Meet The World's Latest Self-Made Multi-Billionaire: Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos

[Towgunner]

Every one of those big players thought they would do exactly that - get richer when Theranos went public. Trouble is, going public means a lot of scrutiny in the post Enron/Worldcom environment. But it is increasingly unlikely that a fake company with no real product and cooked books would be able to get to market. They can fake it till they make it while they are private up to a point, but good luck getting rid of any of those privately held shares.

And yes, it's tough for a woman to actually fail. When was the last time you saw a female homeless person? When you did, was she even moderately attractive? There's your proof.

Well she most certainly failed. And she didn't just fail as in the business didn't go anywhere. That happens all the time to entrepreneurs and to everyone. You just get back up and start again. Her failure is a complete and total failure. She's toast. Couldn't get a job at starbucks. Look, she's a fuck up and that's it.

 

[Simeon_Strangelight]

< Women like Thatcher are rare. Holmes did countless presentations about girl-power. Thatcher would have laughed at that. She succeeded on merit and did not need feminism. The tough-as-nails women are rare. Entrepreneurship is especially rare among women because even the super-successful women prefer a structure where they can advance in. A businessman has to take risks and has to have a ton of skills, perseverence - that is why a Thatcher was fine in the established party, but would have been lousy as the founding member of a new contrary party to the establishment.

 

[Simeon_Strangelight]

Interesting talk with 2 of the young whistleblowers.

The funny part was the hundreds of researchers sometimes with MIT Phds who absolutely knew that the machines were crap, but they just were silent about it. I know that this kind of behavior is known in the corporate world. Sending out buggy software is now standard.

Also another point - Theranos was a case of a company within the mainstream framework just offering a product that was severely sub-par while promising to outperform anyone else. It was the equivalent of a top-secret car that drives on 1/10th of a gallon of gas and that no one is allowed to see it.

There are in contrast a myriad other scams perpetrated by the scientific community that lets things slide for a paycheck and for the public approval. 99,99% of the other STEM employees at Theranos just took the cheque, pleaded the 5th at the next job interview and happily falsified the data during their entire work stint.

Because remember that the whistleblowers here got the belated backing of the mainstream - the opposite is true if MDs and PHds speak out about giant scams perpetrated like the gender crap, climate change, cholesterol lie etc. Then those whistleblowers are crushed with the full power of the globalists. In this case of course they are the darlings of the world since the other mainstream lab companies were doing things the right way. Also the field is not as prone to the globalist cons as others. Even if some blood test results are not telling the full story, that is the issue of MDs taking for example blood vitamin levels as indicative of general vitamin level in the body. The issue is not with the company which is performing the accurate test, but the MDs who claim that this number is telling while in reality some are meaningless and a tissue test would have to be done. But either way - the industry of Theranos is probably some of the most honest ones out there.

 

[Simeon_Strangelight]

A smarter example of a good con is the Wework con:



Again a charismatic guy - Israeli immigrant in this case - was able to bamboozle 1.7 billion $ out of investors - all while being a crazy, unstable, alcohol, orgy and drug addicted.

He walks away with 1.7 bio. $ all while having had the time of his life while it lasted.

No risk of him going to jail, since he just sold you dreams while the business model was nowhere near comparable to Uber. Anyone who is aware of that segment of the market would know that the revenue is unstable and it's frankly very old-tech since aside from size and Silicon Valley marketing it's nothing new.

The biggist victim here seems to be an old Asian investor who made it big while investing in Alibaba and he thought that Wework was on the same scale while in reality it's closer to Theranos.

 

[Abelard Lindsey]

I expected the tech bubble to end in '14 or '15. It did not. It only about a month ago I figured out why. Softbank has been the primary investor (with their Vision Fund I) of all of the recent consumer-tech start-ups over the past 5 years. Softbank is the biggest investor in all of names familiar to you (Uber, Lyft, Doordash, etc.) in recent years. The problem is that very few of these "unicorns" are profitable or have any foreseeable pathway to profitability. The radical down-sizing of WeWork is making a lot of investors in the Vision Fund I take a hard look at their investments and question investing more into speculative tech unicorns. The Vision Fund II, which was to be funded primarily by Saudi investors, was cancelled about a year ago over such concerns. We may actually see the end of the current tech bubble.

It would be interesting if the SEC changed the rules such that only companies that are solidly profitable can do IPO's as well as extending the "lock in" period for founders until such profitability is realized. Netscape was the first start-up to do an IPO, in 1995, while not being profitable. This had never been done before. For example, Apple and Genetec, which did IPO's in 1980, were both solidly profitable companies at the time of their IPO's.

I'm wondering if the Clinton Administration had a role in changing SEC regulations with regards to IPO's (in return for quid pro quo of course).

