Scrutable

Woodchopper wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 10:17 am In terms of Holmes' sentencing, from what I understand she also set up the company in such a way that defrauding patients was an inevitable part of the business.

You can say the same of a delivery company that is financially viable only if its drivers break speed limits, so as to reduce the cost per delivery. Even though the chief executive sets the drivers delivery targets that can only be met by speeding, it is still drivers who committed speeding offences, not the chief executive.

Holmes was the face of Theranos, that impressed, dazzled and seduced exceedingly clever and prominent people, the kind of people you don't think would fall for a scam. She was so good she got $125m out of Rupert Murdoch. She got prominent, but very old people, such as George Schulz and Henry Kissinger, to market her scam for her. But Sunny Balwani was very much the force behind the scenes, and in her bed. It was he who in practice acted so as to take legal responsibility for the law-breaking in the lab. He did the dirty work, and there was a lot of that. It doesn't seem inappropriate to me he ended up with a longer sentence.

George Shultz was possibly besotted by Holmes, and brought other people in: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/ ... eth-holmes

Round Two: Elizabeth Holmes' partner raises millions for new biotech testing startup. Oh, wait, no, despite appearances:

Haemanthus added: "This is not Theranos 2.0."

This time with AI!

Sciolus wrote: Mon May 12, 2025 7:15 pm Round Two: Elizabeth Holmes' partner raises millions for new biotech testing startup. Oh, wait, no, despite appearances:

Haemanthus added: "This is not Theranos 2.0."

This time with AI!

The end of the article reads,

The company's January patent said the light detection tool can be used to test "biological material," citing examples including sweat, urine, saliva. The technology can also conduct diagnostic tests using a small sample of blood.

That second sentence was, of course, the false claim Theranos made. Holmes had the arrogance to believe that she would solve the problem of doing mechanical tests on small samples of blood, when in truth she had no idea of how to solve it. She hadn't got a proper understanding of the difficulties others had characterised, let alone an idea of how to overcome what others were well aware of and had failed to overcome.

Of course, "small" is a relative term, and could be used as a descriptor for the usual size of blood sample, which anyone can handle.