S01.E03: Green Juice

[Bort]

Quote

As Theranos rapidly expands, Elizabeth’s technology struggles to keep pace and members of the board become increasingly wary of her secretive behavior. Sunny considers joining the company.

Airdate: 3 March 2022

[Anela]

This guy is abusive as hell, a creepy older man, who reminds me of someone I know and loathe.  And she swindled people, because she couldn’t accept a failure?

the neighbour is also an ass, who can’t accept that someone is just as smart, or smarter than him.  

Edited March 3, 2022 by Anela

[SlovakPrincess]

Good grief, Sunny is creepy.

I died laughing at the reactions to her first attempts at using the deep voice - "do you have a cold?"  Also Rajesh trying to convince the new engineer a box with an empty Snapple bottle was a package he needed to bring into the restricted lab.

Wow.  She really thought she could just bullshit her way through it.  It's amazing the company didn't crash down much, much sooner.  

Poor Edmond -- although, in retrospect, probably a giant relief to him now to have gotten out early!

 

[SunnyBeBe]

Does anyone know the name of the Stanford professor that she met in the lab and impressed  with her ideas? She later offered him a job with the company.  

Edited March 5, 2022 by SunnyBeBe

[SunnyBeBe]

11 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Does anyone know the name of the Stanford professor that she met in the lab and impressed  with her ideas? She later offered him a job with the company.  

I found it.  While some people might have been duped, how in the hey could someone with his credentials not know the it was a sham……especially, for all those years!  
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channing_Robertson

 

[chocolatine]

It was chilling how perfectly Elizabeth copied the Apple store girl's meltdown in front of her board members. "I did everything right." *sob* "I just went too fast." I think there must have been a lot more to her manipulation in real life though, since hardened Silicon Valley investors and executives don't usually fall for that act.

And, while agree that Sunny is creepy and abusive, Elizabeth played him like a fiddle by getting him to sink most of his money into Theranos. She recognized that his achilles heel was wanting to be relevant and mercilessly exploited that by offering him the COO job.

I bet Edmond, Rakesh, Ana, and everyone else who quit or got fired are so happy now that they didn't stick around. Although I did feel bad that Ana forfeited 15,000 Apple shares for this shit show. And that Edmond didn't get to take his own X-ACTO knife with him.

Edited March 6, 2022 by chocolatine

[xaxat]

One thing that I think this show has been great at is where it stands on the tech timeline. Even though the story starts a relatively recent fifteen something years ago, OG Ipods are still a thing, Netflix is still mailing DVDs and there is no Uber.

I was actually surprised at how sympathetic the show treated her character up until this point. I learned about her from WSJ's John Carreyrou's first article and she has always seemed like a cold hearted, social climbing grifter.

Edited March 6, 2022 by xaxat

[dmc]

Amanda is killing this role.  

[Cinnabon]

Could anyone but a sociopath test a machine that she knew didn’t work on cancer patients? 

[Ms Blue Jay]

What was the significance of Edmond looking at Rakesh's blue jeep?

OPEN WITH FEIST, CLOSE WITH AMY WINEHOUSE, OH YEAH BABY 2007 MUSIC WAS SO GOOOOOOOOOOOOD

[Ms Blue Jay]

2 hours ago, chocolatine said:

 And that Edmond didn't get to take his own X-ACTO knife with him.

Rakesh should have put it in his pocket later!

[chocolatine]

4 minutes ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

What was the significance of Edmond looking at Rakesh's blue jeep?

I don't think he was looking at the Jeep specifically, he was looking at the driveway and the street to see if anyone from Theranos had followed Rakesh to spy on him.

[amarante]

I had known a bit about Holmes from newspapers and the documentary but I decided to read Carreyrou's book which was an excellent and easy read - it read a bit like a spy thriller.

This show does an excellent show of getting the essence correct and it adheres well to the facts but obviously has to fill in the stuff that is enigmatic even to those who knew her in person - the whole fake it of the Silicone Valley culture which is fine when you are released buggy software but just ethically amoral when you are dealing with medical devices and have the double wrinkle of operating within a theoretically regulated sphere or business - as one person in the book says.

