It's incredible to think of all of the harm that Elizabeth Holmes has created through her desire to be the next Steve Jobs.
She has very probably killed people, ruined families, and caused at least one suicide [1].
And all for what? The company will probably be bankrupt. She'll suffer few consequences, as her connections will probably be enough for her to get a job as, at the very least, a VC or as an entrepreneur-in-residence at a VC firm.
From the article: "the elder Mr. Shultz said Ms. Holmes had told him Theranos’s blood-testing devices worked so well that they were being used in medevac helicopters and hospital operating rooms, Tyler Shultz recalls. He and his colleague knew that wasn’t true."
At that point it was an internally known failure yet she lied with a straight face. I'm full of contempt for such a creature and full of admiration for Tyler Shultz.
>elder Mr. Shultz said Ms. Holmes had told him Theranos’s blood-testing devices worked so well that they were being used in medevac helicopters and hospital operating rooms
wouldn't a CEO telling material lies about company's product to board members constitute some kind of felony fraud?
She is like Steve Jobs only in a superficial way. She has a privileged background while Steve Jobs grew up in a middle-class family which could not afford his college. She dropped out because she wanted to be like a dropout like Steve Jobs. She lied about her revolutionary products while Steve Jobs did create revolutionary products with others. She wears a turtle neck because Steve Jobs did.
Steve Jobs said (in the Stanford commencement address) that he couldn't tolerate seeing his parents spend their life savings on his college and so he dropped out.
Like most sociopaths, she will no doubt reappear in a few years. She'll show up with some well-honed, vague expression of regret and implication that she was overwhelmed by her duty as a woman do accomplish whatever.
If that's what she wants (...and does anyone on Earth doubt it?), she will need to produce and star in a few adulatory-yet-irreverent reality shows. She can develop an asshole-with-a-heart-of-gold persona in a safe unchallenging milieu, and then recycle that persona on all the social and political bloviation platforms. Can't miss!
> "When Rochelle called Holmes's office to explain what had happened, the secretary was devastated and offered her sincere condolences. She told Rochelle Gibbons that she would let Holmes know immediately. But a few hours later, rather than a condolence message from Holmes, Rochelle instead received a phone call from someone at Theranos demanding that she immediately return any and all confidential Theranos property."
Her father's with USAID, which does help explain the foreign policy connections.
USAID is much more powerful than is commonly recognized, with an unclassified budget about twice that of the CIA, and is frequently involved in international strategic matters.
This is probably a naïve question, but what were they hoping to get out of it? Holmes gets catapulted to a position of power and does favors for them in return, the satisfaction of being a mentor, ...?
Money. If Theranos were financially successful (At getting an enormous DoD contract, even if they were, technologically a failure), they would have become very wealthy.
She has very probably killed people, ruined families, and caused at least one suicide [1].
And all for what? The company will probably be bankrupt. She'll suffer few consequences, as her connections will probably be enough for her to get a job as, at the very least, a VC or as an entrepreneur-in-residence at a VC firm.
It's incredible.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes...