Elizabeth Holmes: Silicon Valley's Greatest Fraud

In this episode of the Compendium, we explore the mysterious rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos scandal that rocked Silicon Valley. Discover how Holmes, decieved investors with false promises and turned Theranos into a culture of secrets and fear. We'll look at the key roles of Sunny Balwani and whistleblower Tyler Shultz in this tale of ambition and deception, painting a vivid picture of one of the most infamous startup frauds in history.

We give you the Compendium, but if you want more, then check out these great resources:

1. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
2. The Drop Out Podcast - Original 6 Part Series which inspired the TV Series
3. The Drop Out TV Show - Adaption based on the Podcast Series

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Credits:

• Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
• Intro and Outro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland by Aleksey Chistilin
• All the Latest Things Intro: Clowns by Giulio Fazio

Chapters

• 0:00 Sneak peak
• 0:52 Welcome to The Compendium
• 1:59 Todays topic introduction
• 5:06 All the latest things
• 14:50 Topic of the week
• 1:30:26 Outro

Transcript

Kyle Risi: and women out there can relate. You need two minutes to go to the loo, you need to pump one out. And your kid is on the other side of the door going, Mommy, what's for dinner? And like, you're in the flow of it, right?

Kyle Risi: But you don't want to like like neglect your child. So you're trying to talk to them while you're, while you're doing what you need to do. That's what she sounds like. She's having a poo while she's trying to maintain a conversation. 

Adam Cox: Yes, she's constantly edging a poo. 

Adam Cox: Welcome to the compendium and assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. We're a weekly variety podcast where each week we dive into the stories pulled from darker corners of true crime, the annuals of your unlawful. The annuls of your old unread history books and the who's who of extraordinary people.

Adam Cox: We give you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering. This week, I'm in the driving seat. I am your host, Adam Cox. And I'm your co host this week, Kyle Reesey. And in today's episode of The Compendium, we're diving into an assembly of billion dollar blood dreams, a collection of clotted lies, and where faking it until you make it can lead to a blood colored can lead to a blood curdling downfall.

Kyle Risi: Thank God! Finally! The conclusion of our trilogy of female con artists. Where have you been, Adam? Our listeners have literally been waiting and waiting for this third, like, this third installment of this trilogy. Well, I've been busy. Doing what, exactly? All you do is sell sports cars, like, God's sake, that's easy.

Kyle Risi: Hey, you want to buy the sports car? Yes, please. Okay, here you go. Give me the money. And there you go. 

Adam Cox: Well, um, well, well, you know, I wanted to make sure we, you know, build up the excitement. And obviously, you've guessed what we're talking about today. 

Kyle Risi: Yes, I guess we should tell our listeners. So we are, of course, correct me if I'm wrong, be brilliant if you just turned around and went, actually no, we're covering something.

Kyle Risi: We are covering Elizabeth Holmes. 

Adam Cox: We are indeed, 

Kyle Risi: yeah. The greatest faker till she makes it. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, we're delving into the story of this young visionary, Elizabeth Holmes, whose dreams dazzled Silicon Valley, but whose reality fell far short of her promises. So she's a brilliant student from Stanford who decides to drop out with a mission to revel out the truth.

Adam Cox: To revolutionise healthcare, claiming to save lives with just a drop of blood. 

Kyle Risi: Wow, do you know what, that line that you just said there, that she was a brilliant student of Stanford. From my understanding was that she wasn't that great, wasn't she? She was a dropout, right? She dropped 

Adam Cox: out. She was a dropout and, uh, but I think she had, um, this really Yeah, she was a dropout, but she had this conviction and this persuasion and I think there's this aura about her.

Adam Cox: Uh, Uh, and this ambition to do something, you know, big with her life. Yeah. And she was a bright, intelligent person. Uh, and yeah, we'll find out the reasons why she dropped out because she had certain role models she looked up to. You

Kyle Risi: Okay, interesting. I'm so, I'm so living for this and finally we can close that chapter of, of, the Compendium Archive.

Adam Cox: Yes, yeah. Well, it's um, the reason I wanted to cover this today is because she had a really ambitious idea, which if it could have worked, it would have been brilliant and it would have made her, you know, Uh, you know, a billionaire. Well, she was a billionaire. She was a billionaire, but she would have had her place in the history books for this, um, this change in healthcare that she's looking to 

Kyle Risi: implement.

Kyle Risi: Well, helping drive forward advances in human healthcare, but now she's in the history books for a completely different reason. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, she still gets her wish, I guess, but not in the way that she intended, um, because her company Theranos became this multi billion dollar sensation. Mm hmm. Uh, but the blood testing kit that she had gained this huge amount of investment for, um, she even managed to get the likes of Rupert Murdoch to invest in this company.

Adam Cox: Wow, so big, big players. Big players. But the thing is, the machine that she created didn't work. 

Kyle Risi: No, ooh. That's the thing though, you said in the beginning, like, you gotta fake it till you make it, and I don't believe that she is unique in that sense. This is how, a lot of the time, Silicon Valley works, right?

Adam Cox: Yeah. And I think the thing is people can respect this fake it till you make it, uh, kind of strategy, especially as you're a new business starting up. But the thing is, this is healthcare. 

Kyle Risi: Cause I don't know a huge amount. I know the story, but she got pretty damn far, right?

Kyle Risi: To the point that am I correct in thinking. That actual patients or regular members of the public were using the machine, believing it worked when actually it didn't. 

Adam Cox: Yes, they, well, they thought they were using the machine. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, interesting! But, watched what the Did the investors also believe that they were using the machine, or did they know as well?

Adam Cox: Well, they had the machine out for people to see, and people would have their blood tests done with this machine. But the thing is, something was happening backstage. Almost like Um, some kind of theatrical production, if you will. Yeah. Whereby what you see, but what's going on behind the screen. Oh,

Kyle Risi: it's a very different story.

Kyle Risi: Yes. Okay, the thing is though, like for our listeners that have not heard this story, they probably have no idea what we're talking about. Machine? What machine? Blood? What? But yeah, brilliant. 

Adam Cox: Yes, but before we get into the story behind the Theranos scandal and Silicon Valley's greatest fraud, I think the first thing we should do.

Kyle Risi: Of course, it's time for all the latest things. Oh, of course, it's time for all the latest things. 

Kyle Risi: This is a segment of our show where we catch up on all the week's happenings and share a quick tidbit, strange fact or laugh at a bit of weird news from the past week. So, Adam, what have you got for us today? 

Adam Cox: Well today, Kyle, I discovered, uh, well this week, Kyle, I discovered that scientists have found that African elephants use specific rumbles to call each other by their name.

Kyle Risi: Oh, really? 

Adam Cox: Yep. 

Kyle Risi: In like a deep frequency kind of style, right? Because you can't, we can't hear elephants. We don't hear them going, Sharon! Sharon!

Adam Cox: It might be. 

Kyle Risi: Where's my socks? 

Adam Cox: It kind of sounds a bit like that. Also, that also sounds like, um, what's his name? Aussie Osborne,

Adam Cox: All elephants sound like Aussie Osborne. 

Kyle Risi: It's true. These are the facts. You heard it here first folks. . 

Adam Cox: This, uh, breakthrough, um, break. Breakthrough. It's a breakthrough. It's a breakthrough. It's a breakthrough. It's a few break. It's a break. Uh, no. This breakthrough, uh, was revealed through decades of research.

Adam Cox: So someone spent. Well, at least two decades, I guess, if it's that. What, egging 

Kyle Risi: them on? Go on, go on, say this. Repeat after me. Sharon. Sharon. 

Adam Cox: Yes. Well, actually, I think it's a little bit more scientific than that. It was done in Kenya, and they analysed with artificial intelligence, uh, the, the sounds that were coming out of these elephants.

Adam Cox: And it's the first time any animal has shown to give individual names rather than just mimicking sounds like birds or dolphins or whatever it might be. 

Kyle Risi: Okay, interesting. That's fascinating. And it also kind of goes to prove that they have an awareness of Not only the other individuals around them, but as individuals themselves.

Kyle Risi: I wonder if they even have a sense of self as well. 

Adam Cox: I don't know actually, it's a good point. I think what they found out , um, which I'll just say, um, is they've got a six second rumble apparently, which is what they use to detect different like frequencies when, um, elephants were calling each other's names.

Adam Cox: So there's one elephant called Shirley actually, um, she was calling out to another called Sandy, which I feel like these must be the English ones. or human given names. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, obviously like you attribute it to a name that's more recognisable 

, also it's not just names that they identified because, when the elephants were going in certain directions, they might make a certain tone in their voice as if to say, Go this way. Oh, I see. Let's go to the watering hole. 

 Go 

Adam Cox: west! 

Kyle Risi: When you come past an old lady, With an apple? You know you've gone too far!

Adam Cox: Possibly. I don't know. All that in six seconds. All that. But I think, uh, yeah, they think they can name places as well, so. Oh really? Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Isn't that 

Adam Cox: crazy? 

Kyle Risi: It's incredible. Like, it's just incredible how we are now discovering how intelligent certain animals are. Yeah. Like, obviously elephants, they've always been known to kind of have this kind of pensiveness about them.

Kyle Risi: Deep, kind of rooted. thoughtfulness, emotions, and things like that. In fact, I think they even cry, don't they? Well, they, 

Adam Cox: well, that's interesting because, um, I remember when we were, that's interesting because I remember when we were in South Africa, , we saw some elephants, and they were crying, uh, because this sort of dirt devil or something like that had scared one of them, like this wind had whipped up the sand, and I remember the elephant afterwards was crying as if it almost was scared.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, that's really cute. 

Adam Cox: I can't remember that bit though, but that is really cute. But then I don't know if it's actually an emotion or if it just had something in its eye. 

Kyle Risi: It might be something in its eye. We are so desperate to kind of attribute humanizations to things, aren't we? So, it could be the case.

Kyle Risi: But I heard that recently that they've, in some countries, they've even classified octopuses as, they have like this intelligence scale and octopuses, have now been classified as this really highly intelligent creature. And therefore , there's laws that have been passed that say that you're not allowed to kill them.

Kyle Risi: You're not allowed to hunt for them. You're not allowed to eat them because they demonstrate this intelligence. And elephants, I'm not surprised that elephants are also. in that same bracket, if you will, even if they don't have the official accreditation to that.

Adam Cox: Yeah. Although you've now made me think about.

Adam Cox: Yeah, although you've now made me think twice about ordering calamari. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, but they're squid, aren't they? . Oh, I don't know. Interesting. 

Adam Cox: Oh yeah, so squid is okay. We can eat that. I'm 

Kyle Risi: assuming so. Yeah, but octopuses, they can like like do like really weird puzzles, solve really strange puzzles.

Kyle Risi: In fact, I think they did this experiment. I might be wrong with this, but They'd put this doll in this enclosure where this octopus was and they hid the, the doll somewhere in the thing and the octopus just didn't like it and he was really upset by it.

Kyle Risi: So he went and got the doll and put it back. Like a kid having a tantrum, he's like, No, it belongs here. And he put it there and then they moved it again and he just got really more and more agitated. It's like, stop moving my stuff. Yeah, it's there for a reason. Cool, 

Adam Cox: alright, well what have you got for us this week?

Kyle Risi: So, Adam, what is the song of the summer? It's 2024. What would you say is the song of the summer? 

Adam Cox: Uh, well, most recently, uh, because we have the radio on at work, and it must play this song about five times a day.

Adam Cox: Is that Sabrina someone's, uh, espresso 

Kyle Risi: song? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Espresso. What are some of the lyrics in it? Something 

Adam Cox: Something about having an espresso? Okay, 

Kyle Risi: never mind. Anyway, back to my all the point? So a few weeks back, a TikToker known as Girl on Couch. So she posted a video with a text overlay, um, saying, did I just write the song of the summer?

