There’s a reason the History Channel has produced hundreds of documentaries about Hitler but only a few about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Bad guys (and gals) are eternally fascinating. Behind the Bastards dives in past the Cliffs Notes of the worst humans in history and exposes the bizarre realities of their lives. Listeners will learn about the young adult novels that helped Hitler form his monstrous ideology, the founder of Blackwater’s insane quest to build his own Air Force, the bizarre lives of the sons and daughters of dictators and Saddam Hussein’s side career as a trashy romance novelist.
Thu, 04 Apr 2019 10:00
Part Two: Elizabeth Holmes: The CEO Who Treated Your Blood Like a Phone
Hey there, it's Ebony Monet, your co-host for the San Diego Zoo's Amazing Wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we're speaking with Doctor Jane Goodall about the fascinating journey that led to her impactful behavioral discoveries on chimpanzees. It wasn't until one of the chimpanzees began to lose his fear of me, but I began to really make discoveries that actually shook the scientific world. Survive on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Sisters of the Underground is a podcast about fearless Dominican women who stood up against the brutal dictator Kapal Trujillo. He needs to be stopped. We've been silent and complacent for far too long. I am Daniel Ramirez, and I said Dominicana myself. I am proud to be narrating this true story that is often left out of the history books through your has blood on his hands. Listen to sisters. The underground wherever you get your podcasts. So by now we imagine that you've seen the theories on Tik T.O.K. You maybe even heard the rumors, your friends and loved ones. But are any of the stories about government conspiracies and cover ups actually true? The answer is surprisingly or unsurprisingly, yes. For more than a decade, we hear at stuff they don't want you to know have been seeking answers to these questions. Sometimes there are answers that people would rather us not explore. Now we're sharing this research. With you for the first time ever in a book format, you can pre-order stuff they don't want you to know now. It's the new book from us, the creators of the podcast and video series. You can turn back now or read the stuff they don't want you to know. Available for pre-order now, it's stuff you should read books.com or wherever you find your favorite books. I'm Robert Evans is behind the ******** TV podcast. Bad people talks about. What are you talking about? Oh my God, part two of our Elizabeth Holmes podcast. That's actually a TV podcast. It's a TV podcast. The video of this would include even more salad eating than the audio does. Oh yeah, that's actually a bonus feature. That is a bonus feature. It's actually something you can just turn on, like audio commentary. You can just watch me eating a salad. It's you watching a salad, eating a salad and me commenting on the nature of salads over the years, the salads behind the salads. This salad is really big and I'm not going to finish it. It's too large, it's substantial, it's it's an enormous salad closing at Part 2. Now in our in our last episode, we talked about Elizabeth Holmes's rise to prominence and the kind of wealth that people make when they haven't actually made anything, but like because of tech industry voodoo, everyone says the companies with billions of dollars. She got that kind of rich. I also, during the break, came up with a nickname for Sunny Balwani. Like like we had liho for Elizabeth Holmes Sunfall Sun I I listen when I was listening to the ABC News podcast about Elizabeth Holmes a few months ago. My dog's name is Sunny and every time they would mention sunny Balwani my dog would be like they're like Sunny was unknown scammer and then she could just stare at my dog and know that he's also alright. One thing I'm excited for is when we have a mass shooter named Alexa because the news that day. It's gonna be quite a trip. That's going to be the time that it's like, you know what? We are never again reporting on a mass shooters name too messy. That'll finally do it. Yeah, yeah. Now, if you watched any documentaries about Holmes or read much of the more sensational coverage about her life, you were left with a question. How did she trick so many prominent intelligent men into believing her smoke and mirrors were real, functioning technology? Jim Mattis is probably the USA's most respected living soldier. He's a general so widely admired that the Democrats in Congress didn't bother fighting when Trump appointed. The Secretary of Defense. His nickname is the warrior monk. Here's what he told Fortune about why he trusted Elizabeth Holmes. She really does want to make a dent in the universe, one that is positive. The strength of the leaders vision in the military is seen as the critical element in that unit's performance. I wanted to be around something again that had that sort of leadership. In 2000 and I just there's a lot of I just have strong opinions about how jammat not about JTT specifically but about like the like how like all the people specifically men who fell for all of this have never been really asked to like you know back it up with other than anything but a shrug I want to I want to get through all of the different things and then we'll then we'll discuss OK in 2014 Fortune talked to board member Henry Kissinger as well the 91 year old former Secretary of State. And forever War criminal first said she looks like 19 and then quote asked to assess her as a leader because he's seen a few. He responds. I can't compare her to anyone else because I haven't seen anyone with her very special attributes. She has iron will, strong determination, but nothing dramatic. There's no performance associated with her. I have seen no sign that financial gain is of any interest to her. She's like a monk. She isn't flashy. She wouldn't walk into a room and take it over, but she would once the subject gets to her field. Now, if you read up on Elizabeth Holm, you'll hear a number of theories. As to you know why this is all the case, I've run across a lot of speculation on Twitter, mostly by women, that it's just because she's hot and these old distinguished men were just ***** for her and let her themselves get fooled. Definitely part of the reason, definitely part of the reason. That's certainly in line with some of the claims Doctor Fuse has made. Remember