But the media and investors didn't think she was crazy - they thought she was brilliant, then Tyler Schultz had to spend $400,000 in legal fees as part of blowing the whistle
Prajwal Shetty I’m not a regular follower of Cramer, but he seems to specialize in softball interviewing of high profile biz leaders shortly before they hit the skids and are shown the door. Happened with Jeff Immelt.
Nonsense Theranos and Holmes were seen at the time as a pioneer in the medlab industry, he purely covered their story just like any regular host would. The very fact he's covering her downfall proves he's stuck with her story from start to finish.
Jim Cramer says "how all these people were fooled." How soon he forgets he was too. Go back to a CNBC interview of Elizabeth Holmes by Jim Cramer. He treated her like royalty.
Walgreen's ignored their own guy because they were GREEDY - afraid CVS would beat them out. Anyone know if Walgreen's is being sued by anyone - probably depends on if a patient suffered or died as a result of faulty tests. Google time!
@@nooceluap7760Walgreen's is technically not greedy, but desperate. At the time when they sign deals with Theranos they're already slipping in revenue, and desperately trying to find the new hot thing to latch on to before their reserve dried up and their market share too low to even matter.
At one time, I considered Jim Cramer to be an Elizabeth Holmes enabler. If he ever characterized himself in that way, this piece makes clear he's seen the error of his ways. So I credit him for that...
Phlegethon there was nothing wrong with Cramer giving her a platform to speak for a few minutes and to “promote” her company, at the time there was no public knowledge of the fraud.
I remember Cramer first interview when he was babbling and drooling at everything Elisabeth was saying... He gave her such undue merits at the time without any true reporting. Now he seems so hauntingly shocked and disgusted by what she has done after he gave her such a platform to spread her lies. Luckily there are some true reporters like Carreyrou to keep your trust in humanity alive. Cramer, find a new job, please.
This anchors voice is sooo annoyingly squeaky and I don't know why he's trying sooo hard to sound so amused at the end of every sentence that he makes 🤷🏼♂️😖🤥
Manpreet Dhatt Really disconcerting when watching reporter talk the ‘Mad Money’ pic and logo are giant, front and center while reporter is off to right on the side.
Seriously one of the most gripping books I have ever read. Better than a who-dun-it ... even though we know from the start Exactly who dun it! Scary and brilliant.
As a licensed clinical chemist I knew from day 1 that this technology couldn't work. Sample size too small then they diluted that for use on conventional instrumentation. Anyone involved in labs learns in the first week that no test is better than the quality of the sample and that finger stick samples are the least accurate source for testing. Any investor could have learned that in 5 minutes of due diligence. Walgreens should have listened to their consultant. Knowing what I know today I should have shorted that stock and made lots of money.
How did you come up with the screen name "terpene12"? I know terpenes from advanced organic chem in college and graduate level food science classes. Learn about terpenes from medical MJ?
LOL I just thought it sounded cool back in the o-chem days =) and I liked the structural diagrams of them. the 12 is arbitrary and has nothing to do with Seahawks references to "12th man"
Cramer is basically a clown putting on his little act and he thinks it makes him respected, which it does not. CNBC needs to send Cramer packing: he is way past his expiration date. Yes, at one time he was singing Elizabeth Holmes’ praises. He did the same thing with Lenny Dykstra and Dykstra is one very sick individual who took too many steroids and ran into the outfield fence a few too many times. Lenny is nothing more than a sick, deluded con man and Cramer is one of the people who drank Dykstra’s Kool Aid and fell for his con job.
Insightful gumshoe work from Carreyrou for this book. Not so much for Cramer as he really gave this woman a vehicle/platform to run on a few years back in his show.
When a "winning" company finds the chief scientist has committed suicide, do you: a) tell everyone that's a sign of leading-edge dedication. b) state it is just a statistical anomaly that crops up and is beyond your control, but you do welcome the challenge. c) just state "We are empowering the individual by bringing real change to the world for the betterment of mankind, science, health and Unicorns!"
How anyone in their right mind believed that she with no medical background whatsoever have come up with the biggest medical breakthrough in her leisure time is ridiculous on its own let alone for how many years it went unquestioned.
@@kyuhotae6410 No, he killed himself in the bathroom at home. Not assassinated, if that's your guess. However, he did it because he was forced to fake data and results and he didn't dare to resign, because he probably won't find another job paying as well at his age.
Cramer should do his home work before inviting psychopath. Holmes dropout from Standford with few classes in biochemistry. Then claim herself to be a scientist lol
@ James, that’s an insult to the word businessman, I’m not even sure why he has a platform as well. Once he was called out by Jon Stewart, dude became a has-been in my books.
@@mrsx7944 Yeah, but somehow I doubt I could sweet talk myself into a multi billion dollar investment into worthless technology. "Sweet talk" only works if you have the face/body to back it up.
You wouldn't have had that many powerful men to follow her and wholeheartedly believe in her if she wasn't charismatic. She must have been incredibly charismatic.
