Female Privilege or Femme Fatale?

[Trausti]

Holmes, who is now 34, dropped out of Stanford to found Theranos at 19, and for a few years, her childhood and adult dreams meshed. Theranos’s blood-testing system, which the company said only required a finger prick, made it a “unicorn” — Silicon Valley parlance for a billion-dollar start-up — on paper at least. Blue-chip investors included Rupert Murdoch, Larry Ellison, Carlos Slim, Walmart heirs, President Trump’s secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, and her family, and companies like Safeway and Walgreens, which hoped to set up wellness centers in their stores where customers could have their blood tested without involving a doctor. Theranos’s board was filled with names like former Defense secretary William Perry, former secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former senator Sam Nunn, former Wells Fargo CEO Richard Kovacevich, super-lawyer David Boies, and President Trump’s secretary of Defense James Mattis, who joined in 2013 after retiring as head of U.S. Central Command.

That first Carreyrou story reported that Theranos’s blood-testing machine had significant accuracy issues and had been used for only 15 out of a claimed 240 tests. Subsequent stories revealed that the machines never really worked, would often malfunction, and could lead to inaccurate diagnoses. Today, the investors are gone; Holmes and the former president and chief operating officer of Theranos, Sunny Balwani, who was also her secret boyfriend at the time, are both facing federal criminal investigations, and they have been charged by the SEC with running an “elaborate, years-long fraud.”

Bad Blood

Why did all these old men give her so much money without scrutiny? Is it because she is a women such questions aren't proper? And why is this not a larger story?

 

[laughing dog]

Lots of well-to-do conservatives let greed overcome their good sense, and the OP wants to blame it on a woman? Wow.

 

[bilby]

Holmes, who is now 34, dropped out of Stanford to found Theranos at 19, and for a few years, her childhood and adult dreams meshed. Theranos’s blood-testing system, which the company said only required a finger prick, made it a “unicorn” — Silicon Valley parlance for a billion-dollar start-up — on paper at least. Blue-chip investors included Rupert Murdoch, Larry Ellison, Carlos Slim, Walmart heirs, President Trump’s secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, and her family, and companies like Safeway and Walgreens, which hoped to set up wellness centers in their stores where customers could have their blood tested without involving a doctor. Theranos’s board was filled with names like former Defense secretary William Perry, former secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former senator Sam Nunn, former Wells Fargo CEO Richard Kovacevich, super-lawyer David Boies, and President Trump’s secretary of Defense James Mattis, who joined in 2013 after retiring as head of U.S. Central Command.

That first Carreyrou story reported that Theranos’s blood-testing machine had significant accuracy issues and had been used for only 15 out of a claimed 240 tests. Subsequent stories revealed that the machines never really worked, would often malfunction, and could lead to inaccurate diagnoses. Today, the investors are gone; Holmes and the former president and chief operating officer of Theranos, Sunny Balwani, who was also her secret boyfriend at the time, are both facing federal criminal investigations, and they have been charged by the SEC with running an “elaborate, years-long fraud.”

Bad Blood

Why did all these old men give her so much money without scrutiny? Is it because she is a women such questions aren't proper? And why is this not a larger story?

I missed the bit where it explains how her gender is relevant. Confidence tricks have been carried out, with varying degrees of success, by frauds of all genders, colours, and ages since forever. Finding an instance of a fraud perpetrated by a woman is in no way remarkable.

As to why the scam targeted the investors listed, I imagine its for the same reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks.

 

[Arctish]

Male Privilege or Homme Fatale?

CEO of Tech Startup WrkRiot Convicted of Fraud

WrkRiot was founded by 36-year-old Isaac Choi in Santa Clara, with the now-very-ironic tagline “no games, just jobs.” Formerly called 1for.one and JobSonic, it looked good on paper — but dig under the surface just a little, and all sorts of inconsistencies start popping up. Using at least four different names, Choi falsified his educational and professional history and personal wealth, and scammed at least a dozen employees before being caught by authorities.

Why did all these people give him so much time and money without scrutiny? Is it because he's a man and such questions aren't proper? And why is this not a larger story?

 

[J842P]

Holmes, who is now 34, dropped out of Stanford to found Theranos at 19, and for a few years, her childhood and adult dreams meshed. Theranos’s blood-testing system, which the company said only required a finger prick, made it a “unicorn” — Silicon Valley parlance for a billion-dollar start-up — on paper at least. Blue-chip investors included Rupert Murdoch, Larry Ellison, Carlos Slim, Walmart heirs, President Trump’s secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, and her family, and companies like Safeway and Walgreens, which hoped to set up wellness centers in their stores where customers could have their blood tested without involving a doctor. Theranos’s board was filled with names like former Defense secretary William Perry, former secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former senator Sam Nunn, former Wells Fargo CEO Richard Kovacevich, super-lawyer David Boies, and President Trump’s secretary of Defense James Mattis, who joined in 2013 after retiring as head of U.S. Central Command.

