Why Elizabeth Holmes Was On Trial and Mark Zuckerberg Wasn’t
Update: this story was primarily written before the Holmes verdict was delivered. What’s written below stands.
As of this writing, we have no idea how the Elizabeth Holmes trial will end. (Nor do we know just yet when it will end.)
I’m not qualified, nor interested, in forecasting the outcome of the trial. Instead, I want to ask a question that I’m not seeing enough people discussing: if Holmes is on trial for defrauding investors about her service, why isn’t that the case for virtually every operation in Silicon Valley?
The question in Holmes’ trial, lest we forget, is whether she deliberately misled investors. There are other questions wrapped up, but the essential question is as simple and uncomplicated as this: Did Elizabeth Holmes knowingly misinform her investors, and cause harm through such misinformation?
Eerily enough, nothing in that sentence sounds like it’d be out of place in describing the moral quandaries surrounding, say, Facebook. (Did Mark Zuckerberg knowingly misinform his investors, and cause harm through such misinformation? ) Or Uber. (Did Travis Kalanick?) Or WeWork. (Did Adam Neumann? I’ll make this easy: yes, yes and yes — allegedly, of course.)
