Theranos To Close Shop (cbsnews.com)

Major Blud writes: Multiple news outlets are reporting that Theranos, the company that promised to revolutionize healthcare with new blood-testing devices, is closing shop. The company "was unable to sell itself and is now looking to pay unsecured creditors its remaining cash of about $5 million in the upcoming months," reports CBS News. The CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, and President/COO Ramesh Balwani recently settled a civil suit with the SEC, which charged them with massive fraud related to them seeking investment based on misleading information regarding the accuracy of their "Edison" diagnostic equipment. According to The Wall Street Journal, investors lost almost $1 billion in the company. At one point, it was valued at almost $10 billion.

Comments

Elizabeth Holmes should be in prison

[Anonymous Coward]

She knew she didn't have a viable product, and willingly defrauded investors. Whenever someone on her team approached her with concerns about their approach or strategy, she sidelined or fired them. She was not a leader, she was a charlatan and a crook.

Investors had very little knowledge of technology.

[Futurepower(R)]

The investors in Theranos were an example of people being extremely ignorant of technology. Someone who understood would ask a few questions and immediately determine something was wrong.

An example of someone who asked a few questions in 2013: Bill Maris: Here's why Google Ventures didn't invest in Theranos (Oct. 20, 2015 article)

Quote:

"We looked at it a couple times, but there was so much hand-waving -- like, Look over here! -- that we couldn't figure it out," Maris tells Business Insider. "So, we just had someone from our life-science investment team go into Walgreens and take the test. And it wasn't that difficult for anyone to determine that things may not be what they seem here."