Elizabeth Holmes started Theranos in 2003, and the trick ran for 15 years. In 2015, I think it was, Rupert Murdoch, with his large media holdings, including the News Corporation and FoxNews, invested $125 million in Theranos, when it was raising some more money.
One reporter got interested in the story — John Carreyrou of the Wall Street Journal. After an attempt to block his first story failed, he got it published in 2015. More followed, and then a book [3].
Unlike the almost bare bones indictment of now former CNN producer John Griffin for sex crimes, the charging document against Elizabeth Holmes and Ramesh Balwani provides some detail, and can be displayed or downloaded. The charged counts beginning on page nine match the numbers on the jury’s verdict form–
However, for some reason (!), Rupert Murdoch’s $125 million investment in Theranos is not listed in counts three through eight, alleging payments solicited from investors as part of the scheme and artifice to defraud them.
The Walgreens drug stores got pulled into the con, but ended the relationship in 2016. The Theranos affair prompted a short case study by the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, to sell as a teaching tool. Its announcement in February 2021 included a professionally produced 3 minute, 22 second video promoting the six-page study–
http://cases.haas.berkeley.edu/2021/02/theranos/
At 1 minute, 13 seconds into the video, a face looking like that of White House administrator Joe Biden appears. Articles confirm that he, too, was drawn in when vice-president–
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Biden-makes-talks-health-care-at-medical-products-6402518.php
The case of the co-defendant, Ramesh Balwani, was severed out and he will be scheduled for a separate trial.
Theranos and its participants deserve much more scrutiny and public exposure than they have received. A young lady, barely in her 20’s, gets the 10 men who had prior significant positions in the federal government and business to be on the board of directors. And she pulls in a very large amount of invested money over time with nothing to show for it.
[1] https://turcopolier.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/elizabeth_holmes_theranos_jury_verdict.pdf
[2] http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2018/lr24069.htm
[3] John Carreyrou, “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup” (2018). ISBN number 9781 5247 3165 6.
a poem is called
a delightful perfume named theranos
Let these buttons that resist temptation
Hold fast and steady
May they fend off all forms of desperation
Always ever be ready
This leather belt upon my hip
May it never come undone
A worthy opponent will not slip
The battle always won
One day i smelt an enchanting fragrance
Of forest and sea
A subtle inviting elegance
I wondered what could it be
My curiosity aroused
I step through a door
There before me a figure caroused
Nothing like I had seen before
I wrestled with my emotion
But was easily overcome
Suddenly I felt a tingling commotion
In my sugar plum
Well buttons and belts are no match
For an intoxicating perfume
A trap set to snare a catch
Led me to my doom
“the trick ran for 15 years…”
The long con indeed. And as you point out she brought in a number of our “best and brightest”. I wonder what their part in the con, other than the ones who were suckers, might have been?
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2021-10-03/theranos-scandal-real-story-part-2-3
“In this way, Theranos technology would be able to fulfill its purpose regardless of whether it actually worked or not. It was created as an information weapon with which to manage future pandemics, convince the population that they were facing a health threat, that emergency measures were needed and that this or that kind of medication would be recommended or mandated.”
Experts said early on her company was fraud science but nobody would listen. Same was said about Bernie Madoff. Real experts eventually rolled their eyes at both of them once big names were associated with their fraud schemes. What can you do once they have the blessing of the Cathedral.
It would be instructive for the average Joe to learn more about who Elizabeth Holmes is in order to understand how she got access to all mentioned. Look at that list. More then access, she got hours of time explaining her product, process, and market to people with the money to make her idea go. Nothing illegal with that but imagine the chasm between what she could do with her family contacts and what the average Jane can not do. Life ain’t fair. Too bad her product is a bust. Multiple blood tests on a drop of blood are a good thing. At 75 I am a fan of the one drop of blood idea.
What does this say about the folks that ran US foreign policy, the CDC and some of the big titans that run corporate America?
If they could be duped by Ms. Holmes, how about the CCP and Putin?
It is very interesting to see that the people who fell for the fraudster Holmes are the same people who were in charge of American foreign policy and/or running the defence establishment for the last 20 years.
Geniuses all!
And also the Betsy DeVos who was running the American education system.
The face that launched a thousand chips. The big hitters thought they were hitting long shots, but obviously used the wrong club. The good news is that a common scam in Silicon Valley has been exposed, however briefly.
It strains credulity that such an august, worldly, sophisticated, experienced group of directors could fall for a long con by this young woman and her hindu boyfriend. Does no one do due diligence? The pay must have been good.
The hindu boyfriend had nothing to do with it.
It was a con by a young, nubile, blonde woman with family connections to reach powerful men who were thinking with their dicks, so couldn’t resist the temptation offered by the blonde. And on top of it, she acted like Steve Jobs – same black turtlenecks, cultivated baritone..
What could go wrong if you think with your balls? This!!
And if you think about it – this same bunch are in charge of the country. Don’t you think adversaries/corporates/contractors provide nubile, young blondes to these same folks to get favours?
I’ve read the book – she is a classic case of narcissistic personality disorder.
Any reports from the front lines of the current Wash DC Snowmeggdon?
Too bad, since the media is trying to have a Jan 6 “Insurrection” Reunion, and hopefully….. no one will show up. Wishing all well, and hope everyone is safely at home.
All
My internet was out all day because of the storm.
Deap
My back-up 20KW generator is running outside our family room window. It exercises itself once a week for 15 minutes to charge its starter battery and run calibration tests on itself. A re-assuring sound.
According to a long article in zero hedge, some months ago, it was the other way around. The big names had the idea and brought in Holmes as the spokesmodel;
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2021-10-02/theranos-scandal-real-story
I read that.In hindsight the investors stood to make a killing for covid testing.Hmmmmmmmm
Wonder if fauci it on was involved
Hard to believe profits were an important motivation, at least not the usual sort of profit from sale of a successful product. The company had ceased operation in 2018, before covid arrived.
No one did due diligence? With multiple, well-qualified scientists warning that the project was fatally flawed, surely the principle investors could only anticipate a possible profit on a very remote timeline, if ever.
Also, according to the story at zerohedge, this Board seemed uninterested, when trusted insiders (Schulz’ own grandson & a co-worker) with appropriate scientific skills, working inside the Theranos lab, reported to them that the technology did not work, that the company was faking results, using traditional blood testing. Instead the investment group actively sought to stop these two Theranos employees from repeating their report to anyone. Disinformation?
Given that the Theranos Board included security-state types, not scientists, one speculates whether there were other goals. Perhaps they sought proof of concept in a trial roll-out for centralized data collection from a community-based, national, blood testing program, for example? After Walgren’s and Safeway signed on to the concept, the next step would be putting a national infrastructure into place. It would not require fast tests at the outset.
Building the surveillance state has happened by incremental but steady steps so far, each crisis providing another public rationalization for greater state intrusion into, and monitoring of all individual lives, “to protect us.”
One shies away from another possible explanation, which does come to mind when a narrative is full of holes. Are too many of our leaders misguided idiots, whose hubris is greater than their knowledge and judgement?
What other explanations might explain the seeming determination of this curious assembly of investors to overlook all the signals that the project would or had failed? Things are not as they seem. Speculation is endless.
Interesting that Murdoch, as publisher of Wall St Journal, with a substantial investment in Theranos, did not interfere in the Wall Street Journal’s editorial decision to investigate and reveal the company’s fraud.
https://twitter.com/longshorttrader/status/1478580519042535429?s=21
Jim Cramer is a perfect metaphor for a weather vane. Rear view is what he’s good at. We’ve elevated charlatans across the board to run our institutions.