OK, so we do have a federal agency to monitor this stuff.  We also have police.  Does this mean that we should not be annoyed when criminals do their crimes, or not be annoyed that we need to be vigilant and protect ourselves against criminals?<p>Of course not -- these federal monitoring agencies&#x2F;police are a necessary burden, and they only marginally prevent crime -- the crimes still happen, and the agencies&#x2F;police only come in after to investigate and punish.  Meanwhile, people&#x27;s lives are harmed or ended -- by the criminals -- who act with impunity until caught and punished.<p>Now, are Holmes and the rest of Theranos&#x27; mgt criminals?  Of course none of us actually know, we have only a preponderance of second-hand evidence from the press and from government actions.  If you are saying that we shouldn&#x27;t trust any of this, that Theranos is really a bunch of upstanding citizens being brought down by a malicious government and press, then say so.<p>Otherwise, if there is a reason to put some trust in the actions of the govt and the press, then we shouldn&#x27;t be the slightest bit surprised at the anger, schadenfreude, and impatience to have them taken down.<p>IMO, based on the public info, Theranos has become a criminally fraudulent enterprise, and my biggest emotions are anger that they got away with it for so long and impatience at wanting to see them taken down sooner (of course, if it turned out to be a malicious govt and press, then I&#x27;d be defending Theranos even more strongly than I now despise them, as a malicious govt and press are an even bigger betrayal of our trust).<p>Re: If they didn&#x27;t actually do anything illegal and just ran out of money? NO, simply spending down the funds until they are exhausted on a known dead-end project is not fair.<p>At this point, they&#x27;ve had and years of time with unrestricted access to hundreds of millions of dollars for R&amp;D.  They will have either 1) a known path forward with a method that can be engineered into a usable solution, or 2) the knowledge that there is no such path in sight or that they are obstructed by physical limits, or 3) neither of these.<p>If 1), they should already be engineering it towards success (and not testing it in the field with unqualified techs).<p>If 2), they should politely shut down and return unspent funds.<p>If 3), then they have and incompetent R&amp;D effort and should also return the unspent funds.<p>Simply continuing to spend down the funds in condition 2 or 3 is at the very least dishonest&#x2F;fraudlent to the investors (or other entrepreneurs who might access those investment funds), since it is now known that there is no realistic chance for success.