Adam Cox: Oh, this girl. I know who you mean now. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. And in the caption, she requested to the internet, if someone can go and try and make this into an actual song, just for funsies. So you know what song I'm talking about. I know your song. Yeah. So I'm just going to play a quick clip from the song.

Kyle Risi: This is the original, by the way, that was turned into the song. Blue eyes, finance, trust fund.

Kyle Risi: I'm looking for a man in finance, with a trust fund. Six five, blue eyes, finance, trust fund. Six five, blue eyes. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if she's a lyrical genius. No, she's not a lyrical, lyrical genius by any means. But there's something quite catchy about that, isn't there? 

Kyle Risi: Exactly. And of course, Adam, the internet delivered because millions of different remixes and variations just ended up flooding TikTok and it became, it's become this, the latest craze.

Kyle Risi: And here's just a couple variations of what other people have written for this, like adding their own lyrics or adding the music.

Kyle Risi: You're looking for a guy in medicine. PhD. Must be Indian. Freelance. 5'6 Tattoos. Bushwag. So I love the Indian lady. Her parents have obviously forced her, like, You need a man in medicine. Or a lawyer. 

Kyle Risi: So all these variations have just flooded the internet.

Kyle Risi: So this girl, her name is actually , Megan Boney or Bonnie. I want to say Boney. Boney sounds better. It's Balic in its meaning. So we're going to go with Boney. But what is nutso is that because this girl went viral, She's actually ended up signing a record deal. Really? Yes! Hang on, but she hasn't demonstrated that she can sing.

Kyle Risi: Exactly, exactly. So back in May, they released the official remix with DJ Duo, Bill and Ted, and probably the remix that we know the best, it features David Guetto, . 

 I'm looking for a man in finance. 

Kyle Risi: Trust Fund. Six five. Low eyes. Finance. Trust Fund. Six five. 

Kyle Risi: Looking for. Looking for. Looking for. Looking for. Looking for. Looking for. Looking for. Looking for. Looking for. Looking for. Looking for. Looking for. a man in finance. Trust Fund. Six five. Blue Eyes. Finance. 

Kyle Risi: So yeah, so that's the song that you probably recognize from TikTok and YouTube and Instagram. Because that's how I came onto it. From someone actually just taking the song and turning it into this major club hit. And now it's just everywhere. Yeah, that's crazy. And you actually brought it up to me the other day and that's how it came onto my radar.

Kyle Risi: But what I find fascinating is that More and more people seem to be finding success in the music industry through platforms like TikTok. And what really surprised me is that the first of these wave of hits started in 2019, which actually did become the song of the year.

Kyle Risi: Which actually did become the song of that summer. Do you know which song I'm talking about? 

Adam Cox: No. That's like five years ago. 

Kyle Risi: It is, but you gotta know this song. 

Adam Cox: Okay. 

Kyle Risi: And this song was born in the same way that Megan Boney's song was born. 

Adam Cox: This one. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, I'm gonna take my horse to the old town road. I'm gonna ride till I can't no more. I'm gonna take my horse to the old 

Kyle Risi: So this is Lil Nas X and I didn't realize that this is how he broke through through a meme song Just like girl on the couch. 

Adam Cox: Oh So she really could be like the next big 

Kyle Risi: thing. She could be I mean she now has a record deal And this was one of the first songs that made artists really sit back and go, hang on a minute, we can actually make some serious money from platforms like TikTok leveraging like meme culture, which up until this point was just largely kind of isolated to images and captions and things like that.

Kyle Risi: So this is the first time that it breaks through into music. And before Old Town Road, Lil Nas X wasn't kind of the star that we know today. I mean, he was already big on Twitter because he was, I think he was managing like a fan account for like Nicki Minaj. So he already had like a good understanding about social media and how to use it very intentionally.

Kyle Risi: So he sampled this song from a video game called, uh, Red, called Red, 2. You obviously know that one. That was a huge back in 2019. And specifically he thought about how he could make this song kind of really short, thinking about the different comedic lines that he could kind of like put into the song that can then be circulated as memes.

Kyle Risi: And because of this, that music, and because, and because this proved that music could be used within meme culture, This ended up ushering in what we now know as the TikTok era of music where all these songs go viral on TikTok and artists are understanding that more and more. So you have artists like Taylor Swift who are intentionally thinking about how their music can literally be memefied 

Adam Cox: that's interesting. I wonder what Megan's follow up song is going to be. 

Kyle Risi: Probably nothing. That's the thing. Exactly as you said, she didn't write the song. She just provided a catchy. Lyric to it,

Adam Cox: girl on couch should be like now she's gonna be girl in kitchen. Girl in kitchen. Girl on sun lounger. Watch it, 

Kyle Risi: don't be sexist. She could just be making some breakfast. Girl on a sun lounger. And with that said, that's all the latest things.

Kyle Risi: so I get to sit back and relax while you do all the heavy lifting. Very exciting time for me. 

Adam Cox: So, Elizabeth Holmes. Well, her story of ambition began from a very young age. At just nine years old, she penned a heartfelt letter to her father, capturing her dreams in words that were beyond her years. She wrote, What I really want out of life is to discover something new and something that mankind didn't know was possible.

Adam Cox: How 

Kyle Risi: old was 

Adam Cox: she? Nine years old. 

Kyle Risi: What a 

Adam Cox: loser.  well, I think that's quite 

Adam Cox: respectable. 

Kyle Risi: Have you ever written a letter to your parents telling them what you want out of life? No. First of all, I'm not happy with your financial situation, mom and dad. So I don't necessarily think this has given me the necessary leg up that I need to be a Lego champion builder.

Adam Cox: Well, I did neither of those things. Okay, 

Kyle Risi: exactly, because your parents weren't in the correct financial situation that they needed to be to give you what you needed. 

Adam Cox: Anyway.

Adam Cox: Anyway, so, um, Elizabeth, she It doesn't downflow.

Adam Cox: So, so Elizabeth, she obviously, uh, was quite a bright, uh, young, intelligent girl. Uh, she also had this stark determination to be incredibly successful. Uh, in other words, she just wanted to be filthy rich. Once asked by a relative about her future, she said, I want to be a billionaire. And when her relative queried, what about aiming to be president instead?

Adam Cox: She said, no, the president will marry No, the president will marry me because I'll have a billion dollars. 

Kyle Risi: Nice. I like that saying. I like that line. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. So she's, she's ambitious. She And what some people don't know, um, I didn't until I started researching, is she hailed from a lineage of affluence. She was the great great great granddaughter of Charles Fleishman of Fleishman's Yeast.

Adam Cox: Fleishman. Fleishman. Is he German? Um, it kind of looks German. Uh, and as the clue is in the name, it's an American brand of yeast. 

Adam Cox: Got a major yeast 

Kyle Risi: infection over here, guys. 

Adam Cox: Fleishman's yeast. And, uh, the family once enjoyed the opulence of a 42 room mansion, polo, safaris, and even owned an island in Hawaii where Shirley Temple celebrated her birthday.

Kyle Risi: Wow, so she's rich, rich. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, and you know Shirley Temple, right? 

Kyle Risi: Shirley. Yeah, the cocktail. She's like a little child actress and they named her cocktail after her, which is like soda water and like red stuff. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, she was an actress in like like the 30s, um, or child actress in the 30s. She was known for being super cute.

Adam Cox: She had like these little ringlets in her hair and she'd do this tap dancing and stuff like that. Her

Kyle Risi: mum made everyone believe that she was like two, three years younger than she actually was. Oh, really? Because that's how you could extend. She was a child actress, right? That's a time, that's a. Ticking, the time is ticking down, the time is ticking down on that.

Kyle Risi: So you want to extend that for as long as possible. So I think she's like 12 and her mum was telling people that she was like nine. Oh, right. She's just an early bloomer. It's fine. 

Adam Cox: So by the time Elizabeth was born, though, the family's fortune was pretty much gone.

Adam Cox: Her great grandfather, Christian Holmes II, had spent all of his share of the Fleishman fortune by living up on an island in Hawaii. And Elizabeth's grandfather, Christian III, had spent what was left during an unsuccessful career in the oil business. So from what I understand, Elizabeth's upbringing is pretty normal.

Adam Cox: Her mother worked as a congressional staffer and her father was a vice president at Enron, an energy company. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, yeah, very normal. 

Adam Cox: So pretty much middle class. At school, she wasn't the best sports person, she would run in races, and despite coming in last, she always was really determined to finish, she wouldn't quit when everyone else had crossed the line.

Adam Cox: She also had a tutor for language lessons, and she is so good at Mandarin at a young age, that she manages to convince her way into college level Chinese classes, which were not open to high school students. had become so good, and was incredibly persuasive, she got in. 

Kyle Risi: Interesting. So, I like the bit that you talked about when she was an athlete in school, even though she wasn't very good, she was really determined.

Kyle Risi: She would just keep going even if she came in last. 

Kyle Risi: And, I mean, while that might seem admirable on the face of it, it also kind of paints a picture of someone that needs to understand what their limitations are and accept them. So, if you run in a race and you just time and time again do not get anywhere. Maybe you should join chess club. Do you know what I mean?

Kyle Risi: And but the thing is though, this is the same situation with Theranos where she was like, , I'm struggling to make it. But I'm determined to keep trying and trying and trying. She doesn't know when to let up basically. 

Adam Cox: Well, I think if you had that attitude, you'd never succeed. So she was just determined.

Adam Cox: And she might realize that athletics wasn't her thing. But I think the whole point is that her upbringing, she's always fighting to do better and kind of push herself. Sure. And even in her school yearbook, she said that in 20 years, she'd be trying to save the world. 

Kyle Risi: Great. I hope she does in a different way, not with blood machines, but 

Adam Cox: So when it came to Elizabeth choosing a university, Elizabeth was very strategic.

Adam Cox: She chose Stanford University so she could put herself closer to the heart of Silicon Valley, a school with alumni that launched Yahoo, Google, Hewlett Packard, and many other groundbreaking companies there. And 

Kyle Risi: also some terrible people, like Elon Musk, for example. 

Adam Cox: Well, yeah, and I guess Elizabeth has joined the ranks of those, but it was at Stanford where Elizabeth's path took a pivotal turn.

Adam Cox: Dr. Phyllis Gardner, a professional of medicine at Stanford, remembers their first meeting vividly. She says that Elizabeth, uh, was introduced to her by a former president of Panasonic as a prodigy with a revolutionary business idea. 

Kyle Risi: Okay. 

Adam Cox: A blood testing device that could test blood constantly via a skin patch.

Kyle Risi: Ooh, interesting. So is this still when she's at university? 

Adam Cox: Yes, this is when she's at Stanford. 

Kyle Risi: Wow, interesting. 

Adam Cox: And, to clarify, it would be like having a sticker on your arm that would be constantly checking your blood levels and if it detected you needed an injection, because you were perhaps diabetic, it would alert you and then you'd take your injection.

Kyle Risi: And at this moment in time, is this just a concept that she's peddling or is this something that she's actually developed? 

Adam Cox: Well, this is just, I think, an idea that she thinks this would be, like, revolutionary. And, uh, the, and the Dr. Gardner, she was like, that's a great idea, but it's not going to work. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, oh, so she knows.

Kyle Risi: What's her credentials? How does she know it's not going to work? Well,

Adam Cox: I guess she's got way more history and experience than at this point. 

Kyle Risi: Uh, I hate it when people throw in your face experience and years and 

Adam Cox: Well, she knew that the skin was a tough barrier to get across. And yeah, she Well, she knew that the skin was a tough barrier to get across, and she was like, trust me, I've been doing this all my life.

Adam Cox: This thing, this technology that you think you can make, it just doesn't exist. She's like, 

Kyle Risi: cute, cute, but not gonna work. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. But that wasn't the answer Elizabeth wanted to be told, and at just 19 years old, she Elizabeth's response was to simply seek another opinion rather than confront the challenge. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, this sounds like she's just looking for another person to just agree with her rather than accepting it.

