[ryporter]

SAC Capital is a much bigger stain for former employees than the others, in my opinion. SAC allegedly had a deeply ingrained culture of finding and exploiting insider knowledge that permeated multiple levels. Basically, Cohen had employees do his dirty work, while he maintained plausible deniability.

At Theranos, by contrast, Holmes intentionally kept employees in the dark. If I were interviewing an ex-employee, especially one at a lab outside of California, I would certainly press the candidate on the issue, but I would be willing to believe that they were honestly trying to build and deploy a novel technology that never ended up working. It is not the case that the entire endeavor was a scam. They thought that they could develop this technology, and then the leadership covered it up as they were failing to do so.

Also, do you have any sources that document employment at Lehman Brothers as being a stain on the majority of their employees? Thousands of the employees immediately moved to Barclays and Nomura when they bought parts of Lehman Brothers. That doesn't sound like a horrible stain to me.

[hueving]

Are you serious? You would press employees on the behavior of their CEO?

[wpietri]

I don't know about ryporter, but I sure would. I'm looking for people who are both smart and of good character. Working for what is apparently a giant fraud suggests that they may lack one or both of those attributes. I'd definitely have them talk about their experience there and what they learned, and I'd be looking both for their emotional reactions and the actions they took.

As an example of somebody who handled working at dubious place well, consider this blog: http://liesandstartuppr.blogspot.com/

[LiesNStartupPR]

I appreciate the comment, though I think the situation is often more nuanced - a junior employee may simply not have all the facts, and a more senior one may either have a 'gag order' on exit or worried that saying anything negative will affect their chances with future employers. Whistleblowers can end up harming their careers despite doing the right thing, and a halo doesn't pay the mortgage or buy the kids Christmas presents.

But onto Theranos - I just posted something on this at my blog. More than the employees, look at the Board of Directors and ask why they didn't do their jobs and enforce change. If they can't alter the ridiculous plans of the Founder/CEO due to the voting structure then they should resign. It's not their full time job, they won't go hungry if they leave, so what is their excuse for not speaking out?

[wpietri]

Oh, yeah, I'd expect a junior employee to not figure it out right away. I'd just be looking to see what they noticed in retrospect. And senior employees can have their own legitimate reasons for saying. I'm not saying I wouldn't hire them. I'm just saying I'd ask.

For me it's similar to having worked for a failed startup. I have no problem with it, but I'm definitely going to ask. The difference between a bad failure and a good one is how much you learn.

[hueving]

So you would press anyone who has worked for Google and Facebook as well right?

[wpietri]

How do you mean? Both of those are functioning businesses that build products that actually work. I'd have different concerns about people at those companies, but I wouldn't be asking them, "So when exactly did you realize it was a fraud and what did you do then?"

[ryporter]

I am serious, and I didn't say that. I would press them on what they knew and when, and I'd be willing to believe that they didn't know much more than readers of the WSJ did.