Female Privilege or Femme Fatale?

[ZiprHead]

I will say this. When I started working in the clinical lab, it took about a full ml of serum or plasma to run an electrolyte panel, sodium, pottasium, choride and bicarb. It took two instuments to do so.

When I left ten years later we could do Chem 20's on one instrument with about a half an ml.

 

[Metaphor]

Also, the statement 'no man could pull this off' would be contradicted by any evidence that a man peddled an obviously scientifically impossible idea in the biotech space into a multi-billion dollar company.

What makes you think it was a scientific impossibility?

The fact that it is one. And the pathologists who say it is impossible.

You do know the date that video was posted was December 30, 2021, less than a month ago. Do you have anyone that said the same in 2012?

There were early doubters.

More from a longtime Elizabeth Holmes skeptic: On excuses, moments of fame and other Theranos encounters

Stanford’s Phyllis Gardner talks about meeting MC Hammer, her “little cabal” of Theranos skeptics and her favorite saying about excuses.

www.mercurynews.com

And what are your qualifications to make that determination?

I am confident that I can use my own brain to understand arguments.

So where are the 2012 arguments?

Look, if your contention is that it is not an obvious fraud (though Toni claims it seems obvious to her), then that would change what I would say about no man being able to do what Holmes did. My contention is that there was a special interaction with Holmes as a female leader in STEM and attracting early investment dollars for what is an impossible product. After the early dollars came, everything else followed and Holmes' sex probably did not have much of an effect.

 

[ZiprHead]

Also, the statement 'no man could pull this off' would be contradicted by any evidence that a man peddled an obviously scientifically impossible idea in the biotech space into a multi-billion dollar company.

What makes you think it was a scientific impossibility?

The fact that it is one. And the pathologists who say it is impossible.

You do know the date that video was posted was December 30, 2021, less than a month ago. Do you have anyone that said the same in 2012?

There were early doubters.

More from a longtime Elizabeth Holmes skeptic: On excuses, moments of fame and other Theranos encounters

Stanford’s Phyllis Gardner talks about meeting MC Hammer, her “little cabal” of Theranos skeptics and her favorite saying about excuses.

www.mercurynews.com

2019, hardly early, especially since it was first exposed in 2015.

And what are your qualifications to make that determination?

I am confident that I can use my own brain to understand arguments.

So where are the 2012 arguments?

Look, if your contention is that it is not an obvious fraud (though Toni claims it seems obvious to her), then that would change what I would say about no man being able to do what Holmes did. My contention is that there was a special interaction with Holmes as a female leader in STEM and attracting early investment dollars for what is an impossible product. After the early dollars came, everything else followed and Holmes' sex probably did not have much of an effect.

I don't believe Safeway, Walgreens, the Cleveland Clinic, and the Food and Drug administration would all be taken in simply by feminine wiles. But you do you.

 

[Metaphor]

2019, hardly early, especially since it was first exposed in 2015.

The article was published in 2019 but talks about events from before 2015.

I don't believe Safeway, Walgreens, the Cleveland Clinic, and the Food and Drug administration would all be taken in simply by feminine wiles. But you do you.

But I did not claim that it was simply 'feminine wiles', nor that each particular investor would not have been taken in if Holmes were a man. It would only take an influential early investor to be persuaded when otherwise they might not have been.

 

[Toni]

you suggesting Madoff was sexually appealing to heterosexual male investors?

No!
How hard is this?
Madoff was an ugly old dude who ran a great scam without benefit of being a hot Californian teen girl.

Being as hot as Holmes was a bit of an advantage. But the premise that her scam was unique because she's hot is ridiculous. Hot chicks run all kinds of scams, but usually to achieve this level requires an older mentor.
Someone like Balwani.
Tom

Ok, I just cannot see Homes as ‘hot’. She’s pretty average looking with the usual advantage of youth plus the bonus of sufficient wealth to have good skin and teeth.

Again, I don’t think she intended a scam. I think she was young and rich and egotistical abs smart and over praised and I think she thought she could make her idea work. Later I think she was in too deep and still too young to have any idea how to get out of the situation and she tried hard to make it right and….couldn’t.

Balwani certainly helped and was perhaps the driving force. But at some point, Holmes was responsible for not coming clean—or some version of it.

But you’re right: Without Balwani, the scheme would never have been funded.