back in 2005 when she convinced that VC Donald Lucas to invest a bunch of money in Theranos? Well, Doctor Fuse claims, quote Elizabeth called Lucas from China and he would hear her speaking Mandarin in the background when he saw how attractive she was. He got Oracle chairman Larry Ellison involved and he invested now. Gin fuse is biased and a doctor, but he's a he's a biased physician. Biased psychiatrist. But we do have Lucas's own recollections about why he got involved with Theranos. In a 2009 interview with a Berkeley PhD student, he said this. My assistant and I had a call from Beijing. Of course I'll take the call. He said. You've got to meet this young lady, Elizabeth Holmes, I said John. What? You've got to meet her. She's fabulous. OK, I'm figuring 20 minutes, right? This young lady comes in. I think she probably was 21 years old at the time and had left. Stanford didn't graduate, and she had a company called Theranos. And I thought this was going to be a short conversation. Well, now I'm chairman of the board, and I spent a lot of time with her in the company and she's doing super. He then went on to tell this grad student that she was also good looking and then laughed of. I mean, of course there's like with with it's, which is crazy because it's like everyone now is like in retrospect, being like, oh, Elizabeth Holmes is like a a mad genius for pitching her voice lower and dressing like more masculine. We're not going to talk about her voice that much in this. And I think it's. I don't think it's. Relevant. Super yeah. But it but it's just like no it's like they're it's it is so transparent when you look at it for 2 seconds, it's like they're it's there's some bias involved. Yeah. One of the reasons I don't want to get her on The Voice she's definitely it's a she objectively altered her voice for it to sound deeper. That's been very well documented. I've known a number of women who like had to manage men particularly in male dominated fields like agriculture and they do the same thing. Well that's because like it's just what you do if you're trying to get a bunch of metal listen to you have to yeah you have to like affect. More masculine tone. Because men have worms in their brains. Because men have worms in their brains. Yeah. And I'm not sure why or how much importance I give to the fact that she was hot, but I will admit that watching early videos of her before she was as media savvy as she got makes it seem like hotness must have been a bigger factor than her raw charisma and brilliance. Here is an excerpt from her very first Ted talk in 2014. So this is, like, one of the very first. This is a classic. Yeah. And it's. Give. The individual. Is the answer. To the challenges of healthcare. But we can't engage the individual. In changing outcomes. Unless individuals have access. To the information they need to do so. OK, that's that's probably about enough. That's not a great speech. That was a lot of words delivered in random order that was. That was rough. It's bad. It's not charismatic. It's not like it's nothing to do with deepness of her voice. It's just like not good presentation. No. And and it's totally unclear what the company is based on that conversation. Exactly. Yeah. Now with her body language and her outfit, which of course the people listening one of seen, she's very clearly imitating Steve Jobs. I mean, it's it's egregious. Yeah, it's egregious. And everybody, everybody, even in the the Praiseful Fortune article, they noticed that like she dressed identical every day and specifically in order to like. Look like Steve Jobs that he was a hero for her. She she hung a portrait of his apple Internet bio like that she printed out on the day he stepped down as CEO because of cancer and hung it up in her office. Didn't seem to be much of a secret. No, no. She kept all the thermostats at Theranos offices extra low so she could always wear her trademark turtleneck. That's also just another another Lisa Frank thing. Yeah, it's always 55 degrees in those offices. Well, that I agree with, because I prefer it to be cold. You're wrong. No, that's OK. I like to be cold. Why do you live here? I am not soon, but yeah, I know. I forgot. I was sad about that. Yeah. I just don't like it warm now. Elizabeth Holmes did not just affect jobs as choice and outfit, she went well out of her way to present the perfect image of the aloof, eccentric, genius founder. Here's fortune again. Holmes grips a plastic cup of an appetizing green juice. Her first of the day. It is made from spinach, parsley, parsley, wheat grass and celery. Later she'll switch to cucumber, a vegan she long ago dropped coffee in favour of. These juices, which she finds are better able to propel her through her 16 hour days and seven day weeks. She admits, laughing nervously at the eccentricity of it, that after meal she sometimes. James a drop of her own or others is blood on a slide and says she can observe the difference between when someone has eaten something healthy like broccoli, and when he splurged on a cheeseburger. When we dine one night in an Italian place downtown with $14.00 pastas, the manager knows what she'll have a Spartan dressing, less mixed salad, and an oil free spaghetti with tomatoes prepared from whole wheat noodles. She has provided the restaurant in advance since it doesn't stock them. No wine. Yeah, what a, what a weird self mythologizing pack of lies. But so many Silicon Valley people do **** like that. Yeah. And so here's here's the question I want to get tells a literal vampire, Peter Teal is a literal vampire. Yeah. This is the question I want to ask. So we've got the, the, the one speculation that like, all these old guys bought into where because she was hot. And we've got the other speculation, which I think is at least as big a part of it and maybe a bigger part of it is that she made herself look like a crazy Silicon Valley genius and these guys were just, they were looking for that and then gender. The component in that Ginger was a component in that, but not the entire thing. But not the entire. Like, the fact that these guys thought she was attractive was part of their magnetism to her. But I think it was more the part that, like, they were, they all wanted to get a **** load of money by being involved with the next Steve Jobs. And what do you look for in the next Steve Jobs? A crazy ******* who does weird things, right, because which she was imitating to AT. