At long last, the verdict in Elizabeth Holmes' Theranos trial is in. The infamous Silicon Valley huckster was found guilty of two counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit fraud (she was acquitted on a handful of other charges) and now faces up to 20 years in prison for each count.
As you can imagine, Twitter was ablaze with its typical deluge of hot takes and observations, but it wasn't the only over-active corner of the internet following the trial verdict.
Over on eBay, a microeconomy of Theranos-branded swag exploded in the wake of the jury's announcement (special shout out to Washington Post tech culture reporter Nitasha Tiku for tipping the trend on Twitter).
But buyer beware. If Holmes' trial taught us anything, it's to not recklessly throw cash at a product based on nothing but pure hype. Ironically enough, given the nature of Holmes' alleged criminal grifting, the second-hand listings seem to be ridiculously overpriced given their relative uselessness.
One Theranos-branded windbreaker, for example, is selling for $999.99. Sure, Holmes may be an erstwhile, slightly ironic fashion icon, but this piece is nothing more than typically staid, standard-issued startup tech bro fare — certainly not worth the thousand dollar price tag.
A Columbia fleece pullover with the Theranos logo stitched on the sleeve, meanwhile, is listed for $500 (at least this one looks cozy).
But the grand prize of the ad hoc internet auction is a "rare" copy of the October 2015 edition of the New York Times Style Magazine featuring Holmes as the cover star (famously, the Wall Street Journal's first bombshell expose on Holmes was published the same month).
The magazine's asking price? $2,000. Yeah, we think we'll pass.
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