ZEENAT MOORAD: Dangers of ‘brilliant dropout’ narrative
Stanford University dropout and self-made billionaire Elizabeth Holmes cut corners and ignored good governance
On a 2001 conference call, Highfields Capital analyst Richard Grubman made this comment to Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling: "You know, you are the only financial institution that can’t produce a balance sheet or cash flow statement with their earnings." "Thank you very much, we appreciate that ... asshole," was Skilling’s reply. We have come to learn from the displays of corporate scandal audacity (Steinhoff, Volkswagen, Bernie Madoff) that aggressiveness and hard-to-find numbers — or those that don’t add up — are indicators of deception. It’s hard to catch a CEO in an all-out lie, so when it happens and calculated fabrications and thievery are laid bare, it is deserving of some carefully considered rapture. The US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) this week charged Elizabeth Holmes with widespread fraud following an investigation of more than two years prompted by revelations in The Wall Street Journal. Holmes is (or was) the CEO of Theranos, a Silicon Valley biotech company with a...
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