alt Hacker NewsUnfortunately that's the big message the courts gave, isn't it. Elizabeth Holmes used the names of important government officials to deceive two classes of people:
a) as you point out, give wrong medical information to nearly a million people. Information they probably acted on and damaged themselves.
b) deceived investors.
ONE of these things matters to the American justice system.
Whose names did she use for that?
Henry Kissinger (former United States Secretary of State);
Jim Mattis (retired Marine Corps four-star general);
George Shultz (former United States Secretary of State);
Richard Kovacevich (former CEO of Wells Fargo);
William Perry (former United States Secretary of Defense); and
William Foege (former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Replies
This cuts to the heart of it. Elizabeth Holmes' real crime, the reason she was actually punished (insofar as anyone in her position ever gets punished), is that she both embarrassed and defrauded many wealthy and influential individuals.
> They "were all deceived", in other words none of them ever checked
While I agree to the larger point you are making, I am hard pressed to understand what they could have done. Its not like they were not involved at all, there are plethora of accounts of these people receiving reports which just lied. They were blocked from access to the actual equipment for "security reasons" so they couldn't get a third party assessment done. At some point you have to believe your business partner will not outright lie because otherwise how do you do business with them. Life cannot run on cryptographic proofs.
I agree energetically that this is how it turned out.
However, the prosecution did bring charges for both against Holmes, harm caused to patients by Theranos, and the defauding of investors. She was only convicted of defauding investors, by a jury of her peers.
Sunny Balwani was convicted of defrauding patients and Theranos did settle a class-action lawsuit against them.
I do believe the publicity around Holmes in part was about distancing the investors (the list you provided) from any kind of responsibility or PR blowback.
Anyway, the game is rigged, I just think it's important to see how it is rigged. I don't like to shed doubt on jury decisions, it really is the best thing we have. Prosecution motivation can be swayed, defense can be under/over funded, but a jury of your peers, while imperfect, really is the best way to make these decisions.
I also don't know what legally an investor can be held accountable for.