She was young and blond... she been fooling herself since she was a child, she was one of those kids I have met that is so catered to because they thought her fairyland tales were so creative and cute she just grew up continuing to garner an audience by telling creative tales that involved making the greedy richer
Yeah, she's got a very ugly mouth too! Not that visible in all pictures, but in one video when she's talking she has like no upper lip, but a huge lower one, which almost looks like the mouth of a demented person. Her eyes look like she has Grave's Disease (that bulging 'wonder' stare), unless maybe she's on some kind of drugs or something. In some interviews you can tell that she's not a beautiful woman at all. Of course, that is a matter of opinion. But whatever the case, what is wrong with these supposed 'smart' people that invested in her if they looked at her instead of the product?? Why did they not question that there were no science people on the board?
She's not charismatic. She's a dork. That said, she used her status as a woman to get a few powerful people to support her and then everyone followed the pack in search of profits and praise. Zuckerberg has more charisma than her and that's almost impossible.
My guess is that she had the idea that if a (magical) single machine could be made to conduct 200+ blood tests, it would be revolutionary, while people assumed she had the idea on how such a machine could be made, meaning only the engineering details needed to be worked out. Her investment briefing required that investors not ask? hence the discrepancy was never said
Yes, in a sense that's very true. In general, when i read stories like this I chuckle, because I don't know how this all that different from the way a lot of companies do business. It's always about making more and more, and about financial 'growth', not about the product. Unless the population is growing tremendously how is non-stop financial growth possible?? The whole idea in itself is a scam. Make a solid product that everyone truly needs without you having to go to extreme measure of marketing it, and you will have financial stability and health. Wall Street has broken the world. However, when your product can harm people in more ways than causing them to empty a pocket for smoke and mirrors, it goes to another level of seriousness. That's pretty much the only difference here.
@@dyathinkhesaurus But that's their business. Risk is what they do - they always throw money at something that doesn't exist. Whether it eventually does or doesn't, well that's their problem. Please.. last people who need pitty in this whole deal is investors! I don't think anyone, including her, should be punished because of them. That is not what this case should be about
comment risk of company not being projections, but not so much risk of company turning out to be lying about the whole operation and defrauding everyone they do business with. And I'm not going to cover everyone that needs pity in just one comment, so don't go making assumptions about that.
@@dyathinkhesaurus If you want to invest in medical devices, invest in a company like Becton Dickinson. They have long established and time tested product lines. Then we can talk about potentially occasionally not meeting projections. But if they're throwing money at smoke and mirrors, then there are no projections by definition. Why do they do this? Greed, biggest risk brings biggest bucks. Who suffers the most here? Customers and employees, who NEVER make as much as the investors or the big wig 'leaders' of the company, even when there's success. More importantly, they don't even have job security. Now that's who's really being defrauded. They're not throwing any money around at anything and don't have it to throw around, but still suffer first! That is the whole problem in the business world - money is what drives product development, NOT true need. You'll laugh, but there are products out there that when the intended user hears about them (for example doctors), they cringe! But somebody wanting profits or cutting costs latches on and markets it till they're blue in the face, giving the (let's be blunt!) false impression that the actual user has to want the product, staging all sorts of demos with actors portraying the customers, and such. They justify it sometimes simply by 'driving progress' But careful! 'Progress' is not the same thing as need, or good. It can be more about harm than good. So you reap what you sow. We have created a man eat man society and we pretty it up with all sorts of superficial idea constructs and jargon. It doesn't have to be that way, not by any means, but that is the way we have chosen.
She got so far because anyone questioning her or the company would have been labeled “sexist.” Because Holmes was head of the company and people were blindly rooting for her to succeed despite the data to the contrary.
If true, then how would you explain all the other frauds, usually perpetrated by men, that went on for a surprisingly long time? Would sb have expected Kissinger to personally insprect the machines? Is Jim Cramer supposed to know if he can trust what a CEO is saying, if he can't verify it from his studio or computer in half an hour?
She got that far because she exploited a loophole in the regulatory landscape which allowed her company to avoid the strict scrutiny all other device manufacturers have to undergo. It may take legislation to close that loophole.
Thanks for saying that Bob Loza. She may have been a darling of silicon valley because she was a woman entrepreneur but that is not how she escaped regulatory scrutiny for so long. To say otherwise simply betrays a lack of understanding of the facts of the case, the regulatory environment and betrays a desire to use this to promote an anti-feminist agenda in an unwarranted fashion.
@@emintey Interesting.. What was the loophole? Come to think of it, why wasn't this company ever checked out by the FDA or something? How is it possible for someone to just go to market and start selling some fake diagnostic product in all the countries drugstores? This is actually pretty mind-boggling, if you think about it.