Adam Cox: Well, yeah, I guess the thing is though, right? Um, I'm sure if someone said, I'm going to create an airplane and it's going to fly in the sky and everything and people, well, before airplanes existed, people would have called you crazy. So I kind of get that kind of drive to go actually, do you know what, I'm going to find a way of doing this.

Kyle Risi: So she's a pioneer thinker, she's thinking like, even in the realms of impossibility. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, I think so. So I don't, I don't blame her at this point. Um, And so at university, she persuaded the head of department to let her onto an advanced course, as she convinces him she is capable of doing it. And he truly thinks that she is a genius.

Adam Cox: So this shows she's incredibly intelligent and ambitious, but a stubborn individual. But there are characteristics you probably want in someone and getting a new venture off the ground. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, I guess so. Someone who's not going to give up at the first hurdle. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. However, her time at university is cut short, and like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates, Elizabeth drops out of Stanford at 19 years and not be held back.

Adam Cox: Okay, here she goes. She's off. Yep, , so she only managed to complete like one and a bit years, um, and so she had quite a limited knowledge in engineering and no knowledge in medicine. So for her to pursue her idea of this blood testing device is kind of crazy when you realize she ain't no expert at all.

Adam Cox: After quitting college, one person she went to was this guy called Tim Draper, who was a family friend. He had made billions of dollars from his investments, and he agreed to give her some money to get started. Elizabeth named her company Theranos, combining the words therapy and diagnosis. 

Kyle Risi: Okay. 

Adam Cox: She envisaged, she envisioned She envisioned a device that seemed straight out of a sci fi movie where a tiny sample of blood taken from a prick to the finger could yield a number of diagnostic results from STDs to cancer within minutes.

Adam Cox: Whereas of course the traditional way of taking blood is via a needle and then having to be sent away to a lab and then even then there's a very limited number of tests that can be done on a single vial of blood. 

Kyle Risi: How much blood is in a vial? 

Adam Cox: Um, I'm gonna make a sign like this much, which is like maybe five centimeters.

Adam Cox: Yeah, that looks like maybe 

Kyle Risi: 10 mils of blood potentially. Yeah. . So she's saying that you could potentially do all of these tests with a fraction of that amount of blood, Uhhuh, . How much is a fraction? Like a millimetre amount? 

Adam Cox: Well, it's a pinprick.

Adam Cox: So I don't know if you've ever had, um, was it a cholesterol test? 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, or a blood sugar test. Yeah. And

Adam Cox: so I think it's going to be something very similar to that where it's a, it is just a drop of blood. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. I've seen the little capsules that they fill up. like, it's like a little, it's like a little pill capsule.

Kyle Risi: It's got a little, suctiony thing at the bottom of it where when you apply it to the blood it just absorbs it into the capsule and that's what they're going to be testing. Interesting. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, so that's that's this revolutionary idea that she has. And the reason that this would be, like, revolutionary and transforming, for , medicine, um, is that it would improve the patient experience, making annoying and frustrating blood draws a thing of the past.

Adam Cox: It'd be a leap into the future where, um, this testing could be performed on the patient. anywhere. So rather than being sent back to a laboratory and waiting several days, it could be done in the doctor's office, it can be done at home, or it could even provide medical aid on the battlefield. 

Yeah. . I see how that's potentially revolutionary, because of course there you're cutting down the time, you're cutting down the size of the equipment.

Kyle Risi: It's mobile. You can take it onto a helicopter. Mm-Hmm. It can be there in a tent on the battlefield, essentially. Yeah. To provide. On demand medical care 

Adam Cox: and diagnosis. Exactly. And so I think this concept is what people get really excited about because they're like, Well, yeah, this is way more advanced than what we've got right now.

Adam Cox: We want to invest in this. And if you think that you can make it happen or have got the knowledge to make this happen, well, we want to hear about it and we want to know more. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, and the other thing as well, I get it as well. My mom, she is diabetic. My mother is diabetic. So one of the difficulties that doctors have is taking vials and vials of blood from her because she has restricted veins.

Kyle Risi: So even just finding a vein to extract 10 mils or a vial of blood is really, really difficult. And she comes out of those doctor's offices, like, looking as if she's been stabbed in a freak show with a bunch of throwing knives because they're just desperately trying to find a vein where they can extract some blood from.

 I now understand why this is so revolutionary and exciting. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, and she's, yeah, and she's the kind of visionary leader that people just perhaps didn't expect to drive this forward. 

Adam Cox: So from early on, she's quite secretive to how it all works though, which I guess gave off this impression she knew what she was doing. 

Kyle Risi: Or that she didn't know what she was doing. 

Adam Cox: Yes, that's it. Because as the saying goes, fake it until you make it. And that's probably the best way you can sum up Elizabeth Holmes.

Adam Cox: A big faker to your maker, you 

Kyle Risi: big fat phony! 

Adam Cox: What helped her get this investment, and perhaps installing the fear of FOMO to potential investors, were if this device worked, people could get super rich. It's like Bitcoin now, people kick themselves for not investing when it was just a few dollars a coin.

Adam Cox: Haha, I invested. Not when it was a few dollars a coin. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, but I missed it now. I jumped on in the FOMO wagon. 

Adam Cox: And so now it's, it's, it's 50 grand ish a coin, uh, as at the time of recording this. So yeah, people want to get involved early on before, um, this business becomes so big and too famous. But more importantly, it was her apparent charm.

Adam Cox: Like in her school years, she had an amazing ability to convince people of anything. And plus, she's blonde, she has these big blue eyes, so I'm sure for some men that helped. But it's not to say she relied on her looks, but image was important to her. 

Kyle Risi: Sure, and I'm surprised that's something that she might have tried to leverage for some people because women are so underestimated in business.

Kyle Risi: People don't necessarily look at women as the CEOs of billion dollar companies. How did she navigate that? Because that is a very real thing that women have to face in business. So what does she do? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, it's a good point it wasn't always plain sailing for her.

Adam Cox: Um, people liked her idea, but they weren't really going to trust their money in this 20 year old. Who, just, just, this woman essentially, she's got a great idea, but she didn't have the, the background knowledge to back it up. 

Kyle Risi: Do you think that because she was a woman playing in, essentially, wrongly or rightly, or wrongly, in what people coin as a man's world, 

Adam Cox: so for her to get over this hurdle and to get people to invest in her, she took a look at the image that she was sort of portraying and then she looked at other people who were hugely successful at the time And one of them was Steve Jobs, who is known for being a shrewd businessman and of course, his black turtlenecks.

Kyle Risi: Mmm. 

Adam Cox: And remember, he would always give the Apple keynote speech in a black turtleneck. He would. So Elizabeth thought, aha! That must be the key to success. Turtlenecks.

Kyle Risi: Oh my god. 

Adam Cox: That's how I'm gonna make it big. Yeah. It's a turtleneck. Exactly. So she was like, I need to start wearing them. 

Kyle Risi: And she did. Yeah. See, this is why I'm not successful. Because I have a turtleneck and it's black. I wear it and I just go. That's not the vision of a successful man. Take it off, you're undeserving.

Adam Cox: So yeah, my advice to you is to, um, get that turtleneck back out, walk into your manager's office and demand a pay rise. And promise you, it might work. It

Kyle Risi: might 

Adam Cox: work. 

Kyle Risi: And if they say no, I'll be like, right, settle in everyone. Here's a keynote speech on why Kyle deserves a pay rise. 

Adam Cox: So, as well as changing the way she dressed, she also changed her demeanour, including her voice, which aside from being a huge fraud in business, is also what she's known for. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, her voice, because she has this really strange, deep voice, and I have known that people have said in the past that, She has been caught on film and camera and also just in personal conversations slipping.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. A bit like Michael Jackson. Remember when we did, uh, that all the latest things on Michael Jackson where people were coming out going, That's not Michael Jackson's real voice. And then they like play a clip of him on a telephone, like taking the telephone call and like he speaks like a black guy.

Kyle Risi: Like a sassy black guy, like with all this attitude. And it was like, hang on a minute. What happened to your big high pitched voice? And they're like, yeah, he didn't speak like that. 

Adam Cox: Well, it was like that and she did slip up. So I'm going to play you a couple of clips, um, for those that perhaps aren't familiar with how she sounds.

Adam Cox: So, um, let's play the first one. 

Adam Cox: Sure. Yeah. Over the last 11 years, we've reinvented the traditional laboratory infrastructure. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, really deep, isn't it? Over the last 20 years, we've developed a new, um, uh, lab equipment thing. 

Adam Cox: It kind of reminds me of like, some like, surfer dude is like, yeah, totally. Um, it kind of like this kind of weird, deep.

Kyle Risi: I'm going to go there and I'm going to say it sounds like she is, and women out there can relate. Right, your kid, you need two minutes to go to the loo, you need to pump one out. And your kid is on the other side of the door going, Mommy, what's for dinner? And like, you're in the flow of it, right?

Kyle Risi: But you don't want to like like neglect your child. So you're trying to talk to them while you're, while you're doing what you need to do. That's what she sounds like. She's having a poo while she's trying to maintain a conversation. 

Adam Cox: Yes, she's constantly edging a poo.

Adam Cox: . Okay, so that's how everyone knows her for speaking. But when other people that knew her earlier on in her career are a bit like, hang on a minute, that doesn't sound like the Elizabeth that I used to know. Have you got a clip? I do, yeah.

Adam Cox: We talked to our lab team and they said, okay, you can do And so they did this, what would have been a finger stick on this little nub on his arm. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, so she's got that very much that L. A., Californian kind of style vocal fry, inflections at the end of the sentence, very girly, she's not pooing, mm mm, 

Adam Cox: mm mm.

Adam Cox: And so people have studied her voice and were like the only way that she could get her voice that deep is if she had taken a shot of testosterone. And despite her voice occasionally slipping when she had too much to drink, she denied that her voice had ever changed. She just said, Oh, it's just happened gradually as I've got older.

Adam Cox: But she does eventually admit to putting on this voice back in 2023. So not that long ago in order to essentially So not that long ago, and the reason was, uh, to try and increase her authority and for people to believe in her. And she's not the first person to do this. Uh, Margaret Thatcher did it too as well.

Adam Cox: She had, uh, a voice coach to help her give more authority because very early on, she was very much, um, like, Ooh, uh, mm, yes, mm. And then she's like, Oh, yeah. 

Kyle Risi: She wanted to relate to kind of the typical English kind of British working class man. Yeah. The miners. I'm one of you. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. And that's yeah, the Iron Lady.

Adam Cox: Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: But it's sad because this is a symptom of a woman working in a very male orientated kind of business environment where in order to be even taken seriously, you almost have to Well, you have to speak with a deep voice. Yeah. And that's horrendous. 

Adam Cox: Because newsreaders do it a lot. Or they used to. I think they're probably, they're not, they don't have as deep of voices as maybe some of the earlier ones in like the 90s.

Adam Cox: I mean, think of Moira Stewart. Mmm. She had one of the deepest voices. And again, it's all about this authority and trust. And it's actually a common tactic in nature with many other primates, lowing their vocal pitch during a fight. Shut up, really? Yeah, don't blame her for changing her voice, it's, monkeys do it.

Kyle Risi: So when me and you have an argument and we're fighting, we're just both gradually getting deeper and deeper, until it's just like an elephant rumble. Ugh. 

Adam Cox: Shirley! Shirley! Yeah, so um, , quite fascinating, but this is just one of the things that she did, which is weird. 

Kyle Risi: Mm, mm. , but not that weird though, because I also can relate, not relate, I can understand why.

Adam Cox: We can understand, but the fact that she denied it. Just odd. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, because it's embarrassing. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, there it is, Elizabeth, if you're listening, it's embarrassing. By February, 2005, she's already raised about 6 million and she's come up with a name for her device. She calls it the Edison after Thomas Edison. Oh,

Kyle Risi: okay. Interesting. Yeah. Pioneering. 