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I agree. I think it's like reductive to say that it's like completely because of her looks. But I also think that, like, especially like. Old dudes are always like, I'm sure that they thought they were supporting much like people like early supporters of like Sheryl Sandberg when she was starting to do ****** ** stuff. They're like, they're like, well, I'm supporting a woman so I'm not a bad person. Where they just started like searching for the easiest, least challenging version of what they're what they think is feminism and then being like, oh, so I'm it's it's like the equivalent of like saying you have a black friend. It's like I I gave money to a woman. I don't think this is. This gets on, like a totally different issue I have, but it's like, you remember when Joss Whedon, it came out that he like, cheated on his wife a bunch and everybody was saying he was a fake feminist was like, no, he can be a feminist and cheated on his wife. Doesn't mean you're a good husband. You can be a ****** person and a feminist. It's not a high bar. It's the bottom. It's like you're not a good person for saying black people and white people should have equal rights. That's the bottom they're serial killers who aren't racist. There, I yeah. Like there. I don't know. I mean, and I think that a lot of these like investors, that's just like, it's at least in part them failing to meet that bottom because they're just like, well, like I threw money at a woman's company and the woman's company, but she, she is imitating one of the, I mean, I don't know. A lot of it is a testament to her commitment. She really knows how to commit to the bit she is. I mean, I wish I could, I would I would be a lot more successful if I could commit to the bit like that. Sometimes I think if I had only used my my power as a as a tall, confident white man to start a Silicon Valley company making, I don't know, like an app that does your laundry, I could have a billion dollars right now. Oh, a laundry time. But that exists. Oh no, they they've tried it a couple of times. Damn it. I'd probably yeah, like half of Silicon Valley right now is just doing things that 19 year old millionaires moms used to do for them. Cool, cool, cool. Cool. Cool. Totally sustainable. Great. Part of the world. Terrifying place. Yeah, now it didn't hurt. Elizabeth Holmes's ability to con all these statesman who people think are brilliant. I don't think being a Secretary of State makes you brilliant. I don't think Hillary, Chris, I don't think Kissinger is all that smart. Whatever I think he's, I think he's smart in certain ways. I mean that's a whole other yeah that's a whole weird. Let's not talk about Kissinger. When we talk about Kissinger it's got to be like a four hour talk about Kissinger. I don't even know where to start but I think it helped a lot that like everyone always talked about when before Theranos like the con was revealed that she had the most distinguished board of any company in the history of the world. There were like 3 secretaries of state on it like it was and it was like you look at just like the like that's part of what tricked that Fortune article is he's talking to all these people who are like well all of you are some of the most famous people. In the history of American politics, and you're all for the same company. And the costs are on both sides of the aisle, too. Like there was like Bill Clinton and Joe Biden divorce put in like $150 million. Joe Biden, Biden and Clinton. Bill Clinton approved it. Yeah. So it's, you know, she's got bipartisan. That's yeah. And here's what's most important is that like. All of those people were very distinguished, and none of them had any background in medicine or science. Like, none of them were quite like anyone is equipped to look at a phone and be like, Oh yeah, I bet people want to put this in their pocket. Anyone qualified to use a phone, like almost no one's qualified to test blood. Yeah, like that bizarre footage of Joe Biden going to mean, like, cool blood, curious guys. It's one of those things, like, I can't even attack. Like, I don't like Biden, but I can't attack him for that. He's like, what was he supposed to do? Like, like, he walks into a lab and he's like, yeah, it looks, it looks like a like a laugh. I'm Joe Biden. I'm not a doctor. But yeah, there's better Joe Biden hills to die on. Yeah, I mean, you Speaking of like, who you as the administration sent to? Look at Theranos. Maybe the. What do you call the the Boss Doctor? What? The boss doctor of the country the The the Doctor in charge? Yeah, the the the president of doctors doctor. Big Daddy, surgeon general. You send the surgeon general like, that would be a better person, the same doctor, but that's not as famous. The Big doctor, the Big doctor, Doctor B, he's just the biggest doctor. They have to fight each other. They have to fight each other. So Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos were actually incapable of selling themselves to people who knew the first thing about medical science, which is why they focused on grifting secretaries of state and retired generals. According to Doctor Fuse, Holmes was expert at talking her way through little matters like her technology not actually working, mainly by bringing up her famous dead relatives. Quote that family background was part of the con should be introduced, and when questions were asked about her scientific knowledge or business acumen, these family members would be brought up. Now view Sapsea again has an axe to grind and as a doctor, but the 2009 interview with that venture capitalist Donald Lucas, back when Theranos was still king **** backs all this up. Quote here's what Lucas said when he was explaining why he invested. She had no background in business, so it's quite presumptuous for somebody to say I'm going to be president of the company, but there's an important distinction. That's what I felt when I first met her after spending a lot more time with her. I learned her great grandfather was an entrepreneur and started Fleischmann's packaged yeast. It was very successful. So that was one side. That's the entrepreneur side. But she was in the medical side. Ah, it turns out later the hospital very near where they lived is named after her great uncle who was involved with medicine. So she came by both of those talents necessary here, one medicine and the other entrepreneurship, quite naturally completely