I'm not really sure that's fair. In fact, IANAL and have zero knowledge of law, but the two had seemingly nearly opposite intent of their crimes. Who knows what was going on in the girl's head, but it sounds more like a bunch of idiot investors gave a lot of money to a dreamer who wanted to make an impact and didn't know when to quit and fold her hand rather than an elaborate con. That gets taken into consideration before pitchforks come out.
At a certain point you have to wonder why did a 21 year old
get paid 700 million dollars on good faith to start a pharmaceutical company with little oversight? I remember reading about the board a few years ago and just looked it up again. Several generals, Henry Kissinger...huh?
> sounds more like a bunch of idiot investors gave a lot of money to a dreamer who wanted to make an impact and didn't know when to quit and fold her hand rather than an elaborate con
Until you said 'her', I actually thought you were referring to Shkreli. He ran a hedge fund starting at 23, and when he lost a lot of the money, he made bigger bets and tried to earn the money back rather than admitting his losses.
> I remember reading about the board a few years ago and just looked it up again. Several generals, Henry Kissinger...huh?
Shkreli raised money from Steven Cohen's SAC Capital, the family of Fred Hassan (former CEO of Schering-Plough), and Brent Saunders, the current CEO of Allergan.
Their stories, though they differ in industry, seem quite similar when compared in detail.
While I don't know either of them so it is an unfair judgment to make, I would guess there's a big difference in thoughts in the back of their head:
"These idiots aren't getting their money back, wait for my next play..."
"If I can hold them off for another year, we'll have a big breakthrough..."
Making larger bets to cover for an hide losses is a very common story for traders on wall street. Buying an AIDS drug to price gouge is not. In contrast, it seems like Holmes had an earnest desire to improve medical tech.
Again, I'm speculating, we'll see if this unfolds any further. Fun story to follow.
At a certain point you have to wonder why did a 21 year old get paid 700 million dollars on good faith to start a pharmaceutical company with little oversight? I remember reading about the board a few years ago and just looked it up again. Several generals, Henry Kissinger...huh?
This is all seems pretty obvious in hindsight.