There are many takeaways from the Elizabeth Holmes debacle. But the biggest one, davidzmorris argues, has to do with the fine dance that technology founders have to perfect when they’re raising money based on big promises.
. A jury late Monday found that she defrauded investors in Theranos, the health-testing startup she founded and led. Optimists may think of the verdict as a broad sea change in the way the U.S. public views technology founders. But a closer look shows specific lessons that tech founders, and perhaps crypto founders in particular, should take away from Holmes’ grim downfall if they want to avoid a similar fate.
There are many takeaways from the debacle. But the biggest one has to do with the fine dance that technology founders have to perfect when they’re raising money based on big promises. Some commentators have argued that Holmes’ conviction is a rebuke to the much broader trend of excessive investment hype that has swept the technology sector – arguably for decades, and acutely over the past 10 years or so.
That’s a reasonable takeaway. It’s not hard to imagine a jury six or seven years ago, at the peak if techno-optimism, looking at the same evidence and letting Holmes walk. Holmes’ defense argued in part, and rightly, that making big promises is part of the tech ethos, and failure to fulfill those promises is in itself not a crime. Holmes was ultimately found to have gone well beyond big promises, but the distinction could easily have been lost on jurors.
To be cynical about it, Holmes committed the same sins that many mainstream U.S. liberals lay at the feet of former President Donald Trump. While we all know presidents and legislators engage in deception and graft, Trump went about his lying and corruption incorrectly. While George W. Bush incited a whole war to enrich his U.S. oil buddies, Trump collected hotel-room charges from the Secret Service.
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