Who Does Mark Zuckerberg Have To Hurt To Get The Elizabeth Holmes Treatment?

Holmes only went to trial because she inconvenienced and embarrassed powerful people

Jumana Abu-Ghazaleh
5 min readJan 5, 2022
Photo by Greyson Joralemon on Unsplash

Shortly after the jury in the Elizabeth Holmes trial began its deliberations last month, I sat down and wrote the following:

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 answer I suggested? Facebook and other untouchable tech giants primarily harm ordinary people; Theranos inconvenienced multiple powerful people:

Facebook lies to everyone (investors, partners, regulators, everyone) about their products, all the time…But unlike Theranos, when they fail, they don’t humiliate the power elite — they hurt everyday people & marginalized communities.

On Monday night, the jury in the Holmes case delivered a verdict that seemed to back up that answer: Holmes was found guilty on charges of defrauding investors, but not guilty, crucially, of defrauding patients.

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Jumana Abu-Ghazaleh
Jumana Abu-Ghazaleh

Written by Jumana Abu-Ghazaleh

Founder @ Pivot For Humanity. Published in Fast Company, OneZero, IEEE Technology + Society. Board member. Palestinian. Start with empathy, always.

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