Elizabeth Holmes trial starts as both sides grill potential jurors

Published

3 years ago

September 1, 2021

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Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and former CEO of blood testing and life sciences company Theranos, arrives for the first day of jury selection in her fraud trial, outside Federal Court in San Jose, California on August 31, 2021.

Nick Otto | AFP | Getty Images

Theranos isn’t exactly a household word, but many of the potential jurors questioned on Tuesday had heard of the company or its former CEO, Elizabeth Holmes on the first day of her criminal fraud case.

Nearly potential 40 jurors were questioned over seven hours, and 14 were dismissed. One said, “I don’t have bias, except for I remember the defendant’s penchant for turtlenecks.”

Another juror, who acknowledged he had watched a “60 Minutes” documentary on Theranos, said, “I’m just glad I didn’t invest in it.”

Holmes, who appeared solemn, wore a black dress and jacket with a blue mask. She attempted to make eye contact with each potential juror as they walked into the courtroom.

Elizabeth Holmes in court

Source: Vicki Behringer

One potential juror, who said she had read John Carreyrou’s book about the Theranos scandal, “Bad Blood”, works at a healthcare-related company. She admitted to the judge “there was some amount of disappointment” after she read the book.

“There’s not that many women that get to become CEOs of a high-powered company,” she said.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys are trying to find a dozen impartial jurors and five alternates to sit for what’s expected to be a 13-week long trial. Holmes and Sunny Balwani, her former business partner and for a time her boyfriend, each face 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy. Both have pleaded not guilty. Balwani will be tried separately.

Several potential jurors said they had read books, watched documentaries, or heard TED talks and podcasts on the topic. U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila suggested that potential jurors turn off news alerts to avoid further media exposure.

One potential juror revealed he’s a news producer at a radio station which he said has featured stories on the high-profile case.

“I’ve been avoiding the topic at work but in anticipation of jury selection they’ve been running stories,” he said. “I’m not really sure how I can remain unbiased through the rest of the trial.”

“I look at my computer and all I see is: Theranos, Theranos, Theranos,” he added.

Davila joked, “I’m not going to ask you to quit your job, sir,” and later asked him, “Would it break your heart severely if I excused you from this jury?”

The judge also asked potential jurors about whether they or someone they knew had experienced intimate partner violence. Five potential jurors raised their hands. Bombshell court documents unsealed on Saturday reveal Holmes, 37, plans to claim Balwani, 56, psychologically, emotionally and sexually abused her. In the unsealed filings, Balwani unequivocally denies the allegations.

“The hardest thing for prosecutors to prove here is going to be intent so the more sympathetic and the more emotionally malleable potential jurors reveal themselves to be, the more the defense will want them and the prosecution will want to get rid of them,” James McGarity, jury consultant and partner at R&D Strategic Solutions said. “She really needs the sympathetic folks.”

Another potential juror told defense attorneys that he had left a negative comment on Facebook when Theranos shut down. “I followed the company because I was interested in it,” he recalled. “I was disappointed because I thought the company was so cool,” he said. “It was disappointing.”

Jury selection is expected to last two days with opening statements scheduled to begin Sept. 8.

Technology

Intuit shares drop as quarterly forecast misses estimates due to delayed revenue

Published

3 hours ago

November 21, 2024

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Intuit shares drop as quarterly forecast misses estimates due to delayed revenue

Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi speaks at the opening night of the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles on Aug. 15, 2024.

Rodin Eckenroth | Filmmagic | Getty Images

Intuit shares fell 6% in extended trading Thursday after the finance software maker issued a revenue forecast for the current quarter that trailed analysts’ estimates due to some sales being delayed.

Here’s how the company performed in comparison with LSEG consensus:

Earnings per share: $2.50 adjusted vs. $2.35 expected
Revenue: $3.28 billion vs. $3.14 billion

Revenue increased 10% year over year in the quarter, which ended Oct. 31, according to a statement. Net income fell to $197 million, or 70 cents per share, from $241 million, or 85 cents per share, a year ago.

While results for the fiscal first quarter topped estimates, second-quarter guidance was light. Intuit said it anticipates a single-digit decline in revenue from the consumer segment because of promotional changes for the TurboTax desktop software in retail environments. While that will affect revenue timing, it won’t have any impact on the full 2025 fiscal year.

Intuit called for second-quarter earnings of $2.55 to $2.61 per share, with $3.81 billion to $3.85 billion in revenue. The consensus from LSEG was $3.20 per share and $3.87 billion in revenue.

For the full year, Intuit expects $19.16 to $19.36 in adjusted earnings per share on $18.16 billion to $18.35 billion in revenue. That implies revenue growth of between 12% and 13%. Analysts polled by LSEG were looking for $19.33 in adjusted earnings per share and $18.26 billion in revenue.