unhinged. That's insane. Completely. He's literally saying I thought it was crazy that in 19 year old would run a company. But then I learned out one of her relatives was a doctor and another 200 years ago. Started a business I that is completely unhinged. The I mean the fact that she is the cloud. I got to break traffic laws constantly. That's mainly what I use. Just shouted at the traffic cops as you drive past. Yeah, just flip them off and say, you know, POW ******* love you, baby. Keep my purple hearts at this out of a T-shirt. You just keep like a pile of purple hearts in the center console. Yeah, it stays strapped with my purple hearts. With him out, that's bugging absurd. It's it's ludicrous. Imagine saying that and meaning it. Saying that is Donald Lucas, distinguished venture capitalist, and not realizing that all of venture capitalism is a fraud, right? You're you're literally saying because two dead people that she never met were good at two parts of her business, that she's equipped to run a business genetically qualified, are you? Are you ******* serious business, that is. I've never heard that quote before that. It's ******* insane. Wow, man. It's like. Stupidity, you know, infects at every level. Yeah, it's wild. It sure does. That should be. That should replace E Pluribus Unum as our as our national motto. Stupidity infects every level because that T-shirt design then. Now one thing Elizabeth Holmes could not fool whether the laws of physics Theranos is equipment did not work in 2014, but they were performing tins and then hundreds of thousands of blood tests and multiple states. While Theranos marketing focused around the nano Tanner, the friendly little capsule that only required a teeny bit of your blood that was only capable of handling a couple of different tests. There are most used traditional vena puncture, AKA the thing everyone in the industry did for the others and just continue to lie on their marketing that they could handle more than 200 tests. Roger perloff. The author of that Fortune article I keep going back to pinned a Mia culpa in 2015 after Theranos exploded talking lol I'm sorry lol, I'm sorry. Talking about how homes had misled him. He thought it was weird when he learned they still did venipuncture for many of their tests and he asked her about it. Quote the biggest reason Holmes told me in May 2014 is we're scaling. As we're building out this infrastructure, we're also building out our inventory and our capacity in terms of the number of samples that we can handle at any given point in time. We'll use venipuncture in addition to the micro samples just to handle the volume of sample. Were processing now Perloff noted correctly that this made no *** **** sense. Drawing way the **** more blood would not help in handling volume. He kept asking her about it until she told him answering this question would be revealing a trade secret, right? And the fact that, I mean that's what I hope is one of the outcomes of this whole mess is that like you can't say you can't like withhold information when it's a medical company like that can't there can't be all these NDA's surrounding medical equipment or this will happen. *** **** it. Right, like, yeah, keep your iPhone secret. Who cares? Who gives a ****? You know, I find the facial unlocking to be triggering. I don't. I don't do that. It doesn't recognize me when I look nice. Oh, Jamie, I know it hurts. It hurts my feelings. That's hurtful. Was it hurt my feelings? Go pee on Steve Jobs's grave. OK, honestly was gonna yeah, I was gonna dump my diva Cup and Steve Jobs grave, and that sounds like a fun road trip. Yeah. Now, in August of 2015, the FDA did its *** **** job and surprised Theranos with an inspection, according to Vanity Fair quote. According to someone close to the company, homes was sent into a panic, calling advisers to try and resolve the issue. At around the same time, regulators from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which regulates laboratories, visited the labs and found major inaccuracies in the testing being done on patients. CMS also soon discovered that some of the tests Theranos was performing were so inaccurate that they could leave patients at risk of internal bleeding or of stroke among those prone to blood clots. The agency found that Theranos appeared to ignore the erratic results from its own quality control checks during a six month period last year and supplied 81 patients with questionable test results. Cool, cool. Some of the most unfortunate things about, like, the story is that one of the major people who like exposed Elizabeth Holmes's name is Tyler. Yeah, that's a frustrating thing. I don't like when Tyler wins, but in this case, he was right. He seems like a nice guy. He seems like someone who really has a like a conscience. I just don't want to chalk one up for a. Tyler, no, it's like when you meet a nice guy named Chad, which I have a couple of times and it's always like, you're like, I don't like this. I would prefer, OK, just wish he wasn't, but like good for him, but good for him, good for you, for breaking the mold, you know? Speaking of breaking the mold, you know, it really breaks the mold. Jamie Loftus, well, these products and services, these services and products products. In the 1980s and 90s, a psychopath terrorized the country of Belgium. A serial killer and kidnapper was abducting children in the bright light of day. Jamie Loftus what these products and services, these services and products. That's. So by now we imagine that you've seen the theories on tick. From Tenderfoot TV in iHeartRadio this is la Monstra. A story of abomination and conspiracy that led to the demise of the entire institution of Belgian federal police and rattled the foundations of its government. The story about the man who simply become known as La Monster. