I wonder how the scheme unraveled. It takes a lot of people to cover up a fraud at this scale, so presumably someone noticed and reported it?
I really dislike this company. I went to a doctor who had advertising tablets installed in every patient room. Getting blasted with drugs ads while your doctor is 20 minutes late put me over the edge. She was a terrible doctor who tried to prescribe a lot of unnecessary products and services that she, conveniently, sold through the front desk of her office. The ads were a great warning sign that she only cared about extracting as much money as possible from patients.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/outcome-a-hot-tech-startup-misl...
The Theranos fraud was also discovered by a WSJ journalist who wasn't wowed by their ex-Pentagon and Beltway board members and puff pieces written about Holmes.
Ooooh - Ads! Of course. Still had to sit there waiting for 20 minutes. There should be a rule that you get to start playing with equipment after waiting 15. "Ah, found the lube! Now we're cooking!"
I've since found another doctor.
(when I was 12) I found some discrepancy in the price of a security, so I wrote a simple program that traded on the discrepancy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPBoIyA11TI
Also this one is amusing given the context "you win if you're not afraid to break rules and do things the way they're best done in the new reality"
Meanwhile, from the DOJ release: "According to evidence presented at trial, Shah, Agarwal, and Purdy sold advertising inventory the company did not have to Outcome’s clients, then under-delivered on its advertising campaigns. Despite these under-deliveries, the company still invoiced its clients as if it had delivered in full."
Wow.
That aspect of the business eventually failed. Some doctors really liked it (the CNN educational content was legitimately pretty good and kept waiting patients from getting bored), but overall it was too expensive to deploy the hardware and geosynchronous satellite Internet service is always slow. As availability of other forms of broadband Internet access improved the satellite service opportunity evaporated. Back at that time I wasn't aware of any fraud, just a failed business model.
I really don't understand people like this. It's far easier to build a serially unprofitable business and cash out your shares...ask Adam Neumann, Travis Kalanick, and the GoPuff founders. Just don't lie to investors, pretend you're building something real at least.
1- https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-outcome-health-executive...
If he'd just failed without the deception he could have collected his golden parachute, then gone on to keep failing at new startups for an indefinite amount of time.
> Outcome Health is a Chicago-based healthcare technology company founded by Rishi Shah. Its registered name is ContextMedia Health LLC. It is majority owned by Littlejohn & Co., a private equity firm. After its founders were indicted by a federal grand jury on multiple charges of fraud and also sued by the SEC, veteran tech investor Howard A. Tullman called Outcome "our version of Theranos."
> In May 2017, a funding round with Goldman Sachs, CapitalG, Pritzker Group, and others invested $600 million in Outcome Health, giving it a $5.6 billion valuation. This is the largest single funding round in Chicago since Groupon in 2011, when it raised $950 million in its fifth funding round.
Private capital investment + healthcare = bad combo
Pushing drugs and procedures and insurance on people you know are already sick and probably desperate is peak ad-tech.
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/outcomehealth/compan...
I would ask the community here how common this kind of fraud is. Do companies inflate their ad display numbers or ad engagement numbers?
https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/former-outcome-health-execu...
"These schemes" were fraud. It is better, and wiser, to eschew fraudulent riches and stay out of jail.
damn. they better hope Elon Musk invents life extension or something ..that is a loooong time. Excessive even.
>Shah was convicted of five counts of mail fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and two counts of money laundering. Agarwal was convicted of five counts of mail fraud, eight counts of wire fraud, and two counts of bank fraud. Purdy was convicted on five counts of mail fraud, five counts of wire fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of false statements to a financial institution. The defendants face a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison for each count of bank fraud and 20 years in prison for each count of wire fraud and mail fraud. Purdy faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison for the count of false statements to a financial institution. Shah faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for each count of money laundering. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled at a date to be determined. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
it would appear absolutely 0 days behind bars and a solemn promise to be a good boy is an option.