Adam Cox: Yes. And quite early on, she managed to lure people over from Apple with her vision of a once in a lifetime opportunity to be part of this.

Adam Cox: groundbreaking invention, including a woman who helped design the iPhone. And I think because she was a woman herself, people wanted to believe there could be a female equivalent of Steve Jobs in Silicon Valley, doing something as unique and groundbreaking as him. 

Kyle Risi: Well, there's no reason why there can't be, just as long as you do it all legitimately.

Kyle Risi: But then that's not to say that people on the, in Silicon Valley

Kyle Risi: are doing things legitimately. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, yeah, that's true. 

Kyle Risi: Not just to say that you, yeah. Sorry. Just repeat. I can't remember what I said. 

Adam Cox: Oh, okay. Can't remember.

Adam Cox: So on the surface of things at Theranos, everything seemed pretty fantastic, but the work culture deep down was something entirely different. One of the former employees, a guy called Justin paints a stark picture. He said there wasn't much. camaraderie to speak of, and instead the atmosphere was thick with paranoia.

Adam Cox: And as a newcomer, Justin initially thought this siloed and secretive environment might just be a standard of like corporate big businesses. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, that's the kind of the world that I emerged into when I started working was going into these startup companies, where it was like play hard, work, hard, kind of environment slogans everywhere. And it's just a really toxic environment underneath it. Like, Like, Oh, we're a family. They kind of give you that, that pain, that manipulation, but underneath it all, there's all these underhanded tactics to kind of keep you in the office longer, keep you working.

Kyle Risi: And spying on you is horrible and toxic. So I can get that sense. And I 

Adam Cox: guess, yeah, from you working in those startups, I've been in sort of similar position. Um, and this was one of the biggest startups in Silicon Valley at the time. So that kind of nature and yeah, office culture was definitely at play here.

Adam Cox: So Justin, he quickly realised that the isolation wasn't this kind of secretive thing that they did to try and keep their, I don't know, trade secrets and IP away from everyone else. It was done intentionally , uh, to try and discourage people from talking to each other. And why, you might ask? 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, why? 

Adam Cox: It seems they were trying to prevent staff from connecting the dots about the troubles plaguing their Edison machine.

Kyle Risi: Oh, because it didn't work. Yeah. So they knew it wasn't going to work even from the beginning. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, well, Elizabeth at this time was saying that they've got a working sort of prototype, um, and that was obviously encouraging more investment. Um, but the more that Justin had, but the more that Justin had saw whilst working at There and Us, the clearer it became to him that 

Adam Cox: it wasn't, uh, this innovative or transparent company he thought he had joined. There were kind of secrets at play. 

Kyle Risi: I 

Adam Cox: see. He recalls an incident where Elizabeth Holmes sent him an email claiming she had left for the day, yet he had only had to look down the hall and could see that she was still in her office working.

Kyle Risi: Oh, why? That's, that's weird. 

Kyle Risi: Is this

Kyle Risi: just an example of like, the lies and the lack of transparency and

Adam Cox: Yeah, it just was this really odd thing. So he actually, he went up to her and said like, What's, what's going on? I just sent you an email. And he confronts her, and rather than come back with a sorry or a logical explanation to him 

Kyle Risi: Yeah?

Adam Cox: He, he He, she just kind of fobs him off and he decides to leave and she demands he never walk away from him ever again. 

Kyle Risi: Ooh. Ooh, one of them. One of them people. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, and so there's this really weird power play going on and he understood that it was a start up but he could see quite clearly within a short amount of time that he was, yeah, that he was there, that the testing wasn't getting any better, yet Elizabeth kept believing her own bullshit and so was the media.

Adam Cox: And he's just like, where the hell am I? I can't keep up this charade anymore. Especially if we can't critique the product. But Elizabeth herself would not allow any questions or people standing up to her. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. Sounds very toxic. Horrible. Good job that Justin left, I think. What was Justin doing at the company?

Kyle Risi: Do we know? 

Adam Cox: Um, 

Adam Cox: I'm not entirely sure what his role was, but I know some of the other scientists that were brought in, um, they didn't fare any better. So he wasn't a scientist or technical person, so perhaps more administration or operational. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, it'd be interesting to find out what the scientists who are actually working on the machine, who probably are sitting there telling like, , Elizabeth, I'm not It's not gonna work.

Adam Cox: Yeah, exactly. This is impossible. Well, they're joined thinking there was already a working prototype to some degree. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, really? 

Adam Cox: And, like, how else would she be able to get so much investment and notoriety? Exactly! So, 

Kyle Risi: basically, she's lying to all these investors. Mmm. 

Adam Cox: yeah, exactly, and so they learn quite quickly, um, that there was not even close to a prototype. It was almost like being brought into the business based on a machine made out of Play Doh, which Elizabeth had created in art class. Oh, 

Kyle Risi: God. 

Adam Cox: And then she's like, hey, guys, can you just make what I made, but with like, you know, technology.

Adam Cox: With actually working bits. Yeah, exactly. And so there's a real high turnover of staff that come and go and like, no, this is just not for me. 

Kyle Risi: Mm. Mm. 

Adam Cox: Plus, things weren't always plain sailing in the early days, in 20, in 2009, six years after. Plus things weren't always plain sailing in, that doesn't make sense now.

Adam Cox: So as you can see, things aren't plain sailing in the early days of Theranos. In 2009, six years after its launch, Theranos was rapidly burning through cash and needed further investment. This is where a guy called Sonny Balwani, a multi millionaire with significant wealth accrued from his time at Microsoft and Lotus, he recognizes the potential impact of Theranos mission so he not only joins the companies running So he not only joins the company running its day to day operations as a COO, but he also injects 13 million from his own money to help stabilise its 

Kyle Risi: finances.

Kyle Risi: Wow, so he's got skin in the game. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, and he kind of portrays himself as this kind of crucial financial saviour at a critical time for the company. 

Kyle Risi: I see, so he's acting as chief operations officer, he's there to kind of run the day to day of the business. Yeah. Ooh, interesting. 

Adam Cox: And the thing is, he's a smart man, yeah?

Adam Cox: But he lacks any formal training in biological science or medical devices. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, every business has one of them, right? Like, oh, I like, I'm the CEO. Let me tell you, Mr. Marketing Manager, how to do your job. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, and the thing is, I don't think you necessarily need to have, I don't know, 20 years in medicine, but you need to have some understanding if you're in that industry.

Adam Cox: You 

Kyle Risi: need a work, a basic working understanding, yeah. 

Adam Cox: And given that Elizabeth isn't the best at this as well, you've got these two head honchos who don't really know what they're talking about running the show. 

Kyle Risi: I see this everywhere, Adam. Every business is like this, every tech business is the same.

Adam Cox: Yeah, so you can see where things are starting to head now. Mm hmm. One thing that Sunny does do, um, which is very successful, along with Elizabeth, is land a partnership deal with Walgreens, which is this huge business in the US with over 8, 000 stores. It's the equivalent of Boots in the UK. 

Kyle Risi: Wow, okay, so a pharmacy.

Adam Cox: Yes. They were hoping to put Theranos technology in all of their stores, which would mean every home in America would be just a few miles away from a Theranos machine. Right.

Kyle Risi: For blood testing. 

Adam Cox: For blood testing, yes. 

Kyle Risi: So an application on that would be, okay, I'm feeling a bit unwell. I have to call my doctor.

Kyle Risi: I have to wait two weeks for an appointment. Go get the blood taken. That gets sent off. Now, you're saying that I can go use one of these machines with a pinprick. How long is it taking to get the results back? 

Adam Cox: Um, I think it's supposed to be within a couple of hours. 

Kyle Risi: Wow! So that's really quick. That really cuts that down.

Adam Cox: Maybe a bit longer, but same day. So that's 

Kyle Risi: what they're promising. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. And so you go to Walgreens, you perhaps get your blood tested, you wait a little bit, you then go, oh, you need to be prescribed XYZ, you then go to the pharmacy counter and get those pills or whatever. 

Kyle Risi: Hang on, so we missed something here, because you said that before the Edison prototype Wasn't even working, but now they're in Walgreens.

Adam Cox: Well, he's the one that lan Well, Sonny and Elizabeth land a deal to get Oh, 

Kyle Risi: it's a deal, a promise. Okay, so they still haven't made the Edison machine work yet. Do Walgreens know this? 

Adam Cox: Well, we'll get on to that. Oh my god! Because this 

Adam Cox: so this would be a huge achievement for Theranos if they were able to do this, right? It would bring in a massive amount of money. Walgreens were asked to imagine their customers being able to do 200 blood tests in their store without the use of a single syringe. Wow. And wouldn't that make people come to Walgreens?

Adam Cox: And Walgreens were like, Oh my God, that sounds amazing. Sign us up. And Elizabeth and Sonny, of course, were able to sell them this dream. 

 And I know you're thinking, well, how, how could they do this, right?

Adam Cox: Because they have to do some background checks. They must do some background checks before they can put this machine in their store. 

Kyle Risi: Are you saying they don't do background checks? 

Adam Cox: Well. 

Kyle Risi: Fuck me. 

Adam Cox: They thought they were doing background checks, and what, and the information they were getting back made them think everything was above board.

Adam Cox: Okay. But , there was smoke and mirrors at play. 

Kyle Risi: From Theranos side? 

Adam Cox: Exactly. 

Kyle Risi: Oh my god, okay. How? Tell me, what were they doing? 

Adam Cox: Well, for starters, we have to look at what Theranos was portraying themselves to be. So they had all this financial backing from various investors. So that's a big tick in Walgreens eyes because, obviously, for people to invest in them the way that they have done, there must be some legitimacy to what Theranos was doing.

Adam Cox: Sure, yeah. Then there was the evidence that Theranos had been a good investor. Then there was the evidence, and I use quotation marks with that, uh, that Theranos said that they had a working version of this machine that was ready to roll out the same year. 

Kyle Risi: Okay. 

Adam Cox: And it could run any accurate blood tests in real time at half the cost of central lab tests all through this brick, all through the prick of a finger.

Adam Cox: And not only that, their product was verified under FDA. which is food and drug guidelines. Yeah. Which was somewhat true. One of the blood tests was verified, but not the entire offering. But they just led with, Oh yeah, we're FDA approved. 

Kyle Risi: So what you're saying is that this machine is claiming to be able to test for dozens and dozens and dozens of different things. But only one of those tests that this thing is capable of. is FDA approved. 

Adam Cox: That's right. Yeah.

Kyle Risi: And they are leading them down this kind of this road of, Oh, it's FDA approved, implying that everything is.

Kyle Risi: Wow. So also as well, like you talked about how these other big investors, they've already invested. So they're looking at, well, George Soros or whoever is invested. So it must be legit, right? And he's like part of politics or whatever. So they're using that as credibility to then sell. The idea of people investing into their company and building credibility.

Adam Cox: Yeah, because if you, yeah, because if you see someone else investing, then you're like, well, I want a piece of that pie. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, and that person's credible. They know what they're doing. They're like multi billionaire or whatever. This is so interesting 

Adam Cox: and to top it off, the other thing that they said was that their device had been used by U. S.

Adam Cox: military and foreign government operations. 

Kyle Risi: Okay, well, that's just the cherry on top of the cake, right? 

Adam Cox: But then if you're told all of this information, you're like, yeah, this sounds great. Here's 

Kyle Risi: a check. Write down any number that you want on there and I will pay it. 

Adam Cox: Now, To give Walgreens some credit, and um, um, now to give Walgreens some credit, they did try and do their due diligence, and they got a guy called Kevin Hunter, a lab consultant, involved to verify what Theranos was saying, so, you know, they, they loved the hype, they loved everything it could do, but they did want to do their own research.

Kyle Risi: So they wanted to send their own scientists in, to verify, maybe even check under the hood. Open up the back of the Edison and go 

Adam Cox: Hmm. That's all tickety boo. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, but one thing, why is there a brick inside here? What is that for? 