She used that “vocal fry” in her voice to get people take her seriously. She had that tone in her voice but lowered the pitch, & there was a nasal tune to it. I listened to another woman that people did not trust that did that during a police interview where she had been involved with a married man who killed his pregnant wife and 2 small daughters. People hated her voice because like Theranos she had that vocal fry, and lowered tone, and people thought she spoke that way in order to be seen as “intelligent & in control” but it backfired because once people thought she may have been involved in the murder, because of her “vocal posturing” and the way she spoke the words and affectation or posturing she used. She also had deleted important texts between her and her lover that people felt were incriminating. Let’s not make women think their feminine voices or feminine nature make them seem or look less intelligent or capable. And not reward women that talk more like a man in order to be seen as serious. I like being feminine & I even find myself taking a more serious “affect” when I am asked to debate or talk about something serious.
Yep , the people that "pushed" that FRAUD should be in JAIL ....... Jim , didn't You kinda' help "push" the whole Theranos thing at one point ? JUST SAYIN" , PLAYA !!!!
There is a Federal criminal wire fraud case against her (9 counts) in the US District Court in San Jose. (There's also two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.) A grand jury handed this down on June 15th, 2018. Her ex-boyfriend and Theranos COO, Sunny Balwani, is a co-conspirator.
She will be eventually. This is a very complicated case and cases are still being put together. Plenty of Theranos people will be in prison, to include Holmes.
Stopped watching Cramer in 2008 after seeing he had absolutely no clue about the Impending financial crash. WTF has happened to his voice since then? 😆
I'm so confused......how could they already be using these machines on patients?? Where was FDA?? Didn't they have to test and authorize the use of this "medical diagnostic" tool???? That's who dropped the ball here big time! If you ask me
Either way, Elizabeth Holmes will go down in history. Either as a villain for having engaged in such massive fraud in the blood-testing industry, or one day in future when this technology actually becomes properly-developed and can work, they’ll look back and say “100 years ago there was a woman who tried to do something like this”.
Cramer really comes off as a real sociopath here. Someone on youtube should put Cramer's sycophantic interview w/ Holmes back to back w/ this interview.
I briefly dated a guy with eyes like that. He is the craziest person I’ve ever come in contact with. He convinced me to give him a chance because I initially was not attracted to him AT ALL( mostly the creepy vibe he gave off) but somehow he mind fu$ked me into thinking I was madly in love. He would really use his eyes when I would call him out about something that didn’t add up- in hind sight it is very obvious but at the time it WORKED like a charm.
Jim: "How all these people were fooled..." Don't pretend you weren't one of those fooled. How many times did you fawn over her and tout her company on CNBC??????
What I don't understand is how people who know the whole story, including John Carreyrou, say Elizabeth Holmes is so very smart, so dedicated, so involved, yet at the same time say she started as an idealist and only later lied. Those are inconsistent ideas. If she was so smart and involved, she must have known that her "dream" violates some basic laws of physics. Maybe George Schultz or Henry Kissinger or Mad Dog Mattis wouldn't pick up on it, but Holmes was a chemical engineering major when she dropped out. She was making very good grades. She had to know that most tests could not be done with just a drop of blood, and, moreover, that multiple tests could not be done on such a small sample. Furthermore, the HBO film about this exhibits one professor who told Holmes exactly that long, long before the practical cheating occurred. Holmes' ideal from the beginning was to get money out of suckers who could be charmed by her. She tried one "vision," the skin patch that would draw a blood sample, communicate with a server to analyze, diagnose, and direct the patch to dispense the required medication. Pure science fiction, and it didn't sell. So she moved on to something that was simpler, but no more possible, and could be sold by big blue eyes and black turtle necks. She knew from the first that there was not only no actual technology behind it, she had to know it couldn't be done. My suspicion is she was planning and hoping that she could get lab technicians and others to work 16 hour days doing all sorts of stuff and that eventually they would pitch up something that really was an advance and really did work. Her idea from the first was to "fake it until she made it." But fakery that involves taking money from people is fraud. From the beginning.
The fact that Sunny was found guilty on all counts and she was found guilty only on some proves how biased and broken the justice system is in the US. And her not saying anything in his defense proves she’s still a remorseless, sociopathic coward.
GIRL POWER AT ITS FINEST- smile, wink, shimmy; and SOB WHEN YOU CAN NOT GET YOUR OWN WAY ........ [like many woman criminal in usa, she will serve no jail term]
Cramer acts like he never interviewed Holmes and gave her a platform for perpetuating her (possible) fraud. He did and was very enthuthsiastic about Theranos before this scandal broke.
The one thing I don't understand is her taste of boyfriend. She could have dated someone younger, fitter, hotter and much smarter than Sunny B. The nasty man ruined her life, to a large extent.
@@bindar8473 I actually watched more documentaries on this and it turns out: one big company got greedy and was afraid she would do (exclusive) business with one of their big rivals, if they took too long to make a deal. So they signed her up quick (without verifying stuff). And with their support, she gained a lot of credibility. A 2nd company got on board (since the 1st company was very reputable). Then a 3rd company and, well: you can imagine the rest.
Finally got around to reading the book a few days ago. Incredibly good story, but it also almost made me ill. It was hard to grasp how so many brilliant, accomplished people were deceived for so long.