Revenue from Intuit’s global business solutions group came in at $2.5 billion in the first quarter. The figure was up 9% and in line with estimates, according to StreetAccount. Formerly known as the small business and self-employed segment, the group includes Mailchimp, QuickBooks, small business financing and merchant payment processing.

“We are seeing good progress serving mid-market customers in MailChimp, but are seeing higher churn from smaller customers,” Sandeep Aujla, Intuit’s finance chief, said on a conference call with analysts. “We are addressing this by making product enhancements and driving feature discoverability and adoption to improve first-time use and customer retention.”

Better outcomes are a few quarters away, Aujla said.

CreditKarma revenue came in at $524 million, above StreetAccount’s $430 million consensus.

At Thursday’s close, Intuit shares were up about 9% so far in 2024, while the S&P 500 has gained almost 25% in the same period.

On Tuesday Intuit shares slipped 5% after The Washington Post said President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed “Department of Government Efficiency” had discussed developing a mobile app for federal income tax filing. But a mobile app for submitting returns from Intuit is “already available to all Americans,” CEO Sasan Goodarzi told CNBC’s Jon Fortt.

Goodarzi said on CNBC that he’s personally communicating with leaders of the incoming presidential administration.

On the earnings call, Goodarzi sounded optimistic about the economy.

“Our belief, which is not baked into our guidance, is that we will see an improved environment as we look ahead in 2025, particularly just with some of the things that I mentioned earlier around just interest rates, jobs, the regulatory environment,” he said. “These things have a real burden on businesses. And we believe that a better future is to come.”

WATCH: H&R Block, Intuit shares fall after report Trump administration is considering a free tax-filing app

H&R Block, Intuit shares fall after report Trump admin considering a free tax-filing app

Technology

Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says X rival is ‘billionaire proof’

Published

6 hours ago

November 21, 2024

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Bluesky CEO Jay Graber says X rival is 'billionaire proof'

Bluesky has surged in popularity since the presidential election earlier this month, suddenly becoming a competitor to Elon Musk’s X and Meta’s Threads. But CEO Jay Graber has some cautionary words for potential acquirers: Bluesky is “billionaire proof.”

In an interview on Thursday with CNBC’s “Money Movers,” Graber said Bluesky’s open design is intended to give users the option of leaving the service with all of their followers, which could thwart potential acquisition efforts.

“The billionaire proof is in the way everything is designed, and so if someone bought or if the Bluesky company went down, everything is open source,” Graber said. “What happened to Twitter couldn’t happen to us in the same ways, because you would always have the option to immediately move without having to start over.”

Graber was referring to the way millions of users left Twitter, now X, after Musk purchased the company in 2022. Bluesky now has over 21 million users, still dwarfed by X and Threads, which Facebook’s parent debuted in July 2023.

X and Meta didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Threads has roughly 275 million monthly users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in October. Although Musk said in May that X has 600 million monthly users, market intelligence firm Sensor Tower estimates 318 million monthly users as of October.

Bluesky was created in 2019 as an internal Twitter project during Jack Dorsey’s second stint as CEO, and became an independent public benefit corporation in 2022. In May of this year, Dorsey said he is no longer a member of Bluesky’s board.

“In 2019, Jack had a vision for something better for social media, and so that’s why he chose me to build this, and we’re really thankful for him for setting this up, and we’ve continued to carry this out,” said Graber, who previously founded Happening, a social network focused on events. “We’re building an open-source social network that anyone can take into their own hands and build on, and it’s something that is radically different from anything that’s been done in social media before. Nobody’s been this open, this transparent and put this much control in the users hands.”

Part of Bluesky’s business plan involves offering subscriptions that would let users access special features, Graber noted. She also said that Bluesky will add more services for third-party coders as part of the startup’s “developer ecosystem.”

Graber said Bluesky has ruled out the possibility of letting advertisers send algorithmically recommended ads to users.

“There’s a lot on the road map, and I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do for monetization,” Graber said. “We’re not going to build an algorithm that just shoves ads at you, locking users in. That’s not our model.”

Bluesky has previously experienced major growth spurts. In September, it added 2 million users following X’s suspension in Brazil over content moderation policy violations in the country and related legal matters.

In October, Bluesky announced that it raised $15 million in a funding round led by Blockchain Capital. The company has raised a total of $36 million, according to Pitchbook.

Technology

Alphabet shares slide 6% following DOJ push for Google to divest Chrome

Published

7 hours ago

November 21, 2024

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Alphabet shares slide 6% following DOJ push for Google to divest Chrome

Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Alphabet shares slid 6% Thursday, following news that the Department of Justice is calling for Google to divest its Chrome browser to put an end to its search monopoly.

The proposed break-up would, according to the DOJ in its Wednesday filing, “permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet.”

This development is the latest in a years-long, bipartisan antitrust case that found in an August ruling that the search giant held an illegal monopoly in both search and text advertising, violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

The potential break-up would include preventing Google from entering into exclusionary agreements with competitors like Apple and Samsung, part of a set of remedies that would last 10 years.

CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.