Adam Cox: There's a mouse running around in there. Should that be there? Oh, it's Shirley!

Adam Cox: Hi, Shirley! Um, Um, this guy, Kevin, he's really excited to work on this, given everything that he has heard about it. Yeah. All he uncovers is stuff that just did not make sense. And not only that, when Kevin is on site at Theranos.

Adam Cox: He had to be escorted by Sonny himself every time he went to the toilet. Oh, really? Not allowed to poke your head in any rooms? Ooh, I wonder why? Have they got any other machines that they don't want anyone to see? And this guy is like, waiting outside the bathroom for you to pee and you're like, This is weird.

Adam Cox: , So he could only see bits of the technology that they wanted to show him. He couldn't just like pop into another room and go, what's going on in here? Right. He wasn't allowed. But was he seeing the Edison 

Kyle Risi: machine in action? 

Adam Cox: Well, he saw parts that they wanted for him to see. 

Kyle Risi: Like just the various tests, because I imagine this is one closed unit, right?

Kyle Risi: Like a little computer that sits on top of a counter. Yeah, it's quite a small device. So he's seen that, right? 

 Yeah, so he sees the machine. But whether he sees it working in the way that it should be, I don't think so. And the reasons that they give him is that they have to be extra cautious about their IP because those pesky competitors out there so 

Kyle Risi: there is a firm belief based on the professionals that are involved, the scientists, the credible people that technically, while this is a lovely idea, this Is unlikely to work.

Kyle Risi: So that is being peddled at the moment internally, and they're aware of that. Right. Or is there still this like, holding on to this glimmer of hope that, well don't worry, we can push through that and we will make it work. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll get there, we just perhaps haven't quite tweaked it enough.

Adam Cox: But that's the 

Kyle Risi: delusion belief of Sunny and Elizabeth at this point, while their scientists and their teams are saying, It's not gonna happen, guys. Yeah,

Adam Cox: and Kevin's like, he can appreciate the whole fake it till you make it, you know, you wanna show someone a prototype or maybe sort of skew things slightly in order to get that further investment, and it's just perhaps time and money that's needed to fine tune things.

Adam Cox: I see. But the thing is, this is people's lives and medical health that you are playing with. Oh my 

Kyle Risi: god, yo, every time you mention that it's like, of course, of course. And

Adam Cox: you could be advising patients to take a certain medication based on these inaccurate test results that were coming back from this machine, and that's a whole other moral ethic that you need to consider.

Adam Cox: And so whilst Kevin was there, he did not see the Theranos machine work at all, and advised Walgreens to not go through with it. And what did Walgreens say? Well, it almost fell through the deal. Oh, 

Kyle Risi: really? 

Adam Cox: But Elizabeth managed to salvage it because Walgreens wanted to hold on to the fact it was true and just took her word for it.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, because they want the money, right? They're clouded by greed. 

Adam Cox: Theranos Kind of pulled this magic trick, essentially. Walgreens people would have their blood taken, and someone would take these tiny samples of blood to the secret room next door to test on the Edison machine, when in actual fact, they were being taken to a proper lab to quickly process the results.

Adam Cox: So, whilst this was happening, Walgreens people were probably being taken to a nice fancy lunch, uh, you know, having some steak, maybe some wine. And so when they come back from lunch, someone pretends to enter from the secret room, uh, rushing back with the results from the Edison machine, when in actual fact, no.

Adam Cox: Oh 

Kyle Risi: sneaky so it's been used by like actual machines that exist in the world to test blood and they're protesting through these big giant machines. 

Adam Cox: Yeah that's how they were pulling the wall over people's eyes. That

Kyle Risi: is so 

Adam Cox: sneaky. And Kevin, he wanted out. He didn't want to be a part of it because something could go horribly wrong and he didn't want to be the fall guy when that happened.

Kyle Risi: But he doesn't know at this point that that's what they're doing. He's just like well I didn't see it working. Like yeah sure we went for lunch came back and they were the test results but I didn't see it working. Don't make any decisions based on you not physically seeing the IP operating. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, because I don't think at this point this was revealed in terms of how they were doing it.

Adam Cox: He just knew that it just wasn't possible with that machine. 

Kyle Risi: I see. 

Adam Cox: So the deal with Walgreens goes ahead for 140 million dollars. That's not that 

Kyle Risi: much actually. 

Adam Cox: But it was to roll out in 2013 and only in 41 branches across California and Arizona. So like we said, it was kind of a slow rollout.

Adam Cox: So this was a test phase. Some people argue that Walgreens should have take, some people argue that Walgreens should take some responsibility And I do agree being a pharmacy It kind of feels like some of this stuff was overlooked and people should have witnessed the entire process which Kevin was trying to do 

Kyle Risi: I just agree with that if I'm honest because it looks like they try to do their due diligence You don't expect the people that you're working with to be out there to mug you off to scam you You have to have a certain degree of trust within that process So it sounds like that they did yes, of course They were clouded by this idea of greed and getting money, but they did send someone out there to try 

Adam Cox: And who told them not to do it?

Kyle Risi: And who 

Adam Cox: told them not to do 

Kyle Risi: it? But my point still stands!

Adam Cox: I mean, yeah, there was enough evidence out there to suggest this was legitimate enough, and I guess if you bought into everything, then yeah, you would have perhaps felt your questions were answered. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, okay, fair enough.

Adam Cox: Another member of the key team at Theranos was a man called Ian Gibbons. The chief scientist Another member of the key team at Theranos was a guy called Ian Gibbons. He was a chief scientist. He was an incredibly intelligent man, with 200 patents to his name and several degrees from Cambridge. And despite initially having a good working relationship with Elizabeth, he found himself repeatedly clashing with executives, especially as he'd become aware of the glaring discrepancies between the company's public claims and the actual capabilities of their technology.

Kyle Risi: Right, okay, so he's pushing back as a good scientist should do. 

Adam Cox: Yes, so there is good people within this business trying to do the right thing. And despite his warnings about the ineffectiveness and the inaccuracies of their blood testing device, Senior management discourage any conversations that might expose these issues, preferring to maintain this image of success So Gibbons, he felt isolated and stifled, um, and he wasn't allowed to have any open communication. He faced severe consequences for his attempts to speak out, including bullying. And he was even fired once on the spot, but then later rehired. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, because you're the only one who knows how everything works.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, that's just terrible. Please come back. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. Sadly, his situation reached a tragic conclusion in 2013, the stress and the ethical dilemmas became unbearable for him. He faced a subpoena to testify about Theranos practices, and he was deeply anxious about the potential consequences, both for himself and the company.

Adam Cox: On the eve of his deposition, Gibbons took to the streets. On the eve of his deposition, Gibbons takes his own life, a decision that shocks and saddens everyone that knows him. Uh, but it prompted no response or condolence from Theranos leadership, including Elizabeth. 

Kyle Risi: Really? Like not even a card or a phone call to his wife or anything?

Adam Cox: Nope, his wife just got an email asking for Ian's stuff back. 

Kyle Risi: GASP And not even like, I'm so sorry to hear about Ian. Tragic. Um, just, can we have all his shit? 

Adam Cox: Yep. Oh, and she did get a letter from their lawyer threatening her with legal action if she decided to speak out about the circumstances that led to her husband's death.

Kyle Risi: Okay, so that's culpability right there. If you have to get your lawyer to send that kind of message, you know that what that you, your actions had a hand in why this poor guy took his life. Totally. Disgusting.

Adam Cox: Meanwhile, you've got Elizabeth with an entourage around her, taking private jets, furnishing fancy offices, and hiring bodyguards to help protect her and her trade secrets, which is crazy when you think about it. Bodyguards to help protect a bunch of lies. She is on the cover of magazines and she was like the second coming of Steve Jobs.

Adam Cox: And this is even how she gets Errol Morris, an Oscar winning documentary maker, to create ads for her. Ads.

Kyle Risi: Ads for what? Like to promote her own personal brand or to promote Theranos? Theranos and her, yeah. Interesting. 

Adam Cox: And begrudgingly, you kind of have to take your hat off to her to some level. Through all her networking with influential people, she managed to raise more than 1 billion dollars from the likes of Family, from the likes of the family who founded Walmart, as well as Rupert Murdoch.

Adam Cox: So if people see someone like that, Uh, invest in this business, that is just to encourage others to invest. Oh my god. And people are like, this is the next Apple. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah.

Adam Cox: And this seems to be where all the focus is at. It's image and raising money. But back in Walgreens, things were not going so great. No. People were now using the Theranos devices. 

Kyle Risi: Okay. 

Adam Cox: Uh, and the results Hang on! 

Kyle Risi: They don't work? 

Adam Cox: That's right. Well, they half work some of the time. 

Kyle Risi: And only one of those tests is still FDA approved, only.

Kyle Risi: Yeah. I'm, I'm living for this. What happens? 

Adam Cox: So, there's actual customers now using this, uh, device and the results they're getting back are a bit concerning. 

Kyle Risi: Okay. 

Adam Cox: One group of people were cancer survivors. They Oh no. They would get tested again as part of routine surveillance checks to make sure Surveillance?!

Adam Cox: Well, routine like cancer surveillance. 

Kyle Risi: Okay, 

Adam Cox: just made 

Kyle Risi: it 

Adam Cox: sound like, Oh, you've had cancer, we've got to keep an eye on you. Well, yeah, maybe surveillance is the wrong word. Yeah. But that's, that's kind of Regular check ups. Regular check ups, to make sure it hasn't come back, I guess. Their test results would come back and their own machines were suggesting there was a change to these people's hormone levels which might be linked to a 

Kyle Risi: cancer's back, is what they think. 

Adam Cox: That's what it could be, uh, suggesting, yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Oh my god, can you imagine fighting cancer? thinking that you're in the all clear and then having that shock to just because that's the thing that you dread every time you go for one of these tests right is the cancer back and finding out that it is only to find out what it wasn't true i'm assuming 

Adam Cox: Well, thankfully, some doctors did say to the patients, Hmm, maybe you should get another test because those Theranos tests or machines, Quite new, it's probably good to always get a second opinion and everything.

Kyle Risi: Smart, smart,

Adam Cox: smart. And the traditional testing, uh, that they would then go on to get as a second opinion , Gave no reasons for concern, no tumours or cancer. 

Kyle Risi: But then what do you do then? Because then you're probably thinking, well, hang on a minute. 

Adam Cox: Like two out of three? Yeah, like, 

Kyle Risi: do I go for another one? Yeah. And then another one.

Kyle Risi: So it's really setting people back. And probably in America, they're probably paying for these tests themselves, right? 

Adam Cox: Possibly. Yeah,. And just like playing with people's emotions, and as you say, particularly cancer survivors, that's just not what you, that's just awful.

Kyle Risi: And the family of those people as well.

Adam Cox: So how was Theranos getting it so wrong? Like, why were their results way off? And apparently, uh, and apparently what Theranos was doing when they were giving back these results is they were somehow averaging or cherry picking, uh, the results and so, it just wasn't reliable. It wasn't bringing back the same results time after time. So you could go get a test done on the Edison machine three times, and they would give you different results every time. Oh shit, So 

Kyle Risi: when your doctor recommends you go for another check, You don't want to do that other check on another Theranos machine.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, definitely 

Adam Cox: not. 

Adam Cox: So some of these patients, they questioned Theranos about this, and they're like, uh, what's going on? I've just done this other test, and those results say I'm absolutely fine. But they don't even get an apology, they were just ignored. And for some, there was a risk that these patients could have started medication or therapy, which could have caused even more harm by taking quite big doses.

Adam Cox: dangerous drugs that you only take when you really need to. Oh, 

Kyle Risi: I'm going back in for chemotherapy. You don't have cancer. Shit.

