How Elizabeth Holmes Could Change the Future of the Silicon Valley

We’ve seen it before; It’s the age old story of a top university drop out, starting a business and rattling an industry. Mark Zuckerberg did it with Facebook, Bill gates did it with Microsoft, and James Park did it with Fitbit. But if Elizabeth Holmes followed the same plot line- dropping out of Stanford to focus on Theranos, why is her story any different?

Unlike the other aforementioned established companies, Theranos was still considered relatively small. In terms of market dominance and revenues, the other companies starting nearly together, had the upper hand. At the same time, they began with technologies already developed and that is where the roads split. Theranos rose to the top solely based on the vague idea of a revolution that Elizabeth Holmes, knew how to sell beautifully. She boasted the ability of her blood testing technology to test for several diseases at once, all from a finger prick amount of blood. To put that into perspective, that’s about 1 thousandth of the actual amount of blood drawn when doing standard blood tests. With her charisma and the audacious leap she was willing to take in the med-tech industry, Holmes grabbed the attention of backers like former secretary of state Henry Kissinger who joined the board and Rupert Murdoch who was one of the major investors. The partnerships Theranos landed with Safeway and Wallgreen’s marked its peak, where the company was valued at its highest- $9 Billion.

But we all know what reaching a peak implies, and that’s exactly what happened. Not long after Holmes was named the youngest self made billionaire, the downfall of Theranos began. In comes John Carreyrou with his eyeopening Wall Street Journal investigation that tore open the company’s strong walls and made way for the scrutiny of the world to fall upon it. His report supposed that a majority of the blood tests weren’t actually being done by Holmes’s “Edison” because its technology, as expected from various expert pathologists, was simply not capable of adequately performing the task it was meant to do. This was then later proven correct by the FDA. With the experience of numerous ex-employees and former investors, Carreyrou was able to put together a report that exposed more than just a finger prick of blood on the hands of Elizabeth Holmes. The crumble began- but like any true artist in show business, Holmes did her level best to keep it under wraps. We saw more investments pile in and while insiders may have known the stilts were shaky, the common public probably did not.

The gradual pace of the fall was short lived. Safeway’s partnership fizzles out, the Wall Street Journal throws another poised but viscous attack, Holmes gets banned from the lab testing industry, the Walgreens partnership ends, and finally, the first of many- Theranos gets hit with a lawsuit from one of its major investors. They snapped one by one creating a domino effect of sorts, all leading to the shutting down of Theranos and its activities entirely. However, a defunct company, multiple doctor, patient, and investor lawsuits would have let the company off a little too lightly. In turn, the SEC charges Holmes and her second in command with massive fraud in 2018. It was a long two years of a pandemic related break, but as of this September, Elizabeth Holmes is finally facing a judge, a jury, and the whole world’s eyes carefully on her, in her trial for 9 counts of wired fraud and 2 counts of conspiracy to commit wired fraud.

There was something so comfortable about how well crafted her image was from the very beginning, that it made no sense when the loose strings were revealed during the court sessions thus far. When Theranos’s “Edison” was labeled as the “iPod of health care,” Holmes assumed the role of the new Steve Jobs. Maybe we needed something new- someone new to bring back to life the concept that Steve Jobs and his creation was. Maybe the idea that a woman was at the forefront of medical and technological innovation was too exciting and inspiring. Or maybe it was the classic “Change the world” pitch that had us on our toes- because in a world where so much has already been accomplished, what and who can bring something so out-of-the-box-new to the table? That want and curiosity was exactly what she would have needed to begin crafting her image. The black turtle neck, the deliberate attempt at a deeper voice, the pace in her diction- all trivial aspects so attentively manipulated that as the audience to this drama, we didn’t even realise what we started associating her with. With that on lock, the secrecy she allegedly maintained about the company’s operations, was looked over. Now, when called upon the stand, whistleblowers and witnesses can say whatever they’d like about how unusual they found it at the time, it doesn’t omit the fact that her charm and charisma dominated any apprehensions they had about her ways. Whether this was about her tracking down employees, unofficially holding the power in lab operations, making major deals with no lawyers present, or simply sharing little to no information about the nano-tainer she aggrandised to all her stakeholders. It was almost as if it added to her uniqueness which we were all so entertained by.

John Carreyrou’s first ambush was the perfect start of the fall, but Elizabeth Holmes’s damage control response brought another question into light that continues to hold if not get more pressing today.

“This is what happens when you work to change things, at first they think you’re crazy, then they fight you, and then all of a sudden you change the world,”

A wonderfully curated retort, because as you’re hit with raw evidence of malpractice and shady operations from Carreyrou, Holmes makes you question its credibility. We have to keep in mind that at this point, WSJ has given us more information on Theranos than Elizabeth Holmes had given in the entire running of the company, and yet with that statement, the common viewer could have been swayed. Why? Because we often see women in any and especially male dominated industries, being eyeballed on every minuscule move they make. The same standards don’t apply for women as they do for men in the business world. The judgement of assuming that she was cunning or scheming rather than just a strategic entrepreneur, however valid, brought the weight of sexism on our shoulders. “Is she really so malignant or have I internalised misogyny so much so that I’ll believe any news pitted against her, as if I expected it to come?” It brings us to question now, whether the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes is really as extraordinary as it seems, or is it getting this level of traction, majorly because she’s a woman?

Unfortunately, the silicon valley is no stranger scandals. Adam Neumann crashed WeWork into the ground catastrophically and yet a week of buzz later, it was old news. You could argue that Theranos being in the med tech-industry was more harmful to people and it cant be comparable to WeWork’s fall. Even so, you’d then have to consider Juul’s founder merely stepping down as inspection began on his company’s negative impact on the adolescent vaping epidemic. Following every rule in the Tech CEO guide to fraud and scandal, the more you think about it, Holmes really wasn’t any different, so why were these other, (coincidentally?) male CEOs, let off with just settlements and lawsuits, while Elizabeth gets slammed with criminal prosecutions? And if it turns out, though unlikely, that she isn’t guilty for scamming investors into pouring close to $700 million into just her words alone- what impact does this have on women trying to enter this “all- embracing” industry, women in start ups, or even young girls finding direction? While we ponder on how much more women have to do to be judged at the same standard as men, we also need to question whether women are allowed to fail and to what extent?

As the trial goes on, we see a relaxed Elizabeth Holmes grace the witness stand with seemingly all the right answers. Her ability to joke around and even crack a chuckle or two gives the impression that she could actually be innocent and have nothing to worry about. At the same time, her calm composure is eerily unnerving and gives the sense that she may once again, be one step ahead in the damage control process too. Weeks of trial are left, court filings indicate abuse, psychological incapabilities, and her child on the way, are likely to be brought up.

Theres much to uncover in the whole saga of how Elizabeth Holmes really did it, but one thing is for certain. She wanted to change the world, and in her own spectacular way, she definitely did.