How Elizabeth Holmes' House Of Cards Came Tumbling Down
In a searing investigation into the once lauded biotech start-up Theranos, Nick Bilton discovers that its precocious founder defied medical expertseven her own chief scientistabout the veracity of its now discredited blood-testing technology. She built a corporation based on secrecy in the hope that she could still pull it off. Then, it all fell apart.
BY NICK BILTON
THE WAR ROOM
It was late morning on Friday, October 18, when Elizabeth Holmes realized that she had no other choice. She finally had to address her employees at Theranos, the blood-testing start-up that she had founded as a 19-year-old Stanford dropout, which was now valued at some $9 billion. Two days earlier, a damning report published in The Wall Street Journal had alleged that the company was, in effect, a shamthat its vaunted core technology was actually faulty and that Theranos administered almost all of its blood tests using competitors equipment.
The article created tremors throughout Silicon Valley, where Holmes, the worlds youngest self-made female billionaire, had become a near universally praised figure. Curiosity about the veracity of the Journal story was also bubbling throughout the companys mustard-and-green Palo Alto headquarters, which was nearing the end of a $6.7 million renovation. Everyone at Theranos, from its scientists to its marketers, wondered what to make of it all.
For two days, according to insiders, Holmes, who is now 32, had refused to address these concerns. Instead, she remained largely holed up in a conference room, surrounded by her inner circle. Half-empty food containers and cups of stale coffee and green juice were strewn on the table as she strategized with a phalanx of trusted advisers, including Ramesh Sunny Balwani, then Theranoss president and C.O.O.; Heather King, the companys general counsel; lawyers from Boies, Schiller & Flexner, the intrepid law firm; and crisis-management consultants. Most of the people in the war room had been there for two days and nights straight, according to an insider, leaving mainly to shower or make a feeble attempt at a couple of hours of shut-eye. There was also an uncomfortable chill in the room. At Theranos, Holmes preferred that the temperature be maintained in the mid-60s, which facilitated her preferred daily uniform of a black turtleneck with a puffy black vesta homogeneity that she had borrowed from her idol, the late Steve Jobs.
more
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-exclusive
Sentath
(2,243 posts)Both quite useful in understanding what went squirrely here.
p.s. Is it just me or are we having more reveals of people with their own realities?