Adam Cox: And for a long time, things at Theranos seemed like they would never get better. A lot of people didn't want to raise their head above the parapet because they couldn't afford to lose their job and because of this blame culture. And so those that did were made to sign NDAs or threatened with legal action, which if you were early on into your career, you might have been too scared to jeopardize and speak up.

Kyle Risi: Hell yeah. 

Adam Cox: However, one person did, event, however, one person did, thankfully, speak out. His name is Tyler Schultz, and he was the grandson of one of the most important people on the board at Theranos, George Schultz, the former Secretary of State, and who many people credit with winning the Cold War. 

Kyle Risi: Really?

Kyle Risi: Okay, so he is working at Theranos, this grandson of this big major investor. How the hell did he get a job there? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, I think his grand father helped him get the job at Theranos. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, but he's also then going to be our savior. 

Adam Cox: Mm. Yeah So, um george schultz, he's kind of a big deal really well respected.

Adam Cox: Uh, and he helped introduce elizabeth to other investors and a key role on the board. 

Kyle Risi: He's that kind of that thing that kickstarts the cascade. Oh, well, George Shultz is kind of investing. Oh, well, I'll invest as well. Ah, I see. This is how these things George Shultz should be held accountable for causing a A mania.

Adam Cox: Well, possibly, but he was just one of the people that kind of bought into Elizabeth and was clouded by the things that she would tell him. They became quite close. She would even come over for Christmas dinners and would talk about how Theranos was more accurate than any other device out there. And he was like, that's great.

Adam Cox: Well done. Here's some more money. So Tyler, when he transformative way that Theranos was going to be changing the world. He secures a job after a summer internship, but on his first day, the head of blood testing was fired on the spot for asking too many questions, which would set the tone for the rest of his time at Theranos.

Adam Cox: Yeah, so 

Kyle Risi: I can imagine like, oh, oh, I'm just I'm just gonna get back to work. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, as someone's being shouted at, you're like, um, is this normal?

Adam Cox: So working really hard at Theranos was really valued, but working smart was not. 

Adam Cox: This illusion she had created to, uh, George about the culture and what was happening at Theranos was a stark contrast to what Tyler ended up seeing when he was working there.

Kyle Risi: Oh, I see what's coming here. So basically what you're saying is that Tyler is obviously going to go to his grandad. And he's gonna say, they bullied me at work, and he's gonna be like, no, Elizabeth says it's fine. 

Adam Cox: He does go to his grandfather, but not about bullying. Oh, okay. They shouted at me. Well, actually, sorta.

Adam Cox: You'll see. Okay.

Adam Cox: So within a few days of starting his work, Tyler starts to see first hand that the Theranos devices would often fail, and when they did work, were only able to carry out seven blood tests at a single time, rather than the several hundred. Elizabeth was making out. 

Kyle Risi: Shit, it's like not even a one percent.

Adam Cox: Not even close. He recognised that Elizabeth would just tell people what they needed to hear to keep going. 

, yeah, we're just going to generate your results. Um, Elizabeth, could we have the results for Mr, uh, Mr Williams? Yes, um, he has High cholesterol ! Okay, I'll go deliver his results.

Kyle Risi: And that's their mechanism for giving the results. 

Adam Cox: Possibly, I don't know. I reckon it's probably like a magic eight ball. That's probably more reliable. 

Kyle Risi: Thrush! I have! 

Adam Cox: Try again later. 

 But it's oozing! Yeah, try again later.

Adam Cox: So one of Tyler's colleagues was a lady called Erica and she started putting up error reports right Edmerson. Right next to the Edison machine that would get taken down once they're put up because She's trying to draw attention to it in a way that was to get people to solve this problem.

Kyle Risi: Good Erica 

Adam Cox: Her manager warned her not to speak up. Otherwise, you'll get on the radar and things could end badly Erica was then confronted by Sonny that she was causing problems and she didn't know what she was talking about and just to stay in her lane. 

Kyle Risi: But it's just a report. It's just a report that I pulled from the machine.

Kyle Risi: I didn't write it. The machine wrote it. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, fair point. Uh, but Tyler has an advantage to try and make others in the company aware of what's going on because of his grandfather. But he knew that he needed to corroborate what was happening with an expert outside the organisation before he said anything.

Adam Cox: Okay. So he creates an alias and contacts the regulators with things that he had observed and how they were processing things at Theranos. 

Kyle Risi: Sounds like he's whistleblowing. 

Adam Cox: Well, yeah, he is known as the whistleblower. 

Kyle Risi: So he is going undercover as a different person who, who are these people?

Kyle Risi: Who are

Adam Cox: these 

Kyle Risi: legal 

Adam Cox: regulators? So I guess they regulate anything within medicine. 

Kyle Risi: Interesting. Okay. 

Adam Cox: And the regulators come back to him saying what he's describing to them doesn't sound right and that he Should file an anonymous complaint, uh, and he could, and they asked him could he reveal the company he was working at?

Kyle Risi: Tyler said 

Adam Cox: it was Theranos because he felt like there was still an opportunity to make things right. He doesn't want to bring down Theranos. He just wants to make sure that they're working ethically. When gets wind that regulators had been in touch and that Tyler was the source of the leak, she sent him an email saying, We will look into this.

Adam Cox: But these are very serious allegations, Tyler. And when Tyler gets a follow up response, it comes from Sonny instead. And he writes, 

Kyle Risi: Uh huh.

Adam Cox: That reckless comment and accusation about the integrity of our company, its leadership, and its core team members, is based on absolute ignorance. It's so insulting to me that if any other person had made these statements, we would have made that person accountable in the strongest way.

Adam Cox: The only reason I have taken so much time from my work to address this personally is because you are Mr. Schultz's grandson. The only email I want to see on this topic from you going forwards is an apology. Oh my god! Does 

Kyle Risi: he give him an apology? 

Adam Cox: No. Good! Good, Tyler! Tyler's like, like, that's it, I'm out. Oh, he quits.

Adam Cox: And he gives his notice. Does he throw a big tanty? He does. Uh, no, he's not like, uh, hysterical or anything. Oh, 

 Like, ah, one of those people with grace and decorum. I think so. That's not how I would go. I'd literally scratch a bloody, like, kind of fingernail score down the wall as they drag me out, kicking over everything, break the coffee machine.

Adam Cox: Leave a poop on the desk. 

Kyle Risi: Leave a massive poop on the desk in the letterbox. 

Adam Cox: In Sonny's drawer. Yeah. And so, uh, it doesn't take long, obviously, for Tyler's grandfather to find out what's happened. That's it. He hears that Tyler's had a dramatic and un He hears that Tyler's behaved in this dramatic and unprofessional way.

Adam Cox: Like I just did. Like that, exactly.

Adam Cox: And George, knowing Tyler, um And George, knowing his grandson obviously very well, says that Theranos, they can't convince me that you are stupid, but they can convince me that you are wrong about Theranos. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, okay. 

Adam Cox: And Tyler arranges a dinner with Erika, 

Adam Cox: um, yeah, and his grandfather to try and plead their case with him and give George real life examples of what was happening and George Shultz was shocked and was like, no, you're wrong. Straight away. They are using these devices in medivac helicopters. Which is like an air ambulance, and operating rooms across the country.

Adam Cox: Theranos is the real deal. 

Kyle Risi: Ah, so he's sitting there doing like a, like a, What are you even talking about? Like, what's going on? Like a Yeah, Elizabeth said that they're in an air ambulance. What's even 

Adam Cox: happening? Yeah. Elizabeth says we're using them on the battlefield. 

Kyle Risi: Well, Elizabeth is a liar! 

Adam Cox: And so despite Tyler's best efforts, he was having no luck with his grandfather.

Adam Cox: So what else could he do? Well, fortunately, things start to change when he gets in touch with a guy called John Carreau at the Wall Street Journal. 

Kyle Risi: Ooh, I sense an expose coming on.

Adam Cox: Yeah. So this investigator was looking into Theranos as he thought it was odd that someone who dropped out of college had pioneered this company with very limited medical knowledge. And so he says that There is a reason that people that win the Nobel Prize are often in their 60s. How did she manage to do what she has been able to do so far?

Adam Cox: Something just did not add up. And when he was trying to investigate and trying to get people from Theranos to speak to him, they all, like, they all closed their lips. No one wants to speak to him. 

Kyle Risi: Uh, the NDA says I can't. I see. 

Adam Cox: But Tyler became aware that the Wall Street Journal was looking into Theranos, and whilst he ignored John's initial attempts to get him to speak, Tyler was curious about what John knew, and eventually decided he wanted to speak to him, calling him on burner phones.

Adam Cox: So that's how scared he was about this. 

Kyle Risi: Shit, okay. 

Adam Cox: Tyler could see that John knew a lot of incriminating Tyler could see that John knew a lot of incriminating stuff already and therefore he put his trust in him to reveal more information, but still in the hope to correct things for the greater good at Theranos and save patients getting, and save patients getting incorrect results.

Kyle Risi: Well, that's wild to me because he's no longer working there, but yet he still has got the company's best interests at heart, even after Be dragged out. I guess his grandad still works there? Yeah, and his grandad's a big investor I guess, okay. 

Adam Cox: And equally he's just trying to do right by the people who could be misled at the moment, so he just wants things corrected.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, I have a lot of respect for this Tyler guy. He sounds really well rounded, he sounds really emotionally mature, and also it sounds like he really has a vested interest in this being a success if it can be. Because who wouldn't, right? It's an incredible thing. One thing I just want to mention is, you said that John Karayu said that there's a reason why so many, uh, Nobel Prize winners are in their 60s. At this point, was there, like, at this point, was Elizabeth Holmes kind of pegged to potentially win a Nobel Peace Prize? I, I

Adam Cox: I don't know, that's a very good question. I think just the amount of hype that's around her and I guess people that win Peace Prize are these really acclaimed people that have years and years of history and experience that whenever they do do something groundbreaking, well, they've had to do the legwork to be able to achieve that.

Kyle Risi: Sure, and that's not necessarily to say that she isn't doing the legwork. If what she's saying was true, .

Kyle Risi: Let's say it was, and they did make it work. I reckon she would have changed the world. She would have potentially been, you know, Pegged for a Nobel Peace Prize as well as saving potentially millions and millions of people. 

Adam Cox: Oh, yeah, I don't think anyone's denying if she was able to do what she said she could do, this would be phenomenal.

Kyle Risi: But what this John Carrow guy is saying is that she is a unicorn and it's really unusual for this to be the case. Yeah, I see. So he's skeptical, but he's not like I'm open if this is the truth and I want to find out more on how this has happened. Maybe initially.

Kyle Risi: I'm off to go get her. Oh, initially. Initially,

Adam Cox: yeah, because I guess he wouldn't have any reason to suspect her of maybe wrongdoing. 

Kyle Risi: Sure, and as a journalist, as he got more and more information, he was like going, all signs are pointing To Phony. Yeah, Phony. Elizabeth Phony.

Adam Cox: And I think another reason that kept Tyler motivated with this is that he started to be followed by private investigators to watch his every movement. And then his family were furious that he went to speak to the press. And over the course of several months, Tyler's attorneys negotiated with Theranos attorneys, which ended up costing his parents close to half a million dollars in legal fees to try and protect him.

Adam Cox: And despite these really high stakes, Tyler was still determined to do the right thing by speaking to the Wall Street Journal, and thanks to Tyler's input, the newspaper The newspaper was allowed to print their first article on Theranos in October 2015 

Kyle Risi: So they weren't 

Kyle Risi: allowed before because they were worried about legal action?

Adam Cox: Yeah, I guess they couldn't, uh, they had nothing to back up their evidence. Oh, I 

Kyle Risi: see, 

Adam Cox: okay. But now they've got a whistleblower who worked there. 

Kyle Risi: Mm hmm. 

Adam Cox: then yeah, they can now print this article. And that exposed Theranos, um, and that, and that exposed Theranos to the world about not using its own technology for most of its tests, relying on traditional machines from companies like Siemens.

