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    Evidently so, and there were reportedly more than three

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      I want out of this culture.

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        There needs to be a meeting about how the one on the right did not tie her hair back. Stop trying to make not tying your hair back happen, Holmes cos-play girl. It isn't gonna happen.

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          The cult of personality is quite persistent in tech now that Jobs, Musk, et. al. have taken on the role previously used with prominent industrialists as the Great Minds of Our Time.

          (Of course, I know multiple people who have worked with/under the aforementioned and almost universally have described the experience as unpleasant and mainly consisting of keeping the eye of Sauron off you individually so that you could actually get some work done.)
          Last edited by scratchmonkey; 09-09-2021, 03:54.

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            Musk is an especially weird one. By any metric he's an appalling human being but both he and Tesla inspire teenybopper levels of fanaticism from his acolytes to the point where anyone even vaguely suggesting that putting a yoke on a car in place of the steering wheel is perhaps an ill-advised idea is denounced as a shill, shorter and a dinosaur.

            Literally the only good thing is the way Tesla has helped force the slow change towards EVs, despite the best efforts of legacy manufacturers. Put that aside and he's just your archetypal robber baron industrialist.

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              Where's the best place to follow the Theranos trial? I'm listening to the Drop Out podcast, and while it has some good interviews, it's super annoying and by its nature not comprehensive or amenable to following the evidence.

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                I've been listening to John Carreyrou's podcasts, but he hasn't really started reporting on the trial yet.

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                  OK.

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                    The (San Jose) Mercury News is covering it extensively, as you would expect from Silicon Valley's hometown paper

                    https://www.mercurynews.com/

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                      I'm struggling to see how the "for ten years I was under the control of svengali Sunny Balwani" defence is going to convince any jury.

                      Although they have to try something.

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                        It doesn't have to convince the whole jury. Only one juror.

                        A mistrial keeps her out of prison.

                        Though they downplayed the "Svengali" defence in their opening statement and focused instead on the argument that that this was a business failure rather than a fraud and that her statements were nothing more than non-criminal "puffery", especially in the context of the Valley's "fake it until you make it" culture.

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                          Puffery being a well known form of medical diagnosis.

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                            Well this is the unfortunate part of a tech approach to business not realizing that some parts of the world are subject to regulation and such friction. From the mindset of disruptors it is challenging to understand some things are not to be disrupted.

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                              Yes, the difference being that Steve Jobs' and Larry Ellison's bullshit never threatened anyone's health or treatment choices.

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                                Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
                                Puffery being a well known form of medical diagnosis.
                                Quite, though it is a well known defence to securities fraud.

                                dglh's and stumpy's point echoes that of Carreyou, who feels that the key here is that the alleged fraud had real life consequences that extended far beyond those of vaporware.
                                Last edited by ursus arctos; 23-09-2021, 14:40.

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                                  You see this in tech finance companies all the time, but what they get is SEC and the Fed rather than getting as far as Theranos did. In finance it is typically "we can do this cheaper and better than banks!" and it is true, typically because what they are doing is illegal and the savings they generate is the regulatory burden.

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                                    Originally posted by Stumpy Pepys View Post
                                    I've been listening to John Carreyrou's podcasts, but he hasn't really started reporting on the trial yet.
                                    Ah, turns out the general podcasts are on the page I linked to, but you need an Apple Podcasts subscription to listen to Carreyrou's trial reporting. Which is a bit annoying.

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                                      He's been back in NYC for more than a week should that make a difference

                                      He plans to return for the verdict

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                                        How long is the trial expected to last?

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                                          Originally posted by WOM View Post
                                          How long is the trial expected to last?
                                          Thirteen weeks, according to one report.

                                          One strategy for the defence seems to be to try and discredit the laboratory director Adam Rosendorff. Even though he repeatedly raised concerns, cancelled tests and ended up resigning.

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                                            I think the defence scored a few points in their questioning of Rosendorff, but never smothered the message of the Edison tests being unreliable, unvalidated and that Holmes was fully aware of this.

                                            The case has moved on to Holmes and Balwani's relationship. As the court has access to all their soppy phone messages (not that there's anything wrong with soppy messages to your loved one), that's going to be hard to prove as well.

                                            The weird thing about the Theranos case is that each defendant could, in theory, convince the jury that the other party's to blame and both could walk free.

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                                              That last bit is a familiar conundrum for prosecutors, and presents itself in virtually every case in which defendants who are alleged to have acted in concert are tried separately.

                                              It is one of the principal reasons why prosecutors are so eager to get a plea from one of the pair/group in return for testimony against the others.

                                              The key difference here is the relatively bottomless pockets of the accused.

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                                                Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                                The key difference here is the relatively bottomless pockets of the accused.
                                                Is that right though? Weren't Holmes's lawyers complaining they hadn't been paid for months? Or is her new husband paying her legal fees?

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                                                  They stopped complaining before trial, which leads me to conclude that your second point is reasonably likely (though not the only potential source of funds given her appeal (which has always been inexplicable to me))

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                                                    How am I supposed to feel about this story? Horrible human being dupes entire family of horrible human beings out of 100 million dollars https://www.rawstory.com/holmes-devos/

                                                    I guess I am allowed to be amused

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