There have been many ways in which the coronavirus epidemic has benefited Silicon Valley businesses, including giving them swarms of new consumers, hurting the competition, and boosting their bottom lines.
Because of the prosecution against Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the now-defunct blood-testing firm Theranos and the most famous CEO ever to face criminal fraud charges in the history of Silicon Valley, this reality is being overshadowed by the case against her. In her trial, which is scheduled to begin with opening statements on Wednesday, she will be confronted with themes of deceit, gender, transparency, out-of-control publicity, and the sartorial impact of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, whose style Ms. Holmes emulated.
Additionally, changes brought about as a result of the bankruptcy of Worldcom, a long-distance telephone company, and Enron, an energy company, in the early 2000s, have had an impact.
The technology sector was once renowned as much for its physical goods as it was for its software. That was more than three decades ago. Technically speaking, software was once a tangible thing. Even if sales were not going well, there was the possibility of fraud occurring.
A Colorado disc storage business that had fallen on hard times was purchased by Hambrecht & Quist, prominent Silicon Valley investors, in 1984. MiniScribe had been in financial trouble. The investment company made the first investment and established the management structure. In 1988, MiniScribe management put 26,000 bricks into MiniScribe boxes and sent them to Singapore in order to keep up with the company’s growth rate. Because of the plan’s exposure, the business went bankrupt, and the top executive was sentenced to prison.
Ms. Holmes’ case, according to Mr. Katherine, was a return to a previous era. Edison, Theranos’ proprietary analyst, was accused of making false and misleading claims to investors about his abilities to conduct a complete spectrum of clinical trials. He was charged with making false and misleading statements to investors about Edison’s abilities. I couldn’t pull it off.