That first Carreyrou story reported that Theranos’s blood-testing machine had significant accuracy issues and had been used for only 15 out of a claimed 240 tests. Subsequent stories revealed that the machines never really worked, would often malfunction, and could lead to inaccurate diagnoses. Today, the investors are gone; Holmes and the former president and chief operating officer of Theranos, Sunny Balwani, who was also her secret boyfriend at the time, are both facing federal criminal investigations, and they have been charged by the SEC with running an “elaborate, years-long fraud.”

Bad Blood

Why did all these old men give her so much money without scrutiny? Is it because she is a women such questions aren't proper? And why is this not a larger story?

It seemed to get a lot of coverage to me ...

 

[Derec]

Lots of well-to-do conservatives let greed overcome their good sense, and the OP wants to blame it on a woman? Wow.

She committed fraud. Should she not be blamed just because she is a woman?
Also, this is Silicon Valley. Those well-to-do investors are by and large going to be left-of-center Democrats.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

This story has gotten tons of press and she has taken all the heat.

 

[Copernicus]

This topic is truly bizarre, because "female privilege" would normally refer to a case where some kind of double standard is at work to favor women over men. However, this story is just about a female CEO of a failed startup company, Theranos, that involved some fraud perpetrated on wealthy investors. There were men involved, too. Her boyfriend was the Chief Operating Officer. However, the company itself attracted wealthy Republican investors and even recruited some big names for its board of directors:

Theranos’s board was filled with names like former Defense secretary William Perry, former secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former senator Sam Nunn, former Wells Fargo CEO Richard Kovacevich, super-lawyer David Boies, and President Trump’s secretary of Defense James Mattis, who joined in 2013 after retiring as head of U.S. Central Command.

So it looks like this is just a case of a woman being involved in a scheme to defraud rich folks who were mostly Republicans, nothing else. There is no "female privilege" here, just Trausti's thing about powerful women behaving badly. Women don't have the "privilege" to behave badly. Apparently, that is something that only men are expected to do.

 

[J842P]

Lots of well-to-do conservatives let greed overcome their good sense, and the OP wants to blame it on a woman? Wow.

She committed fraud. Should she not be blamed just because she is a woman?
Also, this is Silicon Valley. Those well-to-do investors are by and large going to be left-of-center Democrats.

Not really. Sure, your average person in Silicon Valley is going to be pretty liberal/leftist, but if we are going by stereotypes, the venture capital people are notoriously libertarian of the Randriod variety. As far as I can tell, the bulk of her money came from outside Silicon Valley anyway, from wikipedia:

Major investments had been made by the Walton family ($150 million), Rupert Murdoch ($121 million), Betsy DeVos ($100 million), and the Cox family (of Cox Media Group) ($100 million).

All of those are right-leaning to far-right.

 

[barbos]

Was it established that this was a scam from the get-go?
And no, gender has nothing to do with anything here. Her investors are simply idiots. They all failed to understand the difference between startup which is based on business idea and startup which is based on particular advancement/invention in science/technology.

I wonder what Holmes is going to do in case she does not go to prison. She has no education and no reputation.

 

[ruby sparks]

I guess if, hypothetically, she were to get a lighter sentence than a man would in the same circumstances, that might be considered female privilege. There is some evidence of that sort of thing in general.

But as to any privilege being involved during the operation, I don't see it. Unless her being quite physically attractive was a factor. But that would be similar to being attractive as a man, so it wouldn't be female privilege, it would be attractiveness privilege.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I don't see how this could be seen as female privilege.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I don't see how this could be seen as female privilege.

Well, try and spend some time on the scary areas of the internet populated by incels and trumptards. I'm sure they'd be happy to point out how this is because she got all this money because of double standards favoring women. Well ... maybe they won't be "happy" because that's not a thing they do, but they'd be willing to rant and scream about it.

 

[dismal]

Was it established that this was a scam from the get-go?
And no, gender has nothing to do with anything here. Her investors are simply idiots. They all failed to understand the difference between startup which is based on business idea and startup which is based on particular advancement/invention in science/technology.

I wonder what Holmes is going to do in case she does not go to prison. She has no education and no reputation.

It doesn't sound like it was a fraud from the beginning. It sounds like she was a better promoter/marketer than her company could back up. She could sell a utopian vision, but actually achieving utopia was hard. They could not live up to the promises they were making to investors and customers, and rather than own up to it they fudged things.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Well, if nothing else—and there is nothing else—thank you for at least demonstrating what a powerful role misogyny played in 2016.

