Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty of fraud and will spend about 11 years in jail. Overlooked, in all the excited chatter about an appointment of a special counsel to investigate DJT’s role in the Jan 6 insurrection and his usurping classified documents to his Mar A Lago cesspool. However, this is an important development in the context of the reverence those who get rich and very quickly are held to in this country. We give up on any sort of due diligence and accept they must be exceptional. They must know all the answers. Every pronouncement as portentous as the oracle of Delphi.
More so, because Holmes was held up and cheered on as a role model that women could succeed in the toxic masculine dog eat dog world of Silicon Valley. Her story is a sort of an inversion, in which she gave the finger to the tech bros and rode their ignorance of bio-medical enterprise in the engineering software and IT heavy Valley. And she had the charisma and the nous along with inviting comparisons to a female Steve Jobs wearing his trademark black turtlenecks and affecting a deep voice. In 2014 she became one of the richest women with an estimated wealth of $4.5 billion.
Theranos, her company was seen as revolutionary and hugely cost cutting in the medical diagnostic world with their product, taking just a drop of blood to conduct a myriad of tests. And she convinced so many high profile personas from the political and business world to join her voyage. But it turned out to be smoke and mirrors. And yet another cautionary tale, that we really need to take care of those who need to be taken care of before chasing another would be billionaire and their bill of goods. There is no joy in this.
I have not read Jon Carreyrou’s book but his expose is regarded as one of the finest examples of present day investigative journalism.