<story><title>Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes must go to prison while she appeals sentence</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/17/court-rules-theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes-must-go-to-prison-while-she-appeals-sentence</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tedunangst</author><text>Do people in her position &lt;i&gt;actually&lt;/i&gt; get away with it, or is that more of a not quite true narrative thing?</text></item><item><author>p-e-w</author><text>&amp;gt; but she just had to go all in to the fraud and wreck her life because she thought she could just power through on delusional belief alone.&lt;p&gt;... which is actually a completely reasonable assumption from her perspective.&lt;p&gt;People at her level of power being held accountable is the one-in-a-thousand exception. It almost never happens. In a very real sense, she was just extremely unlucky, and had undoubtedly witnessed countless others commit worse crimes without any negative consequences for them.&lt;p&gt;This is also the answer to questions like &amp;quot;How did those cops think they could get away with murdering a man in cold blood while being filmed by half a dozen cameras?&amp;quot; It&amp;#x27;s easy: Because they had seen others get away with it, time and time again. Statistically speaking, a cop murdering an innocent citizen has about as much to fear as a regular guy parking in the wrong spot. Indictments are &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; the rule, never mind convictions.</text></item><item><author>narrator</author><text>I think the most interesting thing about Liz&amp;#x27;s character is how she didn&amp;#x27;t skip a beat when she got indicted.  She just kept rolling along. Kicked Sonny to the curb like it was nothing, tried and failed to blame the whole thing on him, found a rich guy to marry, had 2 kids and just kept trucking along like the whole fraud thing was just a big misunderstanding.&lt;p&gt;The complete lack of empathy or concern for her victims, contrition or anything is amazing to watch.&lt;p&gt;This lack of belief that she would ever be found out or anyone would care about her lack of concern for people was her downfall.  She could have just bailed out before the Walgreens deal when the whole thing was obviously not going to work and failed in the normal way that science project startups fail. 
She could have then married the rich guy and had the two kids and lived a dull life maybe selling diet pills or whatever, but she just had to go all in to the fraud and wreck her life because she thought she could just power through on delusional belief alone.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>TideAd</author><text>I worked a little investment firm in college. A few years ago I looked up my boss, the owner. Found out he was in prison! For stealing $10m from a bunch of retirees in a really careless, sloppy way.&lt;p&gt;I think a surprising amount of people try it. But every SEC indictment is not news so we don&amp;#x27;t hear about the people who go to prison.</text></comment>
<story><title>Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes must go to prison while she appeals sentence</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/17/court-rules-theranos-founder-elizabeth-holmes-must-go-to-prison-while-she-appeals-sentence</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tedunangst</author><text>Do people in her position &lt;i&gt;actually&lt;/i&gt; get away with it, or is that more of a not quite true narrative thing?</text></item><item><author>p-e-w</author><text>&amp;gt; but she just had to go all in to the fraud and wreck her life because she thought she could just power through on delusional belief alone.&lt;p&gt;... which is actually a completely reasonable assumption from her perspective.&lt;p&gt;People at her level of power being held accountable is the one-in-a-thousand exception. It almost never happens. In a very real sense, she was just extremely unlucky, and had undoubtedly witnessed countless others commit worse crimes without any negative consequences for them.&lt;p&gt;This is also the answer to questions like &amp;quot;How did those cops think they could get away with murdering a man in cold blood while being filmed by half a dozen cameras?&amp;quot; It&amp;#x27;s easy: Because they had seen others get away with it, time and time again. Statistically speaking, a cop murdering an innocent citizen has about as much to fear as a regular guy parking in the wrong spot. Indictments are &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; the rule, never mind convictions.</text></item><item><author>narrator</author><text>I think the most interesting thing about Liz&amp;#x27;s character is how she didn&amp;#x27;t skip a beat when she got indicted.  She just kept rolling along. Kicked Sonny to the curb like it was nothing, tried and failed to blame the whole thing on him, found a rich guy to marry, had 2 kids and just kept trucking along like the whole fraud thing was just a big misunderstanding.&lt;p&gt;The complete lack of empathy or concern for her victims, contrition or anything is amazing to watch.&lt;p&gt;This lack of belief that she would ever be found out or anyone would care about her lack of concern for people was her downfall.  She could have just bailed out before the Walgreens deal when the whole thing was obviously not going to work and failed in the normal way that science project startups fail. 
She could have then married the rich guy and had the two kids and lived a dull life maybe selling diet pills or whatever, but she just had to go all in to the fraud and wreck her life because she thought she could just power through on delusional belief alone.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zx8080</author><text>The &amp;quot;money is power&amp;quot; is not just a nice phrase from books. Money is power over how much effort others will spend to solve the problems of those who pays the money. So it&amp;#x27;s literally power.&lt;p&gt;However there&amp;#x27;re also other ways to control others to solve problems involuntarily.&lt;p&gt;Exploitation is the area in which the civilization is exceptionally strong.&lt;p&gt;So yes, starting from some level of money and power it&amp;#x27;s pretty easy to get away with proportinally more and more with the money and power increase.</text></comment>