Some of the details on Sunny are interesting in terms of how he and Elizabeth were a folly a deux. He actually wasn't the highly successful tech entrepreneur - he was amazingly lucky in that he had joined a company during the tech boom in 1999 which had three clients - was sold to a company for $200 million - and the buying company went bankrupt three months after the sale but Sunny made off with $40 million. It had nothing to do with his business acumen and he didn't have particularly brilliant coding skills or scientific background. 

It is telling that none of the Venture Capitalists who invested in her were ones who traditionally invested in medical ventures so they lacked the ability to figure out that what she was proposing was scientifically impossible and she had some kind of charm to old Republican white guys like Schultz and Kissinger who were attached to the Hoover Institute which was on the Stanford campus. None of them had any scientific expertise either.

 

[SonofaBiscuit]

Happened to catch the 20/20 Theranos episode by chance the other night and got into this because of that. I know basically nothing at all about Theranos or Elizabeth, but my overall thoughts are OMG, what an f-ing weirdo. Like people have been saying, she comes across as a sociopath. But she lacks any charm or charisma, so it’s so nutty that she kept the con going for so long! 

The first time I had heard Elizabeth speak was in the 20/20 episode and I was like WTF?!, this can’t be her real voice, right?! Her voice sounded just like what it was, a woman speaking in a fake lower register. That was just freaking bizarre and I don’t get the point. It didn’t make her seem more credible or powerful...That, plus her crazy eyes just make her seem quite odd.

I would have liked to spend more time on Ana Arriola and Avie Tevanian. Ana giving up the 15,000 Apple shares (which I read would be worth millions today) 😱...that decision would have haunted me forever!

It seems like plenty of people knew there were major problems/had alarm bells going off, so it’s crazy that we’re just chugging along.

I also find it nuts that Elizabeth had an idea, was told it wasn’t scientifically possible, and then proceeded to procure millions of dollars, all while offloading this impossible task onto some of the best and brightest talent, whom she was able to hire. Just how?!

[bluegirl147]

16 hours ago, xaxat said:

I was actually surprised at how sympathetic the show treated her character up until this point. I learned about her from WSJ's John Carreyrou's first article and she has always seemed like a cold hearted, social climbing grifter.

I remember hearing about Theranos right before Carreyrou's book came out and I thought there is no way what they are selling is feasible. And I'm not even a medical professional or tech person.  I just know from having so much blood work that a drop of blood isn't going to do everything they said it could do. Having read Bad Blood and watched the HBO documentary and following the trial I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt Elizabeth Holmes is con artist.  She might have believed her idea could work but at some point it became about her needing people to believe it whether it was true or not.  I don't know if money was her motivation or if she just couldn't bare to be a failure. 

12 hours ago, amarante said:

It is telling that none of the Venture Capitalists who invested in her were ones who traditionally invested in medical ventures so they lacked the ability to figure out that what she was proposing was scientifically impossible and she had some kind of charm to old Republican white guys like Schultz and Kissinger who were attached to the Hoover Institute which was on the Stanford campus. None of them had any scientific expertise either.

Yes. I 100% believe if this had a been man his con would have been discovered sooner.  Schultz especially was duped by her.  He sided with her over his own family.

[Ms Blue Jay]

I think that money was certainly a big motivator for her as she has been known to say "I want to become a billionaire" when she was younger.  That was based on real retellings from people who knew her then, right?

[amarante]

1 hour ago, bluegirl147 said:

I remember hearing about Theranos right before Carreyrou's book came out and I thought there is no way what they are selling is feasible. And I'm not even a medical professional or tech person.  I just know from having so much blood work that a drop of blood isn't going to do everything they said it could do. Having read Bad Blood and watched the HBO documentary and following the trial I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt Elizabeth Holmes is con artist.  She might have believed her idea could work but at some point it became about her needing people to believe it whether it was true or not.  I don't know if money was her motivation or if she just couldn't bare to be a failure. 

Yes. I 100% believe if this had a been man his con would have been discovered sooner.  Schultz especially was duped by her.  He sided with her over his own family.

