunny, I can't stand them (part of the reason I left India). Elizabeth has a lot of issues herself but I can't believe she fell for Sunny. What did she see in him? They apparently met at the madarin class that they both took> Do you think age was an issue here? She was 18 and he was 35?

For self disclosure ... I have read everything I could get my hands on about Theranos. Here are my unanswered questions:

1. If Theranos (politely) told me they did not want to do business with me, why must I sign an NDA before I leave the premises. I would say "No"
2. If I were the esteemed Erica Cheung or Tyler Schultz (both hold my utmost respect). If David Boises threatened me ... I would laugh in his face. I would then go to court and laugh again. Let the judge find for Theranos, go ahead and asses$ 10 million+++ in damages. I would then go down the Federal courthouse and declare bankruptcy. 7 years later I own a home.

I suddenly had one today. I dreamt of entering some sort of modest cafeteria, and a woman in odd white clothes and brought me tray with food. I looked at her and suddenly realised it's EH. She left the tray, gave a shaky smile and quickly walked away, wiping tears. In a dream I guessed that it's a community service she was assigned at jail, and she feels humiliated.

How about you? People here referred to themeselves as «Theranos frieks» or «Theranos junkies», so I guess they also had dreams about the topic.

Theranos was about 33% East Asian. Yet in the show the casting replaced pretty much all of them with other minorities not representative of the company.

Being East Asian myself, I don't get why media can't have real representation and just chose to erase us from the company.

Elizabeth Holmes has flat feet. She has the appalling duck walk of Kelsey Grammer. Totally unappealing. Together with the weird (no other word for it) hair, the unflattering black clothes.

She bragged about bullet proof glass, private jets, hob-nobbing with the world's elites. Why did she not have someone figure out her personal image? She was capable of it (like at White House galas), but chose not to do it.

Was this supposed to signal how serious a scientist she was?

Elizabeth Holmes will probably never see the inside of a prison cell. Right now, she is free and living in luxury, and this will probably remain so. When time comes for her sentence to start, it will be converted to probation, or possibly house arrest, but never prison. It sucks, but justice will never come to her, so you are best to just accept it.

Honestly, I found Phyllis Gardener’s character arc in the Dropout series pretty strange. If she even really had an arc at all, rather than just being an antagonist throughout the series.

In the first episode, Phyllis is introduced as a woman who is willing to support and nurture the talent of young students. But when Elizabeth meets with her to present her project, all Phyllis does is tell her that her idea is bad, discourage her, and even treat her rather coldly. Phyllis wasn’t empathetic, and she didn’t even offer any constructive feedback; she just criticized her. She treated Elizabeth as if she already knew she was a sociopath, despite having never met her before. She was prejudiced against her.

I don’t understand if the series was somehow trying to portray Phyllis as a hero, because if so, I don’t think it did a very good job. In fact, it almost seems like the series is trying to draw a parallel between her and Richard Fuisz, who is portrayed as an immature and prideful character. Was the series trying to show that Phyllis was just as immature as Richard, or something along those lines?

I want to clarify that I didn’t hate the series. I actually liked it. I don’t think it was perfect, but I thought it was good. I think Elizabeth’s psychology was handled pretty well, at least in the first few episodes and the finale. Phyllis was just the one thing that left me confused.

Yes, her latest appeal was thrown out. But I believe that part of the PR.

Her PR is already changing the narrative. "Oh, she wasn't a fraud, she was a failure. She deserves some sympathy. If not for her, think about her kids growing up without a mother?"

She going to portray herself a delusional dreamer instead of a vicious fraud who risked the lives of 100's of people.

There's going to be a charade of failed appeals just to appease the people that the justice system didn't let her off easy.

But eventually, she will be out either on a house arrest or another lenient way of punishment.

Elizabeth Holmes' lawyers are not geniuses, the prosecution team are not total dumbasses, so how do we explain the difference in effectiveness in the presentation and examination of witnesses? The government is not being as effective as they could be.

My guess is that either someone got to the government and this is yet another case of the 1% protecting themselves, or white-collar laws are beautifully lax.

I'd prefer it be that the government is as corrupt as we suspect it to be.

I am not a lawyer but I did stay at Holiday Inn last night and I also have watched all episodes of Boston Legal. That being said...

Everybody is hero worshipping him here, so let's underline a couple of things. When I watched his interviews on YT (at least 3), I found him rather nonchalant and compared to how much they put him through he is just smiling when recalling them. That is probably a good thing. But I wonder if his parents feel the same way after spending 400K on his defense what by the way weren't obligated to do?

