Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO of Theranos. She was sentenced to prison for defrauding investors. She started making claims that she could do exactly what the headline says. She claimed that current blood panels (which usually require a vial of blood for each test) were insufficient and outdated, and that her company could predict or diagnose a ton of diseases and disorders with only a pinprick of blood. She said that her company was already in the final stages of the research, and used those claims to entice investors. She said that her company was going to be on the forefront of a medical revolution, and investors were clambering to get in before they hit the market.
It turns out she was full of shit, was lying through her teeth, the technology didn’t exist, and they couldn’t diagnose anything with the tiny amount of blood she claimed. Medical professionals had been screaming about the fraud for a long time, but techbros and billionaires were happy to continue jumping on the bandwagon because she kept promising results in the near future. When the fraud finally came to light, Theranos’ valuation went from ~$9B to $0 basically overnight. It was a massive “she stole from billionaires, so we’re making an example of her and actually prosecuting the white collar crime that never gets prosecuted” court case that started way back in the mid 2010’s. It only recently wrapped up a few years ago (I think in late 2022 or early 2023?) and she’s still serving time.
YetAnotherNerd@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
CEO of Theranos, currently spending time in jail for fraudulently saying they could do this.
Herr_S_aus_H@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
They said they could do it. They charged people money to do this, when in fact they could not do this.
YetAnotherNerd@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
Ironically, none of that was why she went to jail. It was for defrauding investors. Fun!
VinnyDaCat@lemmy.world 3 months ago
She didn’t have to tell people this either. She could have easily kept advertising the project, building up hype for it and lying about how close they were to completing the tool without ever announcing it as completed.
You can lead investors on like that. Unless the fraud is completely exposed many investors will often continue to invest in these projects out of fear of missing out.