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up you guys? It's your girl Betty who here? And you know this about me. It has always been very important to me to stand out and be authentically me, not only with my music, but my style and my vibe. And JBL really gets that. They know your headphones and speakers should look as original as the music you're listening to, or in my case, making. That's why I'm obsessed with my JBL headphones and speakers that help me reflect who I really am, from true wireless headphones to pulsing party boxes. Ohh yeah, party boxes guys. JBL has a wide and colourful range of products that help me feel myself when I wanna vibe my way. I literally record this entire podcast on my favorite JBL headphones. They are absolutely incredible. So JBL wants us all to listen on our terms living in the moment. Our moment unfiltered. The JBL podcast at jbl.com. This fall on revisionist history, is there anything that we haven't talked about, or I should have asked you or you'd like to add that seems relevant? You should have asked me why I'm missing fingers on my left hand. A story about sacrifice. I think his suffering drove him to try to alleviate suffering. And the shocking discovery I made where I faced the consequences of writing a book I thought would help people? Isn't that funny? It's not funny at all. It's depressing. Very depressing. Revisionist history is back with more. Listen to revisionist history on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I've never seen less enthusiasm for a great idea in my life. We're back now, the next month after that surprise FDA, you know, inspection thing found out nothing worked. The FDA declared the Nano Tanner to be an uncleared device, removing it from availability for all but one test. Their nose was now using traditional old fashioned venipuncture for nearly all of their tests, and since neither the Edison nor its successor, the many lab, worked for **** they were doing most of the analysis on equipment they bought from other companies, including the companies they were claiming to want to disrupt. It's sort of like if Apple had just been ripping apart HP laptops and putting a fancy looking case on the outside. They're just like, here's an iPhone, but it's a Sony Vaio. Now at this point you probably wondering what the hell was going on with the rest of Theranos at this point, was anyone inside like standing up and saying what the **** nothing works. Oh yeah, well like any good cult leader, Elizabeth Holmes organized the entire company in such a way that everyone's job was incredibly compartmentalized. People knew about their specific project and nothing else that was going on at the company. Employees were often banned from communicating with one another about their work. This didn't seem super insane because many Silicon Valley companies like Apple had similar policies aimed at stopping devices from leaking out. It was weird because this is literally the opposite of of the way good medical science is done. Kind of when everyone talking, you want there to be transparency. Yeah, that's the point. That's the point. Not it's crazy. Like Elizabeth Holmes is at no point was like, wait a second, lives aren't funds, but that's not her vibe. Lives aren't phones. Yeah, I'll say that. For Steve Jobs, he never was like, like after Apple. He was like, I guess I'll make fun movies and different computers. He wasn't like. It was like a repulsive person who had a stink and harassed everyone. But he wasn't trying to kill anyone. He knew his place. Yeah. Yeah. He he was like, I can, you know, this is what I can get away with, and I'm going for it. He wasn't like, I'm going to make a machine gun next. Right. Right. But I can make a really good machine gun. But that's that's classic. She's really disrupting peoples health. Yeah. Yeah. Disrupting people's health. That's that's a good tagline for this. Yeah. Oh, boy. You want you want to know? Baglione that I initially had for this episode. Yes, Elizabeth Holmes. The white woman who became a white man. Whoa, brave, brave of her. God. I mean, I just want girls to also have access to the spoils of late capitalism, don't we all wrong. Don't we all? Oh my God. Now. The secrecy and stress of managing a $9 billion company did not actually do anything that didn't actually do anything required an insane schedule from homes. She reportedly slept 4 hours a night and ate chocolate covered coffee beans all day in order to stay awake. Corporate grifter recognition tip? Be wary of anyone who brags about how little they sleep. It is not a good thing. No one makes better decisions when they don't sleep. In order to keep **** further under wraps, she hired her brother Christian to be the associate director of Project Management in 2011. Super cool he had been out of college for yeah. He'd been out of college for two years and had no relevant educational experience that would help him manage products in a blood diagnostics company. Amazing. Yeah? Well, he'll fit right in hell, fit right in with Sunny, the president of the company. To shout his way into a medical breakthrough and he's like, we're just screaming in a cold building, you're ruining people's lives. That's kind of where we do here. Numerous employees did of course recognize that something was up there, knows how outrageous rates of turnover, and one point homes hired a bunch of employees from her favorite company, Apple. They were all gone inside of two years, but Theranos kept any former employees from talking by threatening to sue anyone who so much as wrote about their job in detail on LinkedIn. I think it's also a dead giveaway when your company hires a disproportionate amount of people fresh out of college. Who don't have other options. Yeah, that's part of it. She did a lot of, she did a lot of that. Now, Theranos's law team was incredibly expensive and headed by David Boies and other incredibly respected old white dude. He was Al Gore's lawyer during the recount. Among other things, there's a big lawyers behind marriage equality. He's like, he's like, he's like the Steve Jobs of lawyers, I guess you'd say, but that doesn't really translate because he's actually is he good or bad? He's bad. He's bad. I was like, I was like, he's bad, right? He's a bad person who was a lawyer on good cases. All right, but that happens. Lawyers are often bad. Whether or not they do good or bad things, they're lawless people. They're yeah, exactly. Yeah, all lawyers are anarchists. Yeah. Justin Maxwell was one of the designers behind the Edison. He later spoke to Kerry Rue for the Book Bad Blood. His story provides a good look at just how Holmes treated her employees on A1 on one basis. Quote, during an e-mail Exchange 1 evening, he asked her for a piece of information he needed to write a section of software. She responded that she'd look for it when she was back at work the next morning. The clear implication was that she had gone home. But minutes later he stumbled on her in Tony Nugent's office down the hall. Justin got angry. Stormed off. Elizabeth came by his office