 

[Toni]

2019, hardly early, especially since it was first exposed in 2015.

The article was published in 2019 but talks about events from before 2015.

I don't believe Safeway, Walgreens, the Cleveland Clinic, and the Food and Drug administration would all be taken in simply by feminine wiles. But you do you.

But I did not claim that it was simply 'feminine wiles', nor that each particular investor would not have been taken in if Holmes were a man. It would only take an influential early investor to be persuaded when otherwise they might not have been.

As has been mentioned, there have been plenty of make conmen, some who intentionally started out as cons. And they didn’t have to be ‘hot.’

 

[Metaphor]

2019, hardly early, especially since it was first exposed in 2015.

The article was published in 2019 but talks about events from before 2015.

I don't believe Safeway, Walgreens, the Cleveland Clinic, and the Food and Drug administration would all be taken in simply by feminine wiles. But you do you.

But I did not claim that it was simply 'feminine wiles', nor that each particular investor would not have been taken in if Holmes were a man. It would only take an influential early investor to be persuaded when otherwise they might not have been.

As has been mentioned, there have been plenty of make conmen, some who intentionally started out as cons. And they didn’t have to be ‘hot.’

I did not describe Holmes as hot, that was TomC. I said she had sexual appeal to heterosexual male investors in a way no man could. As Dorothy said in The Golden Girls 'when you are young, you don't even have to be pretty to be pretty'.

I have not written or implied anywhere that only women could be con artists or that good looks were necessary (though good looks helps in almost all social interactions).

 

[Metaphor]

and she tried hard to make it right and….couldn’t.

Where did you get the idea that she tried hard to make it right?

 

[laughing dog]

I am confident that I can use my own brain to understand arguments.

There is ample evidence in this thread that your confidence is misplaced.

 

[Toni]

I will say this. When I started working in the clinical lab, it took about a full ml of serum or plasma to run an electrolyte panel, sodium, pottasium, choride and bicarb. It took two instuments to do so.

When I left ten years later we could do Chem 20's on one instrument with about a half an ml.

Right. Chem labs require far less sample than do biological tests, looking for analytes such as antibodies or antigens. My part of the lab performs antigen/antibody type tests. The other part of the lab performs molecular tests, such as PCR. The smallest sample size I ever used was 5 microliters and that was sampling by hand, using a micropipette. Most of our platforms/tests required at least 50 microliters PLUS dead volume and increasingly, platforms were automated, rather than manual, meaning the dead volume was absolutely necessary. The thermocycler (to run PCR tests) that I sometimes prepped samples for used 600-800 microliters per test. Now, that's been about 3 years since I've done that work. Specifically, the PCR test was looking for replicating virus.

There are microarrays that can be used to determine gene expression. A much smaller sample size is required.

 

[Toni]

and she tried hard to make it right and….couldn’t.

Where did you get the idea that she tried hard to make it right?

I cannot find the articles I read some years ago that talked about her trying hard to get her idea to work. I'm sorry. If I could find it, I'd provide the link. A number of years ago, I read an article about Holmes spending time in the labs. I realize that sounds lame but ....that's the truth.

Do I think that she was/is an overpraised spoiled brat? Sure. I think that the lines between naivite and delusion and self-delusion and fraud and intent to defraud is not just blurred but torn to shreds. I think that she started out as a true believer (and was too ill-informed and uneducated to comprehend the actual realities of what she was suggesting) and quickly, the entire concept/execution got way out of her control. It was further complicated by her ongoing relationship with Balwani. While I think she can be somewhat forgiven for being 19 and being an overpraised privileged kid in love with her own 'promise' at some point she clearly knew that what she was doing was actually committing fraud. If somehow, she managed to not know this--and I don't see how this is possible---she certainly had a responsibility to know that she was violating many federal laws with regards to her 'testing' as well as pretty much every FDA regulation that exists.

I understand that one could not expect a 19 year old to start out knowing FDA regulations but it was her job to know them and to employ those who knew them and had a high degree of integrity and would comply with those regulations.

 

[ZiprHead]

I will say this. When I started working in the clinical lab, it took about a full ml of serum or plasma to run an electrolyte panel, sodium, pottasium, choride and bicarb. It took two instuments to do so.

When I left ten years later we could do Chem 20's on one instrument with about a half an ml.