I agree that Elizabeth being a young white woman definitely helped with the specific type of old white conservative males. Scam artists all seem to have affinity groups that are especially susceptible. I don’t know how specific the series will be about how she hooked in very talented engineers and scientists but the book explains how there was a high turnover and how they were siloed so that no one knew what was going on behind their small group which is not how it is generally done but she will claim the need for super secrecy because large medical companies were out to get her. 
There was a documentary on the wework guy and how he essentially bamboozled Ma of SoftBank into investing huge amounts by obfuscating that wework was just a a landlord of commercial real estate and not some futuristic high tech venture. 

[Rootbeer]

2 hours ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

I think that money was certainly a big motivator for her as she has been known to say "I want to become a billionaire" when she was younger.  That was based on real retellings from people who knew her then, right?

Yep, she supposedly announced it to family who asked what she wanted to be when she grew up.  That person suggested that maybe she would like to be President of the US and she replied that the President would marry her because she had a billion dollars.

Her father's side of the family descends from the Fleischman's yeast fortune, I believe the founder was his great great grandfather.  In that era, they were extremely wealthy, hobnobbing with the Rockefellers and other rich and famous elite.  Alas, apparently great great grandpa's descendants were much better at spending money than earning it and the fortune dwindled down to almost nothing by the time Elizabeth's father came along.  He was said to be openly resentful of this and often told her that they were America's elite class and deserved to be wealthy and it was unfair that they were living an upper middle class life when they were entitled to so much more.  Elizabeth supposedly adores her father and I can see where getting that message from him all her life was not conducive to earning an honest living.

Edited March 7, 2022 by Rootbeer

[amarante]

17 hours ago, SonofaBiscuit said:

 

I would have liked to spend more time on Ana Arriola and Avie Tevanian. Ana giving up the 15,000 Apple shares (which I read would be worth millions today) 😱...that decision would have haunted me forever!

 

The Board of Theranos as well as some other key players received stock options and various financial incentives. The whole premium placed on stock value drives a lot of poor economic - as well as ethical - decisions. At best it drives the financial people to attempt to maximize profit in the short term rather than long term because it is better for the stock price. At worse it results in actual financial chicanery where the accounts are fraudulent which has resulted in some epic scandals like Enron, Homestore and Cendant to cite a few of the more notorious. 

Holmes submitted bogus financial forecasts to investors and had to hide the failure of the devices from Safeway and Walgreens because they were pressing her for the machines to go online when they had made significant investments and loans to Theranos as part of their "partnership" deal.

It is hard to actually calculate what Arriola actually walked away from. She had an option to purchase Apple stock at a certain (unknown) price. However it wasn't as if she was walking away from free stock - it was discounted purchase price with the right to purchase vesting on a certain date presuming she was still employed at Apple. Depending on the market the option price could have been higher than the actual price at that time - I started working in the late 1980's after the Black Monday crash of 1987 and my friends who had been given options at the company I started working for had essentially valueless options since the option price was higher than the market value of the shares for a long time. It's hard to know exactly what Apple shares were selling for because of their splits in 2014 and 2020 but I think market price of the shares were high at that time so she might not have made that much even if she exercised. On the other hand I have a friend who bought $5000 worth of Apple in 1998 just before the first iMAC was launched and just held on to the shores and those are worth a bit over $2,000,000 - of course down from their high last month before the market "adjusted".

[peachmangosteen]

5 hours ago, bluegirl147 said:

Schultz especially was duped by her.  He sided with her over his own family.

Which one is Schultz in the show? Or has he not shown up yet?

[SunnyBeBe]

I don’t have a medical background, however, I am an attorney, who has been familiar with certain medical aspects of personal injury claims for many years. So, it boggles the mind that so many educated people ignored even common sense concerns about the representations of Holmes. 
 

Also, where did Sunny get those millions to invest?  
 

And where did the money go?

Edited March 8, 2022 by SunnyBeBe

[Ms Blue Jay]

3 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Also, where did Sunny get those millions to invest?  