 

[J842P]

Was it established that this was a scam from the get-go?
And no, gender has nothing to do with anything here. Her investors are simply idiots. They all failed to understand the difference between startup which is based on business idea and startup which is based on particular advancement/invention in science/technology.

I wonder what Holmes is going to do in case she does not go to prison. She has no education and no reputation.

It doesn't sound like it was a fraud from the beginning. It sounds like she was a better promoter/marketer than her company could back up. She could sell a utopian vision, but actually achieving utopia was hard. They could not live up to the promises they were making to investors and customers, and rather than own up to it they fudged things.

Furthermore, I don't think she ever intended to defraud people. Rather, she was driven by a desire to emulate her idol, Silicon Valley demi-god Steve Jobs. And while the Jobs approach can work in the world of consumer electronics, it's not really transferable to the world of biomedical devices.


Honestly, I thought Juicero was a worse debacle, even if on a smaller scale. Apparently the founder is currently trying to market "raw water."

 

[Toni]

Was it established that this was a scam from the get-go?
And no, gender has nothing to do with anything here. Her investors are simply idiots. They all failed to understand the difference between startup which is based on business idea and startup which is based on particular advancement/invention in science/technology.

I wonder what Holmes is going to do in case she does not go to prison. She has no education and no reputation.

It doesn't sound like it was a fraud from the beginning. It sounds like she was a better promoter/marketer than her company could back up. She could sell a utopian vision, but actually achieving utopia was hard. They could not live up to the promises they were making to investors and customers, and rather than own up to it they fudged things.

Yes, I think this was the way things happened. She had an idea, which if not exactly revolutionary, would still dramatically revolutionize how many common lab tests are performed, where they are performed and by whom. If her technology could have lived up to the hype--if it had worked--it would have dramatically changed the face of medicine and medical practice.

Basically, what she wanted to do was to create a test similar to this: https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/...etrix&ef_id=WHOTfgAAAdFyBAf4:20180525153702:s

to test for common medical conditions. Currently, the screening tests for many diseases test for antibody or antigen and genetic tests are sometimes used as confirmatory tests. To be able to offer a common 'wellness' panel which would screen for a number of conditions or even to screen blood donations for freedom from the diseases screened for by other methods now would be a tremendous advancement.

Unfortunately, the technology wasn't there and she seems to have lacked the ability to develop it or to partner with those who might be able to. Even more unfortunately, she seems to have lacked the integrity necessary in order to successfully bring any new medical product or device or technology to market.

 

[dismal]

Was it established that this was a scam from the get-go?
And no, gender has nothing to do with anything here. Her investors are simply idiots. They all failed to understand the difference between startup which is based on business idea and startup which is based on particular advancement/invention in science/technology.

I wonder what Holmes is going to do in case she does not go to prison. She has no education and no reputation.

It doesn't sound like it was a fraud from the beginning. It sounds like she was a better promoter/marketer than her company could back up. She could sell a utopian vision, but actually achieving utopia was hard. They could not live up to the promises they were making to investors and customers, and rather than own up to it they fudged things.

Yes, I think this was the way things happened. She had an idea, which if not exactly revolutionary, would still dramatically revolutionize how many common lab tests are performed, where they are performed and by whom. If her technology could have lived up to the hype--if it had worked--it would have dramatically changed the face of medicine and medical practice.

Basically, what she wanted to do was to create a test similar to this: https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/...etrix&ef_id=WHOTfgAAAdFyBAf4:20180525153702:s

to test for common medical conditions. Currently, the screening tests for many diseases test for antibody or antigen and genetic tests are sometimes used as confirmatory tests. To be able to offer a common 'wellness' panel which would screen for a number of conditions or even to screen blood donations for freedom from the diseases screened for by other methods now would be a tremendous advancement.

Unfortunately, the technology wasn't there and she seems to have lacked the ability to develop it or to partner with those who might be able to. Even more unfortunately, she seems to have lacked the integrity necessary in order to successfully bring any new medical product or device or technology to market.

I read through the wikipedia page and it sounds like the did get some things to market. They had deals with Walgreens, Cleveland Clinic and others to use their products. But maybe the products did not work so well. Again, good at selling, not so good at delivering on the hype.

 

[laughing dog]

Lots of well-to-do conservatives let greed overcome their good sense, and the OP wants to blame it on a woman? Wow.

She committed fraud. Should she not be blamed just because she is a woman?

WTF does that have to do with the OP?

Also, this is Silicon Valley. Those well-to-do investors are by and large going to be left-of-center Democrats.

Read the OP - the people in the article are not left-of-center.

 

[ZiprHead]

So we're going to dismiss the misogyny that prompted the OP?