a little later to say she understood why he was upset but warned him. Don't ever walk off on me again just to try to remind himself that Elizabeth was very young and still had a lot to learn about running a company and one of their last e-mail exchanges. He recommended two management self help books. To her, the no ******* rule, building a civilized workplace and surviving one that isn't. And beyond ******** straight talk at work included their links on Amazon. They quit two days later, his resignation e-mail read in part. Good luck and please do read those books, watch the office and believe in the people who disagree with you. Lying is a disgusting habit, and it flows through conversations here like it's our own currency. The cultural disease here is what we should be curing before we try to tackle obesity. I mean, I mean no ill will towards you since you believe in what I was doing and I hoped I would succeed at Theranos. I feel like I owe you this bad attempt at an exit interview since we have no HR to officially recorded. That's that's a great resignation. Savage moment from a save. Another sad mom. That's great. I don't understand why he recommended she watched the office. That just seemed like a fun thing to. I think it might just be because she was that bad of a boss. But he was like, maybe you'll understand what you're doing if you watch. I think he's saying you're like Michael Scott. That seems generous, honestly. Yeah. Because at least he had a Michael Scott. Well, no, Michael Scott would totally have tried to create a medical device. She carries herself more like a Jan Levinson Gould. But Jan Levinson Gould was good at her job. That's the difference. Yeah, at the start at least. Yeah. Now Elizabeth did not respond. I found no evidence that she ever watched the office either. *** **** it. *** **** it. The areas where she most shown seemed to be one, talking people into investing in Theranos and two motivating employees at company wide events and parties. She was legitimately talented and inspiring people. During one company Christmas party she gave this speech. The Mini lab is the most important thing humanity has ever built. If you don't believe this is the case, you should leave now. Everyone needs to work as hard as humanly possible to deliver it. Cool cult, cool cult. During the company party to celebrate the deal with Safeway, Holmes told everyone. If anyone here believes you are not working on the best thing humans have ever built, or if you're cynical, then you should leave. For all of these speeches I like to imagine she's sipping from a mug of human blood. Just getting a little milk mustache. Sure of it? She's like anyways slurp. Yeah, I do give Sophie almost that exact same speech before every single episode. Behind the basket, behind the ******** is the most. You don't believe this is the most important thing anyone's ever done? And then you and then you chug A-40 of blood. That's generous. I've seen it. It's malt liquor. I OK. It's very dark and viscous. Well, I mean, you put my protein powder in, you guys, you guys are used to get my pump on. I I pour a protein shot into my malt liquor. Stir that up really, really thick. My my big problem with Colt 45 is that it's not quite thick enough. The beer was thicker. I wish that malt liquor we're not talking about beer when we talk about Colt 45 and steel reserve, that Mike's hard lemonade came in a solid. MM, start jello. Oh my God, Jamie. That's our billion dollar idea. We make ice cubes too. Get them on the *******. We got someone called Mike. Someone called Mike. We need this **** cubed stat cube. Your **** Mike. ******* fool. One of the few distinguished older men Elizabeth Holmes was unable to brainwash was John Kerry Rue, a multiple Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist with the Wall Street Journal. He received a tip from a former Theranos lab director that led to a much deeper investigation. In October of 2015 he published the first of two dozen articles. His first piece revealed Theranos's problems with the Nano Tanners and the fact that very very little of the promised revolutionary technology actually worked and that they were using other companies technology to do their blood tests. This was not great for Theranos, the company went into lockdown. For two days and nights she holed up and what was probably a very smelly conference room with sunny Balwani and all the companies, lawyers, plus a team of crisis management professionals. Forming a good plan proved impossible because there are no this technology was ******* vapor and had been for 10 years, been for 10 years, according to Vanity Fair. Absent a plan, homes embarked on a familiar course. She doubled down on her narrative. She left the war room for her car. She's often surrounded by her security detail, which sometimes numbers as many as four men who, for safety reasons, refer to the young CEO as Eagle one and headed for the airport. She's been known to fly alone on a 6.5 million. While the Gulfstream G-150 homes subsequently took off for Boston to attend a luncheon for a previously scheduled appearance at the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows, where she would be honored as an inductee. During the trip, Holmes fielded calls from her advisers in the war room. She and her team decided on an interview with Jim Kramer, the host of CNBC's Mad Money, with whom she had a friendship that dated from a previous interview. It was quickly arranged. Few friends with Jim Cramer. That's not. That's. I mean, that's such a bad look where you're like, well, here's the here's the trusted, very rational source I've chosen. Yeah, it's like, oh, OK, a guy who's won two Pulitzers is attacking us. We gotta fight back with Jim Kramer, with the bastion of truth, Jim Cramer there. Oh, God, her interview. And that is. I'm going to apply a brief selection from that interview right now. It's amazing. Just a ******* liar. She does get. She is, if you know. Compared to the first video clip we played, she's gotten a lot better. She's her PR trainer. Yeah, nailed it, that person. We should get a Pulitzer for lying. Hmm. This is what happens when you work to change things and first they think you're crazy, then they fight you, and then all of a sudden you change the world. And I I have to say, I I I personally was shocked to see that the journal would publish something like this when we had sent them over 1000 pages of documentation demonstrating that