“Misguided Ambition”: The ‘Theranos’ Scam & The Passes They Give

This piece was originally published March 19, 2019 on Medium.com/@lainalovestein

Friday night, after finishing the last episode on my ‘The Nanny’ DVD, I switched my TV over to ABC to catch whatever ‘20/20’ special was on.

I saw ‘The Dropout’ at the bottom of the screen, and a blonde woman was talking. She had piercing blue eyes and a black turtleneck. The image that I first saw on screen was her presenting an idea to a group of people, very similar to my introduction to Steve Jobs. My husband, who was resting in my lap, picked up his head and said: “Yeah, that broad was scamming” before going back to sleep.

I was confused, intrigued and started to turn the TV up so I could listen closer.

Elizabeth Holmes was born in our nations capital, Washington, D.C. Her father, a former VP of Enron, held that title along with various positions in government agencies including the EPA. Her mother held positions in government as well, a staffer for the Congressional committee.

Her great-grandmother was the daughter of the founder of Fleischmann’s Yeast. She then married a physician from Denmark, who eventually founded Cincinnati General Hospital as well as the University of Cincinnati’s medical school.

Just on paper, the wealth and privilege was apparent.

Elizabeth graduated from St.Johns High School in Houston, TX with entrepreneurial experience under her belt. She started a company selling C++ compilers to universities in China. A compiler is a program designed to translate various statements in different programming languages into computer codes. So of course she was already on the Ivy League track. She was already enrolled in summer programs studying Mandarin before even graduating from high school.

She attended Stanford University in the fall of 2001, studying chemical engineering. At the end of her first year, she held a job in the labs of the Genome Institute of Singapore. She participated in research revolving around SARS & blood samples.

She became immersed in the world of research and wellness. Even filing for her own patent for a drug patch in 2003. So when she dropped out of Stanford in 2004, she had a plan to move on to bigger things.

For most, technology for your leisure or convenience is a normal thing. With services that literally bring food and water to your doorstep, its not hard to expect certain things at the click of a button.

In 2001, Steve Jobs introduced the first iPod. This was one of the first items I personally used and thought “wow, this makes life easier.” This was where the world was headed. Innovation that created ways to make life easier for all.

In 2004, groups of college kids were invited to a website that was, for all intents and purposes, a little black book. Mark Zuckerburg & Eduardo Saverin founded Facebook in a dorm at Harvard. Zuckerburg dropping out soon after.

Elizabeth Holmes had the same vision of convenience integrated with technological innovation. When she decided to leave the prestigious Stanford in 2004 with chemical research under her belt, she had a plan for something that could level the grounds of healthcare.

As I continued to watch the 20/20 special, I learned more about who this woman that presented her self in a Steve Jobs fashion was. I heard her discuss what her company, Theranos, was doing for modern medical research and was drawn in.

At your own convenience and leisure, you could find out your health status. To put it simply, imagine a USB drive being a needle. You prick your finger to collect a small amount of blood. You then place that drive into a machine (consider it a mini lab) that reads all of this data to give you an accurate snapshot of your health.

Simple, fast, in your home. Everything that people wanted. This was Holmes’ vision and she knew who to gather as resources to help her drive the company further.

By the December following her dropping out of school, she had already raised $6 million toward her ideas.

She was called a ‘Silicon Valley Darling’ and peddled her start up of revolutionary advancements to everybody that could help her. Being her family were heavily involved in government, it was no surprise to me when 20/20 dived into her board of directors. Names including former Secretary of State, George Schultz as well as a retired Navy Admiral Gary Roughead. Men who believed in her vision and in my opinion, were enamored about her ideas and hung on to her every word. She had that effect.

Many people spoke about how inspiring her story was. How amazing it was that this young woman has figured out what she wanted out of life and was committing herself to this wonderful cause that could help so many people.

Her own mission, as she explained, is to enable very early detection of disease, before symptoms become manifest, when there is the best chance of a cure. Her goal is to “make a change in our world, so that people won’t have to say goodbye too soon” to the ones they love after a diagnosis that came too late to do anything about it. (Fortune.com, 2014)

By this point, in 2014, Elizabeth Holmes was heralded as America’s youngest billionaire. She had already made connections with corporations investing in her company and was clear on her way to going even bigger. Walgreens partnered with the company a year prior to have mini labs on site in their stores, to offer with their clinical services. But shortly after being brought into these places, people started having questions. Questions that needed answers quickly.