Balwani worked for Lotus Software and Microsoft before 1998, when he helped to create CommerceBid,[8] a software development company that helped businesses buy and sell items over the burgeoning Internet.[7] In 1999, the company was purchased by Commerce One, another business development software company with a high valuation. The buyout was done entirely with stock,[7] and Balwani joined the board of the new company. In July 2000, Balwani sold his shares in Commerce One, netting nearly $40 million shortly before the company went out of business, just before the dot com bubble burst.[7][9]  - Wikipedia

Edited March 7, 2022 by Ms Blue Jay

[chocolatine]

2 minutes ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

5 minutes ago, SunnyBeBe said:

Also, where did Sunny get those millions to invest?  

Balwani worked for Lotus Software and Microsoft before 1998, when he helped to create CommerceBid,[8] a software development company that helped businesses buy and sell items over the burgeoning Internet.[7] In 1999, the company was purchased by Commerce One, another business development software company with a high valuation. The buyout was done entirely with stock,[7] and Balwani joined the board of the new company. In July 2000, Balwani sold his shares in Commerce One, netting nearly $40 million shortly before the company went out of business, just before the dot com bubble burst.[7][9]  - Wikipedia

And one of the first things he told Elizabeth after meeting her in the first episode was that he'd sold his company for $40M dollars. That's what gave me immediate creep vibes about him.

[bluegirl147]

1 hour ago, SunnyBeBe said:

I don’t have a medical background, however, I am an attorney, who has been familiar with certain medical aspects of personal injury claims for many years. So, it boggles the mind that so many educated people ignored even common sense concerns about the representations of Holmes.  Boggles the mind.  
 

 

It does boggle the mind that the con went on for years. I mean there were Silicon Valley companies that were legit that failed in a shorter amount of time.  I don't know if people just wanted to believe so badly that what she was selling was true or if they just wanted to be part of something they thought was the next big thing.  

Amanda is killing it though.  She makes me want to reach into the screen and punch Elizabeth dead in the mouth.   What an awful human being.

[Cinnabon]

4 hours ago, Rootbeer said:

Yep, she supposedly announced it to family who asked what she wanted to be when she grew up.  That person suggested that maybe she would like to be President of the US and she replied that the President would marry her because she had a billion dollars.

Her father's side of the family descends from the Fleischman's yeast fortune, I believe the founder was his great great grandfather.  In that era, they were extremely wealthy, hobnobbing with the Rockefellers and other rich and famous elite.  Alas, apparently great great grandpa's descendants were much better at spending money than earning it and the fortune dwindled down to almost nothing by the time Elizabeth's father came along.  He was said to be openly resentful of this and often told her that they were America's elite class and deserved to be wealthy and it was unfair that they were living an upper middle class life when they were entitled to so much more.  Elizabeth supposedly adores her father and I can see where getting that message from him all her life was not conducive to earning an honest living.

Well, even after all of this, she’s apparently living in a 135,000 million dollar house, so she’s doing ok. How the fuck was she able to walk away with all that??

[Ms Blue Jay]

1 hour ago, chocolatine said:

And one of the first things he told Elizabeth after meeting her in the first episode was that he'd sold his company for $40M dollars. That's what gave me immediate creep vibes about him.

Well what about the fact that he was 37 and she was 18?????  LOL

Quote

While enrolled at Berkeley, Balwani, who was 37 at the time, met Elizabeth Holmes, who was 18 and in her senior year of high school.[9] Holmes pursued an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering at Stanford,[9] but later dropped out to focus full-time on Theranos.[10]

- Wikipedia

 

[SunnyBeBe]

26 minutes ago, Cinnabon said:

Well, even after all of this, she’s apparently living in a 135,000 million dollar house, so she’s doing ok. How the fuck was she able to walk away with all that??

It’s my understanding that she lives with this man, who owns the house….are they married?  It’s not her property, right?  My question would be if  plaintiffs would attempt to satisfy any civil judgments with funds belonging to her husband or marital funds, should she marry?   It might be a good reason to not marry. 

