[sizzzzlerz]

She deserves no sympathy what so ever. Much like cyclist, Lance Armstrong, she perpetrated out-right fraud on her investors, employees, and customers and threatened to ruin them financially and legally if they exposed her. The kicker here, however, is that the fraudulent product she was marketing had the potential of seriously impacting the life and health of those who used her product. Trusting the results could result in actually missing a diagnosis of serious issues, resulting in delayed treatment, bad health, and early death or costing the patient money for treatment of a condition they didn't actually have.

Her motives may have been pure early on but once it became apparent that her product simply didn't work, any action taken beyond closing up shop or changing direction and investing in a new approach was unforgivable. In the sentencing to come, following the trial, I hope the judge throws the book at her with a substantial prison sentence and the loss of any ill-gotten gains.

[Benjammer]

It really does have a Lance Armstrong vibe, where, sure, the thing itself was pretty bad, but the defensive actions surrounding the core thing were ten times worse. Destroying many people's lives, and livelihoods, at the slightest hint of a challenge.

Theranos, though, does have the added negative attribute that the product was a medical device and not just an individual's professional athletics career.

[debbiedowner]

Fair comparison in many ways with respect to the legal team. But Lance actually climbed Vontoux, even if he had x% illicit but commonplace help, x < 10. Theranos was claiming it climbed all these mountains no one had ever climbed before and it never did anything like it. I think Lance should be shown way more respect as an exceptional doer with illegal help versus Theranos which had exceptional help and did nothing.

[lerchmo]

In a field of criminals. Everyone in the top 10+ was likely doping.

[pmart123]

True. I think the fact that he didn’t hurt anyone per se is a big difference.

Also, Lance Armstrong was actually good at something and he did comeback from cancer. While not the best excuse, every competitor was cheating too.

[jacquesm]

Armstrong's actions had implications way outside of his individual career.

[labster]

Yet another example of how our culture considers drug offenses to be deplorable while white collar crime is just someone being a little too ambitious. Not an attack on you personally, it's just a pattern I see a lot.

The comparison isn't even all that relevant -- one was people basing life-and-death medical decisions on a fraudulent device business built on fraudulent patents, on which the recently departed U.S. Defense Secretary Mattis sat on the board. And the other was... sports. Not that the culture of doping isn't bad for all the athletes in all sorts of ways, but there is a big difference when someone is making bad health decisions without your knowledge.

[wp381640]

> Yet another example of how our culture considers drug offenses to be deplorable

Armstrong went just beyond drug offenses - he destroyed careers of people around him who wouldn't play along and attempted to call him out.

Betsy and Frankie Andreu, Emma O'Reilly, David Walsh, SCA Promotions, defrauding the USPS, lying under oath, etc.

[jacquesm]

Exactly. It's not as if this was a case of an individual only doing harm to themselves or 'just' cheating at sports.

[maxxxxx]

I think the main problem with people like Armstrong and Holmes is that they are widely admired by people and put forth as an example of "success" while in reality they are ruthless psychopaths who will stop at almost nothing to get their way.

[rchaud]

That is related to cultural mores as well. Do we not celebrate tech CEOs who have never made a profit?

They can become millionaires/billionaires by dint of their privately traded stockholdings, and the NYT will write a puff piece on them, but all we're doing is applauding them because they managed to convince VCs to float them cash to try doing something.

[isoskeles]

Most cyclists were doping back then, so are they all ruthless psychopaths or just the one who won?

[maxxxxx]

Everybody doped but only Armstrong went viciously with all his money and lawyers after people who claimed correctly that he was doping. He was on a different level from others.

[coldtea]

Still nowhere near as important as a medical device with false promises.

[jacquesm]

Absolutely, no contest there.

[simonebrunozzi]

Not comparable to the health implication for customers of a potentially large company.

[SilasX]

Her story is a case-in-point about why you have to be careful about giving advice in the form of "fake it till you make it", "no one knows what they're doing", "all self-doubt is Impostor Syndrome".

She undoubtedly felt what most people feel, she just took the SV advice too seriously and actually believed that no one knows what they're doing and it's all the same, so it's perfectly okay to forge ahead once you realize you're out of your depth and you raised all that funding without justified confidence.

My best version of the point from earlier discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19214749