I highly recommend the WeWork video posted above. There is one point in the video where Newmann says to the analyst that his criticism of WeWork's business model is way off base because he does not understand it. This is precisely what Skilling, at Enron, said about those who questioned Enron's business model at their peak. This is about 9:30 minutes into the video.

Another point in the video, around 12:00 to 13:00, it shows Newmann's personal style, making clear that he is very much a Steve Jobs wannabe.

 

[PathofAugustine]

Adam Neuman is a criminal, just like Holmes. He sold a scam to the employees who had stock options, then tried to pump up a massive IPO, but not before selling off massive amounts of his own stock ahead of the IPO. He's a crook, just like Holmes, defrauding people of their time, money and sweat (and read) equity. He did this all while extolling the virtues of the Israeli Kibutz, changing the world and other such nonsense. He's a grifter and a fraudster, and I hope that he looses that ridiculous golden parachute. We don't need to be encouraging other parasites to follow his example. Honestly, these people need jail time. This isn't "free market capitalism", it is a fraud.

 

[Abelard Lindsey]

There is another parallel between WeWork and Enron. WeWork has claimed they are a "tech" despite not offering any technical hardware or software to customers, even though they are really a real estate company. Enron claimed it was an "energy provider" despite owning no generation facilities or other hardware of any kind, when in fact it was a trading company.

 

[Simeon_Strangelight]

Adam Neuman is a criminal, just like Holmes. He sold a scam to the employees who had stock options, then tried to pump up a massive IPO, but not before selling off massive amounts of his own stock ahead of the IPO. He's a crook, just like Holmes, defrauding people of their time, money and sweat (and read) equity. He did this all while extolling the virtues of the Israeli Kibutz, changing the world and other such nonsense. He's a grifter and a fraudster, and I hope that he looses that ridiculous golden parachute. We don't need to be encouraging other parasites to follow his example. Honestly, these people need jail time. This isn't "free market capitalism", it is a fraud.

He will be much harder to pin down because nothing he did can be sold as fraudulent. It's morally reprehensible, but not much else. In reality it was batshit insane, because that kind of real estate business is just a rebranded larger shared office space company. Everyone knows that this is not exactly a high-margin business unless you catch a good streak during a boom period and lots of wannabe entrepreneurs and individual workers require those areas. But that usually dries up fast and that is why all the big real estate investors prefer big commercial or private for a good reason. People will have to live somewhere and big businesses are tied down much more long-term than small fries.

As for his private cash grab - he seems to have sold off most of his shares even when he was pumping out bombastic marketing. I think indeed that he is a con-artist who knew pretty soon that it's a con and it will be mostly goys that get fleeced so he did not care. In fact the biggest sacrifice is an Asian goy and his family.

Even the articles I read excused his behavior as erratic or irresponsible.

He will walk away scotfree with at least hundreds of millions if not 1.7 bio. $ as reported by some. Not bad for a nice con based on bullshit.

 

[Abelard Lindsey]

I agree. Nothing Newmann did was actually illegal. However, he can be sued, and likely successfully so, by investors. His selling off of shares during much of his bombastic marketing will not be viewed favorably by the court in a lawsuit. This is the kind of self-dealing that makes him very liable to a lawsuit. There is talk of clawback of some, not all, of his 1.7 billion payout.

 

[PathofAugustine]

I agree. Nothing Newmann did was actually illegal. However, he can be sued, and likely successfully so, by investors. There is talk of clawback of some, not all, of his 1.7 billion payout.

It is pretty amazing that you can defraud investors of massive sums of money and not have to worry about criminal prosecution. I think in saner times there would be a criminal case that could be made against Neuman. We've been culturally indoctrinated to accept that high-flying change-the-world "entrepreneurs" are allowed an unlimited leash to bullshit and deceive investors, employees, regulators etc.

 

[Dusty]

WeWork investors right now:

 

[kosko]

We Work was smoke and mirrors from the start, it is just normies took notice when the SEC color came.lit but any wise person with a critical eye could see the company was full of shit, Regus with beer taps and not much else it had no business spewing some sort of 20-40$ billion valuation when other co-office leaders were within the 5-12$ billion range (and actually had profits).

Nothing wrong with a revamped co-worker model and with tons money backing it WeWork could have been the largest co-worker provider globally. If they kept it conservative all would have been fine but the tech world dosn't work like that. They want unicorns and thus you employ charlatan CEOs who want to open schools and other junk and lit fire to investors money to maintain the unicorn image.

Now that the stiff Japanese are in control WeWork will down into a Regus with better art on the wall, they will print take out the beer taps as well to cut down on costs.

 

[Abelard Lindsey]

I agree. Nothing Newmann did was actually illegal. However, he can be sued, and likely successfully so, by investors. There is talk of clawback of some, not all, of his 1.7 billion payout.