Edited March 8, 2022 by SunnyBeBe

[CrystalBlue]

Elizabeth Holmes is married to William "Billy" Evans.  
Recently, info has surfaced revealing Holmes' relationship status: She's now married to hospitality heir William "Billy" Evans, 27. The couple currently live in San Francisco and just welcomed their first child together over the summer.  Feb 23, 2022
 

[bluegirl147]

4 minutes ago, CrystalBlue said:

Elizabeth Holmes is married to William "Billy" Evans.  
Recently, info has surfaced revealing Holmes' relationship status: She's now married to hospitality heir William "Billy" Evans, 27. The couple currently live in San Francisco and just welcomed their first child together over the summer.  Feb 23, 2022
 

I'm cynical enough to think she had a child in an attempt to humanize her for the trial she was facing.  If that was the case it didn't work.

[Rootbeer]

12 minutes ago, CrystalBlue said:

Elizabeth Holmes is married to William "Billy" Evans.  
Recently, info has surfaced revealing Holmes' relationship status: She's now married to hospitality heir William "Billy" Evans, 27. The couple currently live in San Francisco and just welcomed their first child together over the summer.  Feb 23, 2022
 

Billy Evans is an MIT graduate.  More importantly, his family owns the Evans Hotel Group which owns multiple high end hotels and resorts in the San Diego area.  His grandmother runs the company, but he is expected to eventually inherit that position.

6 minutes ago, bluegirl147 said:

I'm cynical enough to think she had a child in an attempt to humanize her for the trial she was facing.  If that was the case it didn't work.

The cynic in me thinks Elizabeth may have had a child also to be able to stake a claim to Billy Evans, a guy whose family has enough money to support her in the style to which she is accustomed while also paying for top notch attorneys to defend her.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Rootbeer

[chocolatine]

47 minutes ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

Well what about the fact that he was 37 and she was 18?????  LOL

 

That too, but as a tech person, I've met men of all ages, who, within minutes of meeting me, tell me either how much their last company has sold for or how much their current one is valued at, so that always jumps out as a red flag to me.

[Anela]

38 minutes ago, CrystalBlue said:

Elizabeth Holmes is married to William "Billy" Evans.  
Recently, info has surfaced revealing Holmes' relationship status: She's now married to hospitality heir William "Billy" Evans, 27. The couple currently live in San Francisco and just welcomed their first child together over the summer.  Feb 23, 2022
 

And having a child with him, probably guarantees her money from his family, even if they break up. At least the child will be taken care of. 

I also noted that she promised she had an investor, and then she manipulated him into investing his money. They're both awful people.

[SlovakPrincess]

On 3/6/2022 at 6:20 PM, chocolatine said:

It was chilling how perfectly Elizabeth copied the Apple store girl's meltdown in front of her board members. "I did everything right." *sob* "I just went too fast." I think there must have been a lot more to her manipulation in real life though, since hardened Silicon Valley investors and executives don't usually fall for that act.

OMG, you are way smarter than me, because I missed the significance of the Apple employee scene.  I thought it was just about Holmes realizing that even the "ordinary people", like the woman she just insulted / gave a back-handed "compliment" to for having no "important" ambitions in life and thus no pressures ... still had stress.  But you are so right.  She was really studying the woman and thinking about how turning on the water works and pleading for forgiveness might make her angry Board feel badly for her.  

[amarante]

25 minutes ago, SlovakPrincess said:

OMG, you are way smarter than me, because I missed the significance of the Apple employee scene.  I thought it was just about Holmes realizing that even the "ordinary people", like the woman she just insulted / gave a back-handed "compliment" to for having no "important" ambitions in life and thus no pressures ... still had stress.  But you are so right.  She was really studying the woman and thinking about how turning on the water works and pleading for forgiveness might make her angry Board feel badly for her.  

And I was wondering whether the Apple Genius had *deiberately* erased the iPhone because Holmes was such a condescending POS. I tend towards the passive aggressive approach and I totally might have "accidentally" screwed it up.

So I thought that Holmes was copying the approach of the Genius in terms of studying how one could theoretically manipulate people into ignoring your incompetence - or lies. 