Kyle Risi: Testing Siemens. 

Adam Cox: But Elizabeth denied those allegations, uh, in a company meeting, leading to confusion amongst employees about whom to trust, like is, is Elizabeth lying or is the Wall Street lying? Holmes then took her defense public, claiming that scrutiny was the price of trying to change the world. She appeared defensive in interviews and blamed others for inaccuracies in her test results.

Kyle Risi: Mmm. Wow. Always cast the blame on someone else. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Cox: However, things quickly went downhill for Theranos. They were investigated by the FDA and federal inspectors, warned that it's not safe. They were investigated by the FDA, and federal inspectors warned that its tests posed immediate health risks. And fast forward to June 2016, and Walgreens ends its partnership with Theranos and closes all of its stores immediately.

Kyle Risi: Because they realize that from the results of the FDA, it's got some serious questions. Or, and also they've been lying, because they said that it had the FDA approval. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Asterix. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, with one test I think it was. And things go from bad to worse . Appeared on CNN to justify why some patient results from Theranos were inaccurate.

Adam Cox: Really? Well well she addressed concerns raised by a man referred to as RC who claimed his test results from Theranos were faulty and then suffered a heart attack. And then suffered a heart attack a month later. And Holmes distanced herself from direct responsibility saying, I'm not the lab director, but she also invested.

Adam Cox: But she also emphasized, I have the best people in place to investigate this and they're doing it. 

Kyle Risi: I mean, it's, it's a really great response. It's a very PR response. 

. 

Kyle Risi: I'm assuming a lot of people bought that because at this point they don't know that she's a big fat phony.

Kyle Risi: Um, but I would buy that response because it's true. Like, she isn't the person that knows, but they don't understand, of course, that she's had such a massive hand in all of this and the manipulation and the secrecy. But let me, let me get back to you. That's what you say in client calls all the time. I don't know, but I'm going to get back to you.

Kyle Risi: We never get back to them. 

Adam Cox: I think the most significant blow though to Elizabeth and Theranos came when she was forced to respond to the investigation under oath. Holmes was so evasive in her responses and repeatedly kept saying she didn't know, she wasn't sure, wasn't involved in the details. She said this more than 660 times where she gave this very elusive, I don't know, kind of response.

Adam Cox: A great CEO who can't remember like most of the shit that goes on in the company. I know this is like really crucial things about your product that you should know. And people are like, you're the CEO, you have to know these things. And especially around your partnership with Walgreens, your biggest partner.

Adam Cox: And so when Walgreens were complaining about transparency, All Elizabeth can say is that she wasn't sure about some of the details or didn't remember specific conversations. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, of course, because she knows like everything's coming tumbling down, right? She doesn't want to incriminate herself. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, to be honest, if you listen to her interview, she just sounds like she's covering her ass, or she comes across incompetent, to be fair.

Kyle Risi: I just wondered like, once you got to the actual Once you come to the blows, right, and you're really up against the wall, it's a lot harder to kind of keep up the act. And I'm wondering if she was under so much stress that those cracks in her demeanor and her character started to kind of emerge where maybe she was slipping back into a regular voice and she was a bit more frightened and I don't know.

Kyle Risi: I don't think it doesn't sound like it was. Not 

Adam Cox: in the dispositions or those interviews she still is putting on that voice. But I think there's enough evidence against her at this point that she is eventually forced to confess how many tests Theranos technology could actually carry out. And? Well she tries to skirt around the subject and say that she wasn't 100 percent sure.

Adam Cox: Because it was a it was it was tonne. Because it was tens of tests, I 

Kyle Risi: thought it was hundreds before. 

Adam Cox: Well, 

Adam Cox: Well, that's what she initially made out. Um, but the interviewer, um, sort of keeps prodding her. So she's like, well, okay, tens of tests. So that's less than a hundred. And Elizabeth's like, Yeah, it turns out it was about 12. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, and what were the tests? Do you know?

Adam Cox: Uh,

Adam Cox: can't remember exactly what the tests were, but even tens of tests is an exaggeration. Yeah, she was trying to get away with and nowhere near the hundreds that she said. Oh, 

Kyle Risi: bitch, you're a big fat phony. 

Adam Cox: And she also admitted that the technology hadn't been used in emergency rooms, or on battlefields, or in medevac helicopters, as she had previously claimed to everyone.

Adam Cox: And after these extensive depositions with Holmes and other insiders, Elizabeth is charged with massive fraud by taking more than 700, 000, 000 from investors while advertising a false product. 

Kyle Risi: Wow. 

Adam Cox: Elizabeth manages to settle the case with no admission of wrongdoing. What? She settled? Agreeing to pay a 500, 000 fine.

Adam Cox: What? Which many felt that's pretty insufficient. 

Kyle Risi: Uh, yeah, 700, 000, 000. And then all you pay is a fine for 500, And you put people's lives in danger. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. Well, that's just the first step of, of her, um, getting her comeuppance. 

Kyle Risi: There's more to come. 

Adam Cox: There's more. Because it's not over yet. In June 2018, the Department of Justice filed criminal charges against Holmes and Sonny Barwani over fraud.

Adam Cox: Uh huh. Both pleaded not guilty, but the charges carried the potential for significant prison time. Holmes, who had deceived not only investors, but also the press and patients, doctors, and a very notable set of directors on the board, had been exposed for who she really was. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, and the biggest thing there that has the biggest impact is those investors.

Kyle Risi: The patients, the professionals, the staff, yeah, she shouldn't have done it. But the investors? Lying to them? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, like corporate greed? That's the worst thing you could do. 

Kyle Risi: Norberts. Norberts.

Adam Cox: Her elaborate deception came to an end in September 2018, when Theranos officially shuts down and hundreds of millions of dollars, and hundreds of millions of dollars from some of the world's wealthiest and most connected individuals are spent.

Adam Cox: were lost. Wow. With Theranos now gone, Elizabeth Holmes had to await her trial, which for some seemed like she was enjoying life a bit too much for a criminal. 

Kyle Risi: Why? 

Adam Cox: She began a new relationship with a guy called Billy Evans. Now, I haven't even touched on, uh, her relationship with Sunny because there's just so much more to that.

Adam Cox: Hang 

Kyle Risi: on. They were 

Adam Cox: doing it for several years, but their relationship ended just as things were going a bit peak tongue. 

Kyle Risi: Ooh, , do you think that she ever used the idea that he was maybe grooming her or taking advantage of her?

Kyle Risi: Do you think she ever played that side of things? 

Adam Cox: She says in her trials and stuff like that where she felt like she was in an abusive relationship. There was like all this kind of influence. Interesting. I don't know if I buy that, which is why I haven't necessarily included it in today's episode because it you know, there's such a big story as it is.

Adam Cox: Um, but yeah, there is more to that and you can watch some of the TV shows about this and other documentaries and podcasts which go into the detail of their relationships specifically as well. Uh, but yeah, there's definitely a weird power dynamic between the two, I think, at times. 

Kyle Risi: I see. And just look at some pictures of her on Google.

Kyle Risi: She looks, um, what's the word I want to say? She, she, she looks like a visionary. That image of her in her turtleneck, looking at that little capsule in between her fingers. With these big, beautiful blue eyes, blonde hair, red lipstick, just looking at it with the blood in the background. Like, that's effective.

Kyle Risi: That looks like a visionary image. But, Sonny doesn't have that same image. Unfortunately, he's just like 

Adam Cox: some guy from 

Kyle Risi: finance. 

Adam Cox: But he brought the money. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, he brought, he brought the money. 

Adam Cox: Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Wow, okay. 

Adam Cox: So anyway, if you want to find out more about their relationship, then yeah, you should go listen to the Dropout podcast, for sure.

Adam Cox: But, to finish this story, um, at the moment she's awaiting trial, uh, and like I say, she's enjoying her life a bit too much. But she starts a new relationship with a guy called Billy Evans. Who she may have met and married within, who she may have met and married within the space of two years. He was an heir to a hotel fortune and nearly a decade younger than her.

Kyle Risi: Okay. 

Adam Cox: And she got a lot of flack with people suggesting she was partying with him at Burning Man Festival while Theranos was closing its doors. That maybe she needed to have a little bit more humility given she was messing with people's lives and defrauding people. 

Kyle Risi: Sure.

Adam Cox: And then things take a surprising turn.

Adam Cox: Elizabeth becomes pregnant and, uh, and is expecting her first child. And her lawyers managed to get her trial delayed to allow her for this adjustment period of being a mother, which a lot of people thought was incredibly convenient and a way to get sympathy from the jury. 

Kyle Risi: Oh right, no one's gonna send a young mother.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, 

Adam Cox: like this, this, this woman who just, I don't know, misled a load of people and like put them possibly at a health risk. No, she couldn't do that. She has a child. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah. But there was a time when she didn't have a child. Yeah, let's just give her a slap on the wrist. Is that what they do? 

Adam Cox: No, not quite. Um, but I guess this is kind of building her public or rebuilding her public image, this whole family life, whether it's true or not, it's what happens.

Adam Cox: Three and a half years after, um, she's charged, Elizabeth Holmes goes to trial. And the trial is like a soap opera with people lining up outside the courthouse from the middle of the night. And it's like this frenzy with people selling Elizabeth Holmes merchandise, like black turtlenecks and blonde wigs.

Adam Cox: And some were even selling full Holmes costumes for a hundred dollars, showing just how fascinated people were with her story. 

Kyle Risi: Wow. 

Adam Cox: She arrives at court, uh, with her mum and her partner, and it seems like she's and acting t And her 

Adam Cox: Trying to show her softer side. Trying to show her softer side. No longer wearing her turtleneck. And she's no longer acting this tough businesswoman. Businesswoman. The prosecution had a tough job proving their case because fraud cases are hard to prosecute. They needed to show that Holmes went from being a successful entrepreneur to lying and covering up her failures, and they claimed she started making false promises about her machines right away, 

Adam Cox: the prosecution called 29 witnesses, including investors, patients, former employees, and board members, and they revealed that Theranos used other companies machines instead of their own technology. But Holmes called them trade secrets to avoid telling this truth. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, really? 

Adam Cox: They're the trade secrets.

Adam Cox: That's why people were escorted from toilets. 

Kyle Risi: Oh my god. So she is saying the fact that we were cheating. the system and fooling everyone is a classified trade secret and we can't talk about it. That's what she's saying. 

Adam Cox: Kinda, yeah. And the thing is, these investors, if they had known what she was doing with these third party machines, they probably would never have invested because they're like, well, what is your product?

Adam Cox: Yeah, exactly. They can't

Kyle Risi: do anything.

Adam Cox: The prosecution also showed three reports Holmes gave to investors and fake logos from big pharmaceutical companies. Holmes had added these logos onto these reports herself to make it seem more authentic and to acknowledge a partnership, but this just dug her into a big hole as to, because it clearly shows that she's trying to, To deceive.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, on purpose. Like, she actively added those logos. 

Adam Cox: . It's so brazen. She's like, what? I can't do that. Well, that's the thing. Now that she's got this new maternal and softer side, it's, it just seems so fake, right?

Adam Cox: Do 

Kyle Risi: you think that she got pregnant on purpose? for this well do you think she was advised to because lawyers like they play a dirty game i wouldn't be surprised if they're like you know what uh elizabeth i know he is 10 years junior he's not the marrying type i get it we get it but you are gonna go to jail for a long time why don't you just you know skip your skip your pill Get impregnated ed. ed.

Kyle Risi: And yeah, and then when you think you're pregnant, we will do a quick blood test on the Theranos machine because we obviously want an accurate result, right? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, yeah, why did I wonder if she did use that on herself. Clearly not. But it's an interesting theory. I think a lot of people think that that's what she did to try and delay her trial or create this new image.

Adam Cox: There is another couple of reasons, I think, which I'll touch on in a second. You could argue it another way, maybe, but I don't know. It certainly doesn't, uh, not help her case by having a child. 

