'The Inventor': How Elizabeth Holmes Pulled Off the Scam of the Century

[LiberalArkie]

Elizabeth Holmes is fearlessly filling the frame, speaking directly to the camera in her low, distinct voice. Former co-workers have alleged that Holmes’s signature baritone is actually fake—an affect, like her Steve Jobs-inspired wardrobe, and a deception, like her now-defunct company Theranos. Of course, there was a time when Holmes didn’t stand for fraudulence and infamy, when Theranos was valued at $10 billion, and Holmes was touted as the next great tech visionary. The Holmes that addresses viewers in The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, director Alex Gibney’s new documentary, is an envoy from the height of Theranos’s delusion. She is steady and impassioned, lips stained bloodred. Unblinking, Holmes insists, “I don’t have many secrets.” It might be the first lie viewers will see her utter in the revealing documentary, but it certainly won’t be the last.

Theranos, a company that sought to disrupt the health-care industry with imaginary technology that was never fully realized, succeeded on the strength of Holmes’s vision, and her insistence that that vision never be abandoned or compromised, no matter how unfeasible it might be. The Inventor is able to effectively relay the depth of Holmes’s deception, and the contrast between the image she presented and Theranos’s reality.

In ad campaigns and investor pitches, the company was presented as sleek, simple, effective and bright. Holmes was selling “a world in which no one has to say goodbye too soon,” where customers could consistently, affordably, and painlessly order blood tests for a number of ailments, and know more about their health than ever before. This would all be made possible by the Edison, a machine that could take a small “nanotainer” of blood and run a litany of tests, all but eliminating the need for traditional venipuncture blood withdrawals and pricey laboratory testing.

Holmes’s vision was sleek, revolutionary, and catnip to investors. But behind the scenes, Theranos was in total disarray. Describing one version of the Edison that he worked with, an engineer talked about how the machine became coated with blood, as samples spilled “all over the place” and settled into the nooks and crannies of Holmes’s magic box. Pieces of the device were constantly falling off or exploding; for important demonstrations, scientists would run in and grab the blood samples that potential investors had put in the Edison, run the tests themselves in the lab, then rush back the results.

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/hbos-the-inventor-how-theranos-elizabeth-holmes-pulled-off-the-scam-of-the-century?ref=scroll?ref=home

[Happyhippychick]

1. I listened to a podcast about this, fascinating.

I hope she rots in jail.

[LiberalArkie]

2. Wikipedia has a good write up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Holmes



Her father, Christian Rasmus Holmes IV, was a vice president at Enron

[bullwinkle428]

3. Wow...apple...tree.

[Happyhippychick]

10. I didn't know that! Now I know why she was such a rotten person!

[dalton99a]

4. An unfortunate detour from an otherwise blameless life

I don't want to hear those words at sentencing

[Volaris]

15. TOTALLY BLAMELESS.

something tells me this lady was overcharging peeps for girl scout cookies and lemonade.

[maxsolomon]

5. She didn't pull it off. She got caught.

Trump, however, conned his way into the White House, and has suffered no consequences. Scam of the Century.

[Snake Plissken]

6. She began her scam a few years too soon, if she waited until Trump's mindless deregulation began

She'd still be scamming people like Trump.

[WillowTree]

7. I happen to have just watched an old 20/20 segment about this on Hulu this weekend.

[struggle4progress]

8. Reportedly Seeking Money for New Startup

CRIME
8:16 AM PDT, March 18, 2019 - Inside Edition Staff

... Holmes famously dropped out of Stanford to start Theranos, a company once hailed as innovative for its breakthrough technology that claimed it could perform hundreds of lab tests using only a couple drops of blood. But the company was forced to shut down last September after its founder was accused of "massive fraud" by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For her part, Holmes paid a $500,000 fine to the SEC, among other penalties. She is also charged with multiple counts of fraud for misleading investors, government officials and consumers about Theranos' technology. A trial date has not been set. She has denied any wrongdoing ...

"She has shown zero sign of feeling bad, or expressing sorrow, or admitting wrongdoing, or saying sorry to the patients whose lives she endangered,” Carreyrou told Vanity Fair last year.

"She sees herself as sort of a Joan of Arc who is being persecuted," he added ...

https://www.insideedition.com/elizabeth-holmes-reportedly-seeking-money-new-startup-after-theranos-downfall-51492

[MineralMan]

9. Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos Make for a Wonderful Glimpse

into the world of startup tech companies. I first heard of her in 2004, shortly after she started raising money for her newborn company. I remember looking up information on this new technology for testing blood using tiny samples. I read her prospectus and a number of articles about her and this "invention."