[chocolatine]

1 minute ago, amarante said:

And I was wondering whether the Apple Genius had *deiberately* erased the iPhone because Holmes was such a condescending POS. I tend towards the passive aggressive approach and I totally might have "accidentally" screwed it up.

So I thought that Holmes was copying the approach of the Genius in terms of studying how one could theoretically manipulate people into ignoring your incompetence - or lies. 

I don't think the Apple store employee (I refuse to call them "geniuses") erased the phone on purpose. She looked genuinely upset after it happened. I think she just got so flustered after Elizabeth told her that her existence didn't matter that she messed up a step in the back-up process. (FWIW, the iPhone had just come out recently and iCloud hadn't been invented yet, so the data back-up and transfer process was more complicated than it is now.)

[Ms Blue Jay]

51 minutes ago, SlovakPrincess said:

OMG, you are way smarter than me, because I missed the significance of the Apple employee scene. 

SO DID I, LOL

[amarante]

12 minutes ago, chocolatine said:

I don't think the Apple store employee (I refuse to call them "geniuses") erased the phone on purpose. She looked genuinely upset after it happened. I think she just got so flustered after Elizabeth told her that her existence didn't matter that she messed up a step in the back-up process. (FWIW, the iPhone had just come out recently and iCloud hadn't been invented yet, so the data back-up and transfer process was more complicated than it is now.)

Yeah I realize that even if it actually occurred it was probably an innocent error and the plot point was intended to illustrate how shrewdly Holmes was able to analyze people - in this case she imitated the genius and in other instances she was able to read people and give them what they needed to manipulate.

I think she was either sociopathic or sociopathic on some kind of scale. As these people lack normal human emotions but are generally brilliant in disguising them and being able to "pretend" normalcy. I think one of the classic books calls it the mask of sanity. Not all psychopaths are going around as serial killers but it appears that Holmes always lacked some kind of *normal* interaction with the world and she had to pretend to be "typical" - like with the first boy friend at Stanford - very deliberate decision to get a boyfriend and have sex and there was no genuine interest or joy in it.

[SlovakPrincess]

Let that be a lesson to everyone -- don't insult and distract somebody at the exact moment they're transferring / backing up your important data!  Unless it gives you inspiration for your next lucrative moment of fraud ...  :D

[Cinnabon]

16 minutes ago, amarante said:

I think she was either sociopathic or sociopathic on some kind of scale. As these people lack normal human emotions but are generally brilliant in disguising them and being able to "pretend" normalcy. I think one of the classic books calls it the mask of sanity.

I agree. And could anyone but a sociopath go ahead with a trial using cancer patients when they knew their technology didn’t work? Especially after meeting some of those very sick patients in person?

11 minutes ago, SlovakPrincess said:

Let that be a lesson to everyone -- don't insult and distract somebody at the exact moment they're transferring / backing up your important data!  Unless it gives you inspiration for your next lucrative moment of fraud ...  :D

I don’t even think she realized that what she said to the woman could be construed as an insult. She just doesn’t think like a “regular” person. 

Edited March 8, 2022 by Cinnabon

[SlovakPrincess]

30 minutes ago, Cinnabon said:

I don’t even think she realized that what she said to the woman could be construed as an insult. She just doesn’t think like a “regular” person. 

I do wonder if she really does have any clinical reason for thinking differently than most people ... or if she's so bought into her own brilliance and special-ness that she's simply convinced herself that her brain must be different and superior in some way.  

The whole thing with telling Sunny she doesn't fall in love like other people ... I mean, she's still very young and possibly just never experienced that chemistry with someone before, but is making weird excuses for why she's not in love with Sunny who, on paper, seems like her ambitious equal  (spoiler alert, Liz: he's actually just awful!).  

Edited March 8, 2022 by SlovakPrincess

[amarante]

53 minutes ago, Cinnabon said:

I agree. And could anyone but a sociopath go ahead with a trial using cancer patients when they knew their technology didn’t work? Especially after meeting some of those very sick patients in person?