Right. Chem labs require far less sample than do biological tests, looking for analytes such as antibodies or antigens. My part of the lab performs antigen/antibody type tests. The other part of the lab performs molecular tests, such as PCR. The smallest sample size I ever used was 5 microliters and that was sampling by hand, using a micropipette. Most of our platforms/tests required at least 50 microliters PLUS dead volume and increasingly, platforms were automated, rather than manual, meaning the dead volume was absolutely necessary. The thermocycler (to run PCR tests) that I sometimes prepped samples for used 600-800 microliters per test. Now, that's been about 3 years since I've done that work. Specifically, the PCR test was looking for replicating virus.

There are microarrays that can be used to determine gene expression. A much smaller sample size is required.

Our lab does PCR testing, but I worked the night shift so I never got to witness it.

 

[Toni]

I will say this. When I started working in the clinical lab, it took about a full ml of serum or plasma to run an electrolyte panel, sodium, pottasium, choride and bicarb. It took two instuments to do so.

When I left ten years later we could do Chem 20's on one instrument with about a half an ml.

Right. Chem labs require far less sample than do biological tests, looking for analytes such as antibodies or antigens. My part of the lab performs antigen/antibody type tests. The other part of the lab performs molecular tests, such as PCR. The smallest sample size I ever used was 5 microliters and that was sampling by hand, using a micropipette. Most of our platforms/tests required at least 50 microliters PLUS dead volume and increasingly, platforms were automated, rather than manual, meaning the dead volume was absolutely necessary. The thermocycler (to run PCR tests) that I sometimes prepped samples for used 600-800 microliters per test. Now, that's been about 3 years since I've done that work. Specifically, the PCR test was looking for replicating virus.

There are microarrays that can be used to determine gene expression. A much smaller sample size is required.

Our lab does PCR testing, but I worked the night shift so I never got to witness it.

Just to clarify: those volumes were serum, not blood. You'd need a greater volume of blood to yield half a ml of serum, for those who don't know.

Because my old lab has the instruments/platforms (and trained techs) to run antibody/antigen and PCR tests for COVID, that's what they've been doing a lot of these past 2 years, much of the time working overtime. That had settled down but I heard from them that around Christmas, people were being paid an extra $3/hr to work on weekends (in addition to the shift differential) and techs were also being given $500 gift cards at Christmas. I have no idea what they were doing for the lab assistants (who lack the qualifications of the techs and who, imo, were not paid well enough or treated as well.) Yesterday, one was remarking that she expects to be working overtime all week. This is for COVID testing.

 

[ZiprHead]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/businessman-accused-ponzi-scheme-1.6306466

Got away with $12 million.

I'm sure the feminine wiles made the scheme much more successful.

 

[Metaphor]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/businessman-accused-ponzi-scheme-1.6306466

Got away with $12 million.

I'm sure the feminine wiles made the scheme much more successful.

You are attempting to find counterevidence for a position espoused by nobody.

 

[blastula]

Former Theranos exec Ramesh Balwani convicted of fraud

The 12 jurors found Balwani guilty on all 12 felony counts of defrauding both Theranos investors and the patients who relied on wildly unreliable blood tests.

www.politico.com

Convicted on all charges, a worse verdict than Holmes got. He didn't testify, but Holmes did. It might not have mattered if he did, she's probably a better conman.

 

[Metaphor]

Former Theranos exec Ramesh Balwani convicted of fraud

The 12 jurors found Balwani guilty on all 12 felony counts of defrauding both Theranos investors and the patients who relied on wildly unreliable blood tests.

www.politico.com

Convicted on all charges, a worse verdict than Holmes got. He didn't testify, but Holmes did. It might not have mattered if he did, she's probably a better conman.

Thanks for the update.

 

[Metaphor]

I read about Holmes' conviction when it happened, but missed this tidbit:

During her final testimony, Elizabeth Holmes claimed she was raped while at Stanford and that is the reason she poured herself into building Theranos.

 

[Arctish]

Tidbit?


As in, yummy treat?

 

[Metaphor]

Tidbit?


As in, yummy treat?

No, as in "a small and particularly interesting item of gossip or information."

Holmes tried the Hail Mary pass of 'yes, I defrauded people of billions, but I'm a sad rape girl so it's not my fault'.