Poster from the documentary ‘Catfish’, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010

Social media is a part of lives in so many different dynamics these days. The more interactive we are in technology, the more space we have to be deceived.

How people portray themselves on these platforms aren’t honest 100% of the time. I found it amazing how many people found themselves being made a fool of with these online situations. Identity theft is one thing, but someone building actual relationships with people. Building trust, creating bonds, making them feel comfortable during exchanges. But the other party knowing for a fact that they’re lying, it’s honestly one of the saddest things to see.

As we evolve, we learn & start telling stories that relate to our lives. We’re open about our experiences. We have stories like the documentary film ‘Catfish’ directed by Ariel Schulman & Henry Joost (2010). It followed it’s subject, Nev, who fell into a rabbit hole of deception, confusion, & mystery all because he took interest in an art piece that was said to be created by a little girl named Abbey on Facebook.

We witnessed him being made a fool of and faced with the fact that people will lie to you not only behind a computer, but right to your face. As many know, Nev went on to create ‘Catfish: The Series’. It chronicled stories about men and women who had these issues everyday. Living in a fantasy that someone fabricated to take advantage of them. Building bonds, making them feel safe, leaving them open to believe anything they say. I believe most looked at these ‘scammers’ or impostors as bored people who don’t have much going on in their lives.

But what happens when the deceiving party has an ivy league education? What happens when that impostor has influence, power, and ideas? The scammer isn’t behind the screen anymore, the scammer has made it to board rooms. Or in this case, silicone valley.

Elizabeth Holmes lied. Theranos was an idea she had that she knew for a fact would not work. People who were skilled in those areas of research told her to her face at the inception of the idea that it would not work. But she wanted to be known. She wanted a name. Like those ‘sad’ people behind those computer screens we laugh at on television, she wanted to feel important. She wanted to be spoken in the same breath as Zuckerburg & Jobs. She wanted to change the world.

Theranos site results were being questioned by it’s users. It was reported that after getting an ‘accurate’ reading of his cholesterol from the mini lab a week earlier, a man in Arizona suffered from a heart attack. Another user stated that there wasn’t even a USB drive device that drew blood, the clinic was indeed using a traditional needle. Theranos wasn’t doing what it was advertised to do and people were concerned.

Not only were consumers concerned, actual staff members of the company raised eyebrows. A woman that worked in the lab had questions about quality control, she was shut down by the company’s President, Ramesh Balwami. It was found out that Balwami actually had a romantic relationship with Holmes, which made me shake my head even more.

20/20 highlighted two key people in the last of the puzzle that would help reveal more things about Theranos. In 2015 John Carreyrou, investigative journalist for the Wall Street Journal tracked down Tyler Schultz for information. Tyler was a Theranos employee who had concerns about the company and was also grandson of one of the key board of directors, the former Sec. of State.

Tyler went to the extremes of calling Carreyrou through a burner phone because he didn’t want to be found out giving information. Shortly after, Carreyrou published his expose’ about Theranos. I’ll include the link at the end of this, it gives so much more information about the inner workings of Theranos and the outcomes.

Holmes, 2017 at deposition in front of the Securities & Exchange Commission

After watching the special on ‘20/20’ and learning that HBO premiered a documentary about it yesterday, I felt my ears get hot.

For some reason, even after all of the knowledge we have about fraudulent people, we find ourselves celebrating them. In recent memory, the Fyre Fest was the latest conversation about deception in the form of a business model.

It’s founder, Billy McFarland, was described as charming, intelligent, and having “misguided ambition”. I heard that phrase used with Elizabeth Holmes repeatedly during the special I watched. I found it incredibly infuriating.

Black & Brown people don’t get the advantage of having that type of ambition. In our communities, it’s illegal and you’re immediately jailed for it. Rapper JT of the duo, City Girls, is currently incarcerated for fraud related activity. But here we are, watching multiple documentaries and series about Fyre & Theranos.

Recently Jussie Smollet submitted a fraudulent police report about being attacked in Chicago and is facing charges. But yet Ryan Lochte did something similar in 2016 and can still laugh about it.

Not saying that one is less serious than the other, I’m frankly amazed at the difference how each story is received. A woman born with power, influence, privilege, still found it convenient to lie and deceive. And here we are, keeping her name relevant all in the name of lies.

No thank you. I’d rather celebrate people who deserve to be celebrated. Let criminals lie in the bed that they made.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, I hope that we can find ourselves championing women of integrity, honor, and respect. The ones that deserve it.

Wall Street Journal article by John Carreyrou:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-has-struggled-with-blood-tests-1444881901