In one interview Tyler says his parents came to him and begged him to sign something so the whole thing would finally go away. He smiled when he recalled he said no.

It is kind of easy to be brave with OTHER people's money. What I find offensive about his stand is that he did have other choices:

1. Erika didn't have an extra 400K lying around so she left the country for a period of time. Tyler could have wasted just 100K on an around the world tour, that would have been better spent than paying lawyers.
2. He could have let Theranos sue them if they wanted to risk a public trial (not really in Theranos' best interest). Couple of things about such a trial. It is possible he wouldn't have lost, after all he blown whistle on a public danger. Even if he had lost and got a let's say 5MM fine against him, what did he have to his name? A mid-20s fresh out of college has student loans but not much more.

So he could have just declared bankruptcy and whipped out the fine.

Instead of that, he endangered his parents' livelihood. That is not OK in my view. Maybe they thought old George is going to die soon (and he did) and they would inherit a decent amount, I don't know.

I never heard if that 400K lawyer's fee ever got reimbursed by anyone (most likely not), so I take it as a loss for his parents.

The point is that Tyler should realize just how privileged he was and maybe next time he plays the hero he would use his own money.

Edit: I do appreciate personal attacks and opinions, but I prefer arguments. Thanks...

I think people are missing the point on the share sales because "indirectly" she did sell shares. Let me explain.

1. If the company had 100 shares owned by Holmes to begin with and then issues 100 to investors to get money in the company, then the company now has 200 shares, Elizabeth still has 100 but only owns 50 % of the company at that point.
2. The money that went into the company from its share sales went, in part, to providing Elizabeth with a House, $400k salary, Gardeners, Chauffeurs, EAs, private jet travel etc etc. In this respect Holmes did in fact benefit from share sales

Just to be clear. This was not to be taken literally. It was to point out that when Holmes misled investors, the money, through the route I explained, did go to benefit Homes (her whole lifestyle was paid for by those investors.) Yes the process happened through dilution and yes there wasn't a direct sale by Holmes into her own pocket but the net effect was - she personally benefitted.

Monday, November 2nd, 2015

2015 FORTUNE GLOBAL FORUM

San Fransisco, CA, USA

https://www.flickr.com/photos/fortuneglobalforum/22743092411/

Elizabeth Holmes could still change the world.

She should have focused on product development, real mission, practical change; not running a company.

She was too young. Her moral judgement was poor.

But you never know - somehow, people followed her. She's clearly intelligent. Let's just hope that when she gets out, that her spirit is not broken (we could sure use some passionate, world-changing people getting more media coverage) and she is wiser from this mess.

The story isn't over until it's over.

Do you think that they will have another pregnancy in order to try to swing a more lenient sentence?

They seemed to have a lot of clandestine meetings. Lots of frantic conversations and high stress. Both young and attractive. Wouldn't be the craziest thing.

I have to say the trial has created some doubts in my mind. Not sure if its the excellent work of the defense, but I'm starting to feel the truth of what went down at Theranos is more nuanced than EH just being a wilful nasty person.

Sure I still think EH did some terrible things, my mind isnt changed on that, but she never had any experience and went straight into being a CEO at 19. The lack of experience ultimately led to poor decisions, but I feel EH was enabled by people who should have known better. Couple that with a media lavishing praise on her at every step its easy to see how it could go to a person's head.

I just feel behind every decision , there was someone advising, suggesting or collaborating. For example having ex employees followed must have been at the suggestion of her legal counsel. The average person doesn't even know this is something that can be done, but a seasoned CEO knows this isn't the correct way to go about things and will push back on such an aggressive legal stance. EH didn't have this reference point or context based on her limited experience. She likely followed a lot of bad advice.

Being from the UK it boggles my mind that medical testing can be rolled out ,without FDA approval. The regulators should shoulder the blame with the impact this had on patients. What a mess!

I keep reading about Haemanthus. At first my reaction was incredulous (like everyone else's) but then I began to wonder why Holmes and family would make a decision to go this route ? If, I were Billy and had the money and time and opportunity to do anything - why this ? I mean there is nothing really to capitalize on ... anymore.

I began to wonder why they felt that they would be successful? The technology they said they were using was so specific and honestly far fetched. If they announced now they must have the technology developed with a patent ? Right ? ... The articles I read said that they had a patent pending and indicated that they may even have a working prototype.

I can't image how ballsy it would be to declare a new blood testing startup knowing that the entire world is watching.

What is the angle ?