I don’t even think she realized that what she said to the woman could be construed as an insult. She just doesn’t think like a “regular” person. 

Holmes obviously thinks that she a very *special* and doesn't have to behave in the same manner as we "little people". In the simplest terms she is a "snob" and so she has no qualms about having a casual conversation with an person and essentially telling them they are inferior but happy. I hear Aldoux Huxley's famous quote about being glad you are a Beta because Alphas work hard and wear gray (Brave New Work) or Leona Helmsley defending her tax evasion criminal charges by saying that only the little people pay taxes.

But that doesn't make it less insulting that the person insulting me assumes that I recognize that a mediocre person like myself certainly recognizes and bow downs to the superiority of the elitist and why should they take umbrage - since we are obviously inferior and obviously we know it.

The cancer trial was actually not one of the more egregious ethical violations evidencing a real lack of having any idea that other human beings actually matter. The cancer patients were not being told anything other than it was some kind of test and also told that it would not help their health at all. As I recall it actually prevented some of the medical people to make investments since she was never able to reliably show that her tests were viable. Originally these were in some way more tied to diagnosing and analyzing the impact of drugs - so a company like Pharma could have real time results to track stuff. It was a bit letter that it veered to doing what are widely prescribed blood tests to consumer - ironically at a certain point it wasn't even a particular high tech company that could be "disruptive" but only a relatively low tech blood testing company.

Far more unethical was when she let the machines be installed in Arizona and Palo Alto and so actual patients were have tests done and the results were completely unreliable. Doctors rely on tests to diagnose and prescribe - people might think they don't have cancer or some people got frightening results and were put through lots of unnecessary worry and expense. One woman had a high deductible so when the doctor was alarmed at the results of the Theranos test he ordered her to go to the ER where she had expensive tests done - she was fine but she had a $3000  deductible 

[SunnyBeBe]

6 hours ago, amarante said:

Yeah I realize that even if it actually occurred it was probably an innocent error and the plot point was intended to illustrate how shrewdly Holmes was able to analyze people - in this case she imitated the genius and in other instances she was able to read people and give them what they needed to manipulate.

I think she was either sociopathic or sociopathic on some kind of scale. As these people lack normal human emotions but are generally brilliant in disguising them and being able to "pretend" normalcy. I think one of the classic books calls it the mask of sanity. Not all psychopaths are going around as serial killers but it appears that Holmes always lacked some kind of *normal* interaction with the world and she had to pretend to be "typical" - like with the first boy friend at Stanford - very deliberate decision to get a boyfriend and have sex and there was no genuine interest or joy in it.

True.  Did you see the way she was looking at the guy when they were having sex while in college?  I’ve never known anyone to look at their lover like that during sex.  Very bizarre.  

[Ms Blue Jay]

That's a pretty normal scene in pop culture when the guy has no idea what he's doing.

[Zima]

I've never heard of this case or these people before, and this series has me intrigued. I tried the Anna Whatever one, and couldn't get past the first episode, it was so bad. The storytelling and acting in this one are so good. Can't wait to see what happens next, and I'm sure from everything I'm reading from all of you, that it will be a shitshow. 

[bluegirl147]

5 hours ago, Zima said:

I've never heard of this case or these people before, and this series has me intrigued. I tried the Anna Whatever one, and couldn't get past the first episode, it was so bad. The storytelling and acting in this one are so good. Can't wait to see what happens next, and I'm sure from everything I'm reading from all of you, that it will be a shitshow. 

I wonder how many people are going to stumble across this show and not realize it's a true story. 

[lovinbob]

 

I have followed this case religiously, saw the documentary, and listened to a few different podcasts about it. But I never had the sense that Holmes knew it was a fraud from the start, or that it was that clear to her team from early on that she was lying to everyone. This is definitely making that argument in a more straightforward way.

I also didn't have a sense from those other sources that she was so much of a weirdo, for lack of a better word. My sense was that she was definitely someone who thought differently from others and was exceptionally driven. But this comes across like she has absolutely no sense of social norms or cues. I wonder where the truth lies.