It is pretty amazing that you can defraud investors of massive sums of money and not have to worry about criminal prosecution. I think in saner times there would be a criminal case that could be made against Neuman. We've been culturally indoctrinated to accept that high-flying change-the-world "entrepreneurs" are allowed an unlimited leash to bullshit and deceive investors, employees, regulators etc.

I agree. On the other hand, it is much easier to prevail as a plaintiff in a civil case than it is as a victim in a criminal case. Civil cases are decided on the preponderance of evidence. Criminal cases require beyond a reasonable doubt. Sometimes civil law is the way to go.

 

[PathofAugustine]

I agree. Nothing Newmann did was actually illegal. However, he can be sued, and likely successfully so, by investors. There is talk of clawback of some, not all, of his 1.7 billion payout.

It is pretty amazing that you can defraud investors of massive sums of money and not have to worry about criminal prosecution. I think in saner times there would be a criminal case that could be made against Neuman. We've been culturally indoctrinated to accept that high-flying change-the-world "entrepreneurs" are allowed an unlimited leash to bullshit and deceive investors, employees, regulators etc.

I agree. On the other hand, it is much easier to prevail as a plaintiff in a civil case than it is as a victim in a criminal case. Civil cases are decided on the preponderance of evidence. Criminal cases require beyond a reasonable doubt. Sometimes civil law is the way to go.

The standard for evidence is much lower in a civil case, for sure. That being said, it wasn't until after the SEC stepped in did we realize that Neuman had massive conflicts of interest and self-dealing, and IMHO, criminal levels of fraud. He did not properly disclose these conflicts, which is a material misrepresentation of the investment instrument that he was pitching. There's certainly a civil case already filed against him and is headed to court. That being said, a talented prosecutor could pursue a criminal case against Neuman. People have been put in jail for far less than he did.

 

[SlickyBoy]

He did this all while extolling the virtues of the Israeli Kibutz, changing the world and other such nonsense. He's a grifter and a fraudster, and I hope that he looses that ridiculous golden parachute. We don't need to be encouraging other parasites to follow his example. Honestly, these people need jail time.

Yep. Yet we're supposed to lose our collective minds because Chick-Fil-A doesn't open on Sunday and (until recently) gave money to the Salvation Army.

I don't understand what it is with fraudsters and wishful IPO thinking - the SEC will always step in, along with the big financial backers. That's what has to happen. Just pure ego at some point I guess.

 

[Easy_C]

The play in this case was fairly obvious.

They were hoping that Goldman Sachs backing it would bring in enough "prestige" to the deal to create a feeding frenzy that nobody would look particularly closely at. This would not have been the first time that strategy has succeeded.

 

[The Wizard Mandragora]

Are there any threads on here discussing her tactics of beguilement? She was quite good. Not that I approve of it at all, but wouldn't mind discussing it for the educational aspect.

 

[Simeon_Strangelight]

He did this all while extolling the virtues of the Israeli Kibutz, changing the world and other such nonsense. He's a grifter and a fraudster, and I hope that he looses that ridiculous golden parachute. We don't need to be encouraging other parasites to follow his example. Honestly, these people need jail time.

Yep. Yet we're supposed to lose our collective minds because Chick-Fil-A doesn't open on Sunday and (until recently) gave money to the Salvation Army.

I don't understand what it is with fraudsters and wishful IPO thinking - the SEC will always step in, along with the big financial backers. That's what has to happen. Just pure ego at some point I guess.

The initial Wework business model was fine. They just did a slightly better shared office project initially. Also the first 15 mio. $ investment wasn't so bad. If they had just grown slowly but surely doing what they initially did, then the company might have been making 200-500 mio. $ in revenue and it would be profitable.
The problem began when they treated it as a tech company or marketed themselves that way, then used the cash-flow to expand well beyond any reasonable extent. They would never have been able to raise that much cash as a real estate company in that field.

The founder knew exactly that he was selling a con.

Also - even if he gets convicted of something, it wouldn't be the first Israeli or Chinese businessman who simply disappears to his homecountry with full backing of his government. Worst thing that can happen to him is that he cannot visit the US officially anymore.

 

[eradicator]

The worst thing that could happen would be if he has already shifted the 1.8 Billion in cash to an offshore bank account, sees no jailtime in the USA and flees to Israel to retire on a beach house and keeps all of the cash before the USA courts can claw it back.

You really think a Jewish huckster will turn over the cash he just stole without a fight?

 

[Simeon_Strangelight]

< I expect him to pay up, if he gets a fine of a few million or even 100 mio. $, but no way in hell will he give back a bio. $+ There are other Israeli businessmen doing the very same thing. His cash can be parked in Israel forever - no need to go offshore.