Serious question: Even if Theranos goes down in flames, won't she walk away from this with a fortune? Maybe not quite the fortune she thought, but still many millions?
This isn't shady, it's so the founding team stops worrying about money and focuses full-time on the company. Ramen-profitable is good in the short term, but time becomes increasingly valuable as a company grows.
[1] which I'm not accusing Holmes of, but it's not out of the question, either.
Uh, no. It's so that the founders won't sell the company at a mere 4-5x rather than then 20-100x that the VC's want.
If it was genuinely about the company, they'd let all the initial people take some stock off the table. Instead they only allow the people who could sell the company to take stock off the table.
Big difference.