It's interesting that they are kind of glossing over the celebrity aspect of her rise. They mentioned the profile with Zuckerberg but it's unclear to me how far along in her fame Elizabeth was at this point in the story. I read an interview with Ana Arriola where she said that she was convinced to go with Theranos in part because she was seduced by the Holmes's celebrity and vision, but it doesn't feel like that part has happened yet? A little confusing to me. 

On 3/6/2022 at 7:07 PM, Cinnabon said:

Could anyone but a sociopath test a machine that she knew didn’t work on cancer patients? 

On 3/8/2022 at 5:34 PM, amarante said:

The cancer trial was actually not one of the more egregious ethical violations evidencing a real lack of having any idea that other human beings actually matter. The cancer patients were not being told anything other than it was some kind of test and also told that it would not help their health at all. As I recall it actually prevented some of the medical people to make investments since she was never able to reliably show that her tests were viable. Originally these were in some way more tied to diagnosing and analyzing the impact of drugs - so a company like Pharma could have real time results to track stuff. It was a bit letter that it veered to doing what are widely prescribed blood tests to consumer - ironically at a certain point it wasn't even a particular high tech company that could be "disruptive" but only a relatively low tech blood testing company.

I appreciate your saying this, Amarante, because while she is clearly heartless and deplorable, the cancer trial did not seem to cause any actual harm to the patients, nor did it defer their actual care in any way. 

Edited March 10, 2022 by lovinbob

[AntFTW]

I went back and watched this episode and something I missed before is that Edmond says he couldn't talk about Nashville because he had signed an NDA... which I find very odd.

[IntrovertRed]

On 3/6/2022 at 9:18 PM, amarante said:

It is telling that none of the Venture Capitalists who invested in her were ones who traditionally invested in medical ventures so they lacked the ability to figure out that what she was proposing was scientifically impossible and she had some kind of charm to old Republican white guys like Schultz and Kissinger who were attached to the Hoover Institute which was on the Stanford campus. None of them had any scientific expertise either.

I believe in the book Bad Blood, it was said that Theranos purposely approached wealthy family offices for funding because their due diligence is not as thorough as other venture capitalists.  She did approach a venture capitalist in Chicago, I can't remember his name, but he said no after getting the run around when he asked for financials, etc.  

On 3/7/2022 at 8:14 PM, Rootbeer said:

The cynic in me thinks Elizabeth may have had a child also to be able to stake a claim to Billy Evans, a guy whose family has enough money to support her in the style to which she is accustomed while also paying for top notch attorneys to defend her.

I have been following her for a while and have read almost everything on her.  And I have two thoughts on this. One, I think she got pregnant to garner sympathy from the jury/judge who might take pity on a new mother.  Second, I honestly do think that she thought she would be found innocent.  She took the stand when most people thought she wouldn't because she probably thought she could charm the jury and make them see what she wanted them to see.  I mean, who gets pregnant right before a federal trial that might put her away for years if she is found guilty.  What kind of person has a baby right before trial.  Someone very selfish.  

She should have been in sales, since she was able to sell a product that never worked.  I also bet she starts a company once she does get out of jail.  I'm so curious to see what sentence she will be given.   

Edited March 12, 2022 by KLJ

[Rootbeer]

On 3/7/2022 at 5:10 PM, peachmangosteen said:

Which one is Schultz in the show? Or has he not shown up yet?

George Schultz hasn't been in the series to this point.

Spoiler

Sam Waterston plays him and he appears for the first time at the end of the fourth episode.

 

[Rootbeer]

18 hours ago, AntFTW said:

I went back and watched this episode and something I missed before is that Edmond says he couldn't talk about Nashville because he had signed an NDA... which I find very odd.

Elizabeth and Sunny were obsessed with NDA's and everyone who worked at Theranos had to sign them, often multiple times.  They were also known to go after anyone legally who violated the terms in their opinion.  The employees knew they were quick to sue which helped keep them in line.  They did a lot of stuff that was atypical, even in a Silicon Valley startup including the use of a large security presence to keep people from straying out of their own areas and prevent them from seeing the big, fraudulent picture.