Once hailed as a 'visionary tech entrepreneur' and 'self-made, blood-testing billionaire' Elizabeth Holmes has now been charged for massive fraud!
Elizabeth Holmes is the CEO of Theranos - a popular blood-testing company which was once a Silicon Valley darling.
The trouble is, Elizabeth Holmes have been a fraudster all along and have just been exposed by the SEC over $700million raised through an elaborate, years-long fraud!
Is this a case of 'vision without values'?¹
Emerging reports also showed that Elizabeth was able to pull off this massive fraud with the help of a major DoD insider believed to be Mattis who is now a member of the Theranos board. A key part of the fraud, according to SEC, is that they falsely claimed to investors that their product had been used by DoD on the battlefield! Not true.
This is clearly a corporate governance issue.
“The Theranos story is an important lesson for Silicon Valley,” Jina Choi, director of the SEC's San Francisco regional office, said in a statement:
“Innovators who seek to revolutionize and disrupt an industry must tell investors the truth about what their technology can do today, not just what they hope it might do someday.”
I couldn't agree more. I actually think the Blockchain global community, especially those unrepentant ICO enthusiasts, have a lot to learn from the sophisticated scam called Theranos.
Do your Due Diligence!
Undoubtedly, there had been several cases of ICO scams and 'founder's fraud' in this our burgeoning market. The latest was Giza and the $2million belonging to investors now in the wind?
In announcing the charges against Theranos and its CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, the S.E.C. said that Theranos and Ms. Holmes had agreed to settle them, with Ms. Holmes agreeing to pay a $500,000 penalty. As part of the settlement, she was stripped of control of the company and barred from being an officer or director of any public company for 10 years. Ironically, she continues to be the CEO of Theranos!
Interestingly, Elizabeth's fraud has crashed the stock of a company formerly valued at about $8 billion!
Isn't that an awful lot for false claims and promises?
The real question is: how can Blockchain believers guard against the 'Theranos' in the cryptocurrency world?
The truth is, guess what...there are no simple answers!
What do you think Bravehearts?