After about six months of following her in the media and, frankly, being charmed by her personality and presentation, I began to realize that what she was proposing was not actually possible. The technology didn't actually make a lot of sense to me, based on my own education and interests. Still, I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, to a certain degree.

However, I began looking at her venture from a different perspective, and began to see through her hype and presentation to the underlying money-raising machine it actually was. She was interesting as a person, if a bit eccentric. She wasn't unattractive, either, which played a role in her fundraising as she focused primarily on convincing men to invest in her scheme.

In about 2006, I decided that she was playing a long game con, using the common Blue Sky company concept. There was just enough validity to her techological concept to make it difficult to prove it was bogus. It was a lot like the cold fusion idea that has raised so much money so many times. It was a hugely attractive idea, so wanting it to be true triggered cognitive biases in those who invested.

There was a Forbes article about her as a rising star in the entrepreneurial world. INC magazine blasted her into the public view with praise for her technological breakthough. She was the darling of TED talks. She vacuumed up venture capital from a wide range of sources, ending up with a $10 Billion company that had no product that could prove itself to work. She even convinced Walgreens Corporation to plan for a nationwide system of blood testing to be offered in their pharmacies.

But then, it all fell apart, as Blue Sky schemes do so often. I lost interest in following it a few years ago, and stopped keeping track of Theranos and Barnes. Once I figured out what the game was, it was no longer interesting. It was just another Flying Car company that attracts investors and then folds without ever producing a production version. It was a company like the many that "invented" some device that attached to your car's carburetor and gave you 200 mpg efficiency.

Theranos was always a scam, a con game, and Elizabeth Holmes was the con-woman who almost got away with it. But, it was fatally flawed and when it came time to put up or shut up, her blood analysis system failed to work as described. Now, she's facing a prison sentence and her life is ruined.

I wonder how things would have gone had she found something legitimate and promoted with whatever magical abilities she seemed to have. Too bad. She ran a con and got caught. We'll never know.

[RobinA]

11. I've Been Following This

for a bit, because the mystery question that I have remains unanswered. Where did she think she was going with this? There was zero chance she was going to get away with it, because she didn’t have a product AT ALL. So was it a con job from day one, or did she start up thinking the technology would catch up? There just is no way it was going to end well as a con job from the beginning, and I can’t imagine anyone would think it would, so what was she thinking? Her hero Jobs was a lot of things, but a fake was not one of them.

[MineralMan]

13. I don't know what she was thinking.

I'd love to ask her, but know I will not have that opportunity.

[hunter]

14. Jobs was a scammer, but he could sell some semblance of the technology he promised.

Elizabeth Holmes could have lowered expectations to a one one small needle, one small tube blood draw. You won't feel a thing. A choir of angels will sing.

The last time I had blood drawn for testing was to fill multiple tubes using a needle as big as the one used for blood donations. The phlebotomist accidentally hit an artery first try and made a huge mess, leaving me with big bruise. (Shit happens in the Emergency Room.)

Holmes could have had her researchers create some cute high tech phlebotomy kit with vein finding technology and trademark designer sticky bandages the patient could wear proudly, to let them know they are extra special.

The Apple Macintosh, NeXT, iPhone, and iPad were not nearly so awesome as Jobs implied. They were not even cutting edge applications of existing technology. But Jobs delivered a product he could sell as something awesome, which was what his customers wanted.

Elon Musk is a similar character.

Sigh, I'm going to hell if the next Steve Jobs or Elizabeth Holmes or Elon Musk takes my advice.

[RobinA]

20. Couldn't Agree More

about Musk. Although, in his case I have a sneaking suspicion he’s bipolar, which would explain some things.

When I was thinking of Jobs I was thinking iPhone.

[miyazaki]

16. After reading the book "Bad Blood" I came away thinking

that the woman was surely a born psychopath.

[Hamlette]

22. it was a great read

hard to believe

[DeminPennswoods]

17. Frontline just had a 2 hour expose on

Holmes and Theranos last week.

[Demovictory9]

19. I will look for it. The documentary was interesting. that fake voice of hers!

[DeminPennswoods]

23. It was 20/20, not Frontline,

but still worth watching. The whistleblower of the story turns out to be George Shultz's grandson. George Shultz was a Theranos board member who Holmes had completely wrapped around her finger. Before he helped expose the fraud, the younger Shultz tried and tried to break through to his grandfather but couldn't convince him Holmes was running a scam.

[tammywammy]

18. 20/20 last week was about this.

I haven't finished the episode though.

[Ilsa]

21. She's a sociopath.

When confronted with her lies, she would simply double-down. Her "product" was imaginary, a fraud, an alternative fact, a different reality. Sound like anyone we know?

[DeminPennswoods]

24. Not to mention her weird obsession with

Steve Jobs right down to the black turtlenecks.