Kyle Risi: No, okay.

Adam Cox: So one afternoon, Holmes surprises everyone by taking the stand, . Um, her public image had already portrayed. She appeared friendly, sometimes smiled, which I think we know by now is fake. And they argued she was a visionary who relied on others and didn't intend to defraud anyone, uh, which is lies.

Adam Cox: And she also said that she was this big picture person who left details to others like Sonny. So she's now blaming her ex. 

Kyle Risi: Thing is, though, Adam, I get it. That's ex like, Steve Jobs, yes, he could code a bit, but he, he couldn't have done what he set out to achieve with Apple if it wasn't for the people that he employed.

Kyle Risi: So what makes these great CEOs and entrepreneurs incredible is their ability to bring together the right people in the same room. But I also believe that because of the culture that she created, the environment that she created for these people that she brought together, they were too scared to tell her no.

Kyle Risi: And that's where the problem is. So. I don't think it was necessarily a lie for her to say

Kyle Risi: that I was a big picture thinker and I left all the details to other people because that's what really successful people do. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, but then, yeah, I agree, uh, and I don't necessarily think that she was responsible for everything, but 

Kyle Risi: No, I do believe that she knew the details Yeah,

Adam Cox: and this is the thing, you deliberately misled people, Yeah, and 

Kyle Risi: you are leading a business Yeah And you obviously lead the direction, and that includes what you tell people 

Adam Cox: You'd go like, 

Adam Cox: , we're not putting this out.

Adam Cox: We're going to get this product working right before we do this, right? And she didn't. So when the jury was asked to make their call, it took about a week of deliberation before the jury found Holmes guilty on four of 11 criminal fraud charges, believing she knowingly misled investors about her company's technology.

Adam Cox: She was acquitted of four charges related to patience and had a mistrial declared for three invested related courts, which were later dropped. So it's kind of a mixed bag in terms of what she gets charged for. She gets, you know, accused of and found guilty of fraud. But then I think the damage that she's done with patients, I don't know, almost like that feels like it's brushed over a little bit.

Adam Cox: And so justice was kind of done, I guess you could say. She did manage to wrangle herself, she did manage to wangle herself a minimum security facility in Texas, which was considered one of the better options in the prison system. 

Kyle Risi: Well, like a low fence that you can just step over.

Adam Cox: And some say, or one defense lawyer said that it's like heaven compared to other facilities. Oh 

Kyle Risi: really? 

Adam Cox: Uh, and I suspect that having high level connections helped with that one. 

Kyle Risi: Yeah, and being married to a billionaire, 

Adam Cox: uh, I think she was on track to. Uh. Holmes wasn't ready to give up though. She attempted several appeals, but was unsuccessful. She then falls pregnant again, and this time is accused of getting pregnant to delay the start of her prison term. 

Kyle Risi: Uh, really? Sneaky. 

Adam Cox: I mean, I wouldn't put it past her, it seems like the kind of underhand sneaky thing that she would do, but I guess you could look at it in a way that she's now Um, going to be locked up until her late forties and if she's going to have any chance of growing a family, maybe now's the time to do that.

Adam Cox: And so maybe she's doing it for those causes rather than trying to delay. 

Kyle Risi: Sure, but you can't guarantee that's going to get you out of jail and therefore having a child knowing that you could potentially be separated from them is also incredibly selfish.

Adam Cox: Yeah, I didn't think of it like that. So yeah, I don't know. But maybe she was wanting to be a good mother. Well, a mother, maybe not a good mother.

Adam Cox: So with her second child arriving, she managed to buy, she manages to buy herself a couple of extra weeks of freedom to sort out childcare for her two children. So her lawyers managed to find a way. So her lawyers managed to find as many loopholes So her lawyers managed to find as many loopholes to keep her out of prison for as long as possible whilst they buy her more time and while certain appeals are going through.

Adam Cox: So, you know, when you're rich, there's just like a whole nother justice system for you, I think, you know, you get treated differently. Whereas I think your average Joe would never be able to have this kind of leniency. 

Kyle Risi: That's true. 

Adam Cox: Oh, and one other thing, her second child, who is a girl, is named Invicta, which is a Latin word meaning invincible or unconquered.

Adam Cox: Oh,

Kyle Risi: really? That's cute. That's a cute name, but 

Adam Cox: Ego? 

Kyle Risi: Well, it's not her ego, it's a little kid's ego. Imagine what she's going to grow up as. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, , hopefully not like her mother. And even better yet, or I should say more devious, a report came out earlier this year that revealed that she had bought a one way ticket to Mexico back in January last year.

Kyle Risi: Oh, was she trying to escape? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, before her prison sentence. Now, she said that she was just going to a friend's wedding and didn't know when she was going to return. Oh, really? Okay. So when the government found out, they were like, Mm, yeah. , pull the other one, bitch.

Kyle Risi: Yeah, all right then, Elizabeth. You were just going to a wedding, not sure when you were going to be back. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, her partner still goes away, uh, for about six weeks, but doesn't reveal what he'd been up to. So, was there a wedding? It's like, 

Kyle Risi: you have to go to Mexico now, and you have to just buy a one way ticket, and you can't come back until, like, we say so.

Kyle Risi: Yeah,

Adam Cox: it needs to be a while, it can't be like a week, because then you'd have a return, right? Exactly. So, it needs to be a long enough time. 

Kyle Risi: What a bit of PR. Mm. 

Adam Cox: So, she, along with Sonny Bawani, Uh, who gets almost 13 years, so more than Elizabeth in prison, were ordered to pay 452 million to the victims of their fraud, for which they are both equally liable.

Kyle Risi: Sure, but they can't afford to pay that, right? Because they have no money . Pretty much. Okay. 

Adam Cox: Elizabeth has been in prison for coming up to a year. She's been celebrating her 30th birthday. Elizabeth has been in prison for about a year, uh, she's been celebrating, uh, her 40th birthday, uh, playing in the prison yard with her husband and her two children.

Kyle Risi: What are they playing? Like, 

Adam Cox: like dodgeball? I don't know, yeah. Uh, she's also been allegedly doing workout classes and spending time with her fellow high profile inmate, the real housewives of Salt Lake City, California. The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City star Jen Shah, who also got done for wire fraud.

Adam Cox: So I guess they bonded over that. Oh, okay. 

Kyle Risi: And it sounds like this is a wire fraud, white collar kind of prison where 

Adam Cox: Yeah. 

Kyle Risi: There's no like, killers walking around. No. It's just like, Sally who 

Adam Cox: like, didn't pay her taxes. It's like, do you remember Orange is the New Black, where there was like a high profile chef that came in or something like that.

Adam Cox: But I think it was based on a real life person potentially. 

Kyle Risi: Um, uh, uh, Martha Stewart. That's 

Adam Cox: it. Yes. Yeah,

Kyle Risi: because she went to a like a white collar prison, didn't she? Low security type thing, yeah. 

Adam Cox: The US Bureau of Prisons currently projects that Holmes will be released on December the 29th, 2032, meaning that she would serve around nine and a half years after she began her prison sentence based on her good behavior so far.

Adam Cox: So she's towing the line. Tyler Schultz, the whistleblower that helped bring Elizabeth to justice. Our hero. Yeah, he's just happy things worked out and future people can't be impacted from their arse anymore. He eventually reconciled with his grandfather who told ABC News in 2019, two years before his death, that Tyler Oh, 

Kyle Risi: he died.

Adam Cox: Yeah, um, but Tyler had stood firm in his commitment to the truth. Even when he felt personally threatened and did what was best rather than following family principles, which takes some guts. 

Kyle Risi: Do you know what, that's a, what a wonderful thing to hear from your grandad, and also what a wonderful piece of redemption.

Kyle Risi: Like, I stood my ground, I stood for what was right, and in the end his grandad was like, do you know what, you're right, I put money ahead of you. of people's lives and decency, integrity. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, he was willing to go up against his grandfather in a way 

Kyle Risi: Mmm.

Adam Cox: so well done to him. And I, yeah, I totally agree. And, you know, if it wasn't for Tyler, would things have worked out the way they have done? Maybe not . 

Adam Cox: And I think there's still a lot of interest following Elizabeth from now until she is released. The Theranos story has been covered in the dropout, the mini TV series Seyfried, who does an incredible job, incredible job of embodying Elizabeth. 

Kyle Risi: Isn't she from Mean Girls? 

Adam Cox: Yeah, and she also plays, I want to say she plays, um, the child actress, or she was a child, in Friends, uh, when Joey's on the phone.

Adam Cox: What's her name? 

Kyle Risi: Oh, yeah, where she's the one, like, where they try to convince him that the logo was not real and she was a ghost. Yes,

Adam Cox: yeah. 

Kyle Risi: Oh, yeah. Well, I read a lot. She goes. 

Adam Cox: So, yeah, she's, she's been acting for a while, but she does this really good job of, uh, portraying Elizabeth. The voice and the mannerisms are brilliant.

Adam Cox: Um, so much so that Jennifer Lawrence was going to start in a movie based on Elizabeth Holmes, but called it off after seeing the show because she was like, Amanda's done a great job, I don't need to go there. Oh, I can't follow in those footsteps. 

Kyle Risi: Am I right in thinking, because I've not seen it, is, um, is Stephen Fry in that?

Adam Cox: Yeah, he's in it, um, and the guy from Lost, I can't remember his name, he's a British actor, he plays Sonny Balwani. 

Kyle Risi: Okay, , interesting. . Sounds like a good cast. 

Adam Cox: Yeah, and I think knowing Elizabeth, um, who was determined to succeed, I wouldn't be surprised if she came back with a new idea or something else when she finishes her time in prison.

Adam Cox: I mean, think of Jordan Belfort, Which Wolf of Wall Street is based off. He has now been a motivational speaker, and he's released his own book, and I can totally see Elizabeth doing that when she's out. 

Kyle Risi: Well, being a motivational speaker. Probably. She's got a good presence, hasn't she?

Kyle Risi: I I

Adam Cox: mean, I don't know why she'd be, like, advising other people on business. No, definitely not. But, uh, How to 

Kyle Risi: scam your way to the 

Adam Cox: top with Elizabeth Holmes. People are going to like pay her a lot of money to like do a speaking gig, . And she needs to pay off some of her debts,

Kyle Risi: that's 

Adam Cox: true.

Adam Cox: Yeah, and so yeah, that is the story of Elizabeth Holmes. 

Kyle Risi: Wow, what a big story. That was great. And I had no idea that the culture in which she created was that toxic and it was that fearful. Like, it doesn't surprise me. But it was interesting to hear that that's what it was like, that they lived, they worked in this environment where There was all these secrets.

Kyle Risi: People only had the information they needed to know. Yeah. Crazy. 

Adam Cox: That's just another example of these very confident and kind of crazy women that managed to pull the wool over people's eyes. Cassie Chadwick, Anna Delvey, and now Elizabeth Holmes. Elizabeth Holmes, yeah. Elizabeth Holmes, yeah. Yeah. 

Adam Cox: Shall we run the outro? 

Kyle Risi: Let's run this outro, Adam. 

Adam Cox: And that's it for another episode of the Compendium Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please follow us on your favourite podcast app. It really helps a lot. We now release next week's episode 7 days early on our Patreon.

Adam Cox: . It's completely free to access, so don't let the subscribe prompt fool you. If one episode just isn't enough and you're craving our entire backlog of unreleased episodes, consider, consider subscribing to our Certified Freaks tier. You'll get access to our backlogged episodes, exclusive posts and what we're up to, and sneak peeks of what we're working on.

Adam Cox: We'd love for you to join us and have a chat. We release new episodes every Tuesday, and until then, remember, Sometimes billion dollar dreams can bleed you dry when reality doesn't match the hype. 

Kyle Risi: Very good. 

Adam Cox: Until next week. 

Kyle Risi: See you later.