the statements in their piece were false. But what? We're doing things differently. And we're working to make a difference, and that means people raise questions and. And that's OK. Yeah. But in this case, it was pretty disappointing to see that after every single one of the sources that we spoke with who the journal had contacted, told us that the statements that were being attributed to them were false or misleading. And the only sources who were left were ones who wouldn't speak with us, who on their own website say that they now do business with LabCorp in their office or in the other. Is demanded in writing that we pay them in cash upfront, $2500 for an hour, to talk to them about their statements to the journal. Did those things weren't present? Did the journal know everything that you just said before they wrote the article of of course, absolutely. That was all lies. Of course. Just. Mean commit to the bit. There is something to be. I like. She's horrible. I like no doubt she's bad person. But there is something kind of majestic about watching someone go down with the ship just in complete ignorance. Yeah, it's it's there's a little bit of the L Ron Hubbard in here where it's like, well, OK, you didn't you didn't just run away and blame someone else. You just denied there was ever a problem. She is not going to admit she's done anything wrong. So what is she? Like 666. I don't recall. It's like, yeah, it's amazing. It's Ronald Reagan level. I don't recalls. Yeah, not genius, but consistent. Yeah. Now, it was obviously not super compelling rebuttal to, again, one of the best reporters on the planet, tearing you apart in an article for the Wall Street Journal. But it was the best she could do, giving the fact that, you know, everything that Kerry said was accurate. She's got, she's, she's got that mad money. ******* mad money. Why is he on the air? What? Why is he in the documentary? How is his heart not exploded from what I assume is a daily cocktail of cocaine and Red Bull? I will say it was when when he appears in the documentary, it was very jarring to see him outside of that set. It seems like he has not left in many years. He seems disheveled, like they must lock him in there. I think he lives in a tent just off screen. There's guys with like rifles hanging out outside the set. We got to make sure. Kramer. Doesn't get out. I've never seen him outside of that set. It was very jarring. It's weird. Yeah, I guess he just had to now. So when she got back to Palo Alto, Holmes had to finally address her employees. She insisted again that the journal had gotten the story wrong and that the reporter, John Carreyrou, was just picking a fight with her company to make a name for himself, you know? A better name than having two people enterprises, yeah. OK, yeah. Now as Holmes and Balwani pumped up the crowd, a chant started up. **** you, Kerry rue. **** you, carreyrou. **** you, carreyrou. First of all, original laugh. Very original. Super love it. Kind of start shooting out Theranos T-shirts out of T-shirt guns. You know it. You know she just tossing blood vials and purple hearts. Jock Jam started to play. But I, you know, go down, go down in style and if you want to go down in style, you need the stylish products and services advertised by our advertisers transition. Thank you. In the 1980s and 90s, a psychopath terrorized the country of Belgium. A serial killer and kidnapper was abducting children in the bright light of day. His unspeakable crimes and the incompetence or unwillingness of the police to stop him brought the entire country of Belgium to the brink of revolution. Just December. From Tenderfoot TV and iHeartRadio this is la Monstra. A story of abomination and conspiracy that led to the demise of the entire institution of Belgian federal police and rattled the foundations of its government. The story about the man who's simply become known as. Lamaster. Listen for free on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up you guys? It's your girl Betty who here? And you know this about me. It has always been very important to me to stand out and be authentically me, not only with my music, but my style and my vibe. And JBL really gets that. They know your headphones and speakers should look as original as the music you're listening to, or in my case, making. That's why I'm obsessed with my JBL headphones and speakers that help me reflect who I really am, from true wireless headphones to pulsing party boxes. Ohh yeah, party boxes guys. JBL has a wide and colourful range of products that help me feel myself when I wanna vibe my way. I literally record this entire podcast on my favorite JBL headphones. They are absolutely incredible. So JBL wants us all to listen on our terms living in the moment. Our moment unfiltered. The JBL podcast at jbl.com. This fall on revisionist history, is there anything that we haven't talked about or? I should have asked you if you'd like to add that seems relevant. You should have asked me why I'm missing fingers on my left hand. A story about sacrifice. I think his suffering drove him to try to alleviate suffering. And the shocking discovery I made where I faced the consequences of writing a book I thought would help people? Isn't that funny? It's not funny at all. It's depressing. Very depressing. Revisionist history is back with more. Listen to revisionist history on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I've never seen less enthusiasm for a great idea in my life. We're back for a while. Employees and management at Theranos hunkered down and tried to wait out the storm. They attempted to ignore the mounting problems by focusing their Rage Against Cariou and one company party, so there are no staff programmed a video game based on Space Invaders. The gun was the mini lab, the bullets were nano Tanners, and the aliens were John Kerry, who's face kind of a niche game. Kind of a niche game. Feel like it was never signed baseball? Yeah, not a lot of traveling power. Tragically for Theranos. That was not enough to stop Garry's reporting and the inevitable. Unraveling of Theranos that it triggered Walgreens cut all ties with the company and closed their Wellness centers. The FDA banned the company from using the Edison, too. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services banned homes from owning or running a medical lab for two years. The SEC and the US Attorney's Office opened investigations 2 class action. Lawsuits from people who had their blood analyzed by Theranos are still under way. Forbes removed homes from its list of America's richest self-made women, lowered its estimate of her net worth to nothing. Something like a million people were told their blood test results had been complete ******** and they would need to retake. Now Holmes tried to stage a comeback. For some reason she started this by adopting a Husky puppy and naming it Balto. After the dog that led a sled team filled with medicine to save an Alaskan village in 1925, Baldwin became a constant companion both of the Los Altos mansion Theranos rented for Elizabeth and at the Theranos offices, even though all her scientists warned her that dog hair did not mix well with blood testing laboratories, she did not bother to potty train built up, so he ****** and **** all over what was ostensibly again a medical lab. Holmes also started to claim that Husky was a wolf at this point, telling everyone who asked and probably also a lot of people who did not. Task by the end of 2017, things were bad enough that Elizabeth Holmes had to stop traveling by private jet. The company was forced out of the office that had been expensively redesigned and spent more than $1,000,000 a month in rent on. They moved into a lab facility in Newark, which is not generally seen as as Nice as Palo Alto Balto continued to **** on the floor in this new facility, according to Vanity Queer Fair quote. It's been a long week, according to Vanity Fair quote. Through all this, former employees of the company have told me Holmes had a bizarre way of acting like nothing was wrong. Even more peculiarly, she seemed happy the company was falling apart. There are countless indictments piling up. Employees are leaving in droves, and Elizabeth, that's just weirdly chipper, one former senior executive told me. One former board member also noted that Holmes would come to board meetings chirpy and acting as if everything was great. She would walk up to people in the office who have just testified in front of the SEC or been questioned by lawyers at the FDA, and she would give them a hug and ask how they were doing. She was so confident that the company would be fine. Executives who worked with her said that she enrolled Balto in a search and rescue program. Home spent weekends training him to find people in an emergency. Unfortunately, Huskies are not bred for rescue. They are long distance runners, and Balto failed out. That's tragic. Her dog failed out of school. Dog failed out of school. I bet her narrative is like he actually dropped out. He dropped out. He actually had a search and rescue company. I mean, these are like, classic things of just, like, ignoring reality. Your best friend is not a person. Yep. Not. I mean, listen, I love my dogs, who's named after sunny Balwani, but my best friend is a cat that lives in Texas. So I yeah, it's it's not, but but, you know, like, the completely ignoring reality and being, like, my dog's a cop. Yeah, my dog's a cop. They're not officially died in September 2018. All $900 million. Elizabeth Holmes had raised via grifting, evaporated into a pile of broken nano Tanners and dog shed. Numerous lawsuits and investigations into Holmes and Theranos are still ongoing. She faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted for all her crimes. Her defense and the defense of her Co defendant sunny Balwani seems to rest on the idea that they didn't actually commit fraud. Theranos was just a normal business failure. Also, technically, neither of them made money off the company. This is sort of true, but for more than a decade Holmes is travel, bodyguards, mansion bills, etcetera were all paid for by Theranos, one former employee later recalled. Quote The company paid for everything. She would submit her miles if she drove the six miles to her house in Los Altos, which is what you do if you're working for like 20 bucks an hour, not what you do if you're the CEO and they're renting you a mansion. Elizabeth. Former Theranos executives who are close to Elizabeth Holmes during the end of Theranos noted that she never really accepted any responsibility for what had happened. One former colleague said Elizabeth sees herself as the victim. She blames John Kerry rue, she blames David Boies, and she blames Heather King. Boys and king were both her lawyers. Holmes thinks that her lawyer should have somehow been able to contain the bad PR from again, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter tearing their company open with unimpeachable facts in a Wall Street Journal article. At this moment, Elizabeth Holmes lives in San Francisco in a very nice apartment that seems to be paid for by the rich kid she is dating. She now dresses like a normal person. Last year she and her boyfriend went to Burning Man. She looks weirdly normal in the pictures, like an actual adult person. She seems to be trying to turn her dog into an Instagram star. Here's her some of her Instagram pictures. Oh my God. This could have been your life girl. She looks like a normal person though. Looks like a normal basic white lady. Yeah. Wow look at that hat. Look at that fur vest. It is a great dog. It is a no shade on the dog. The dog did nothing. The dog did nothing wrong. The dog was just trying to could have learned how to potty train into an Insta thought yeah it seems like it is. Homes for him. I'm very interested as into like, what, what happens with her, because it's like, I could see it going one way of like, you know, classic scammer getting the minimum punishment and then, you know, staging a comeback 10 years from now. But I could also see it as like a making an example for Silicon Valley and actually putting her away. Maybe she'll get go to prison even though, like none of the guys in the financial industry who did irreparably more harm, right, will ever see the inside of a cell. Yeah, exactly like one of those example makers. She's more. Criminal than she is victim, but part of her seems to be a victim. And I we just, I just don't know enough about the relationship with sunny, but it does seem like something ****** ** happened there. I mean, it's and I'm sure that there's some relationships with that age gap that have turned out fine by and large. But I I I don't know. I mean it not to not to continue to stand for hospitals. It does seem like she is deluded herself into thinking she did nothing wrong. I do believe that she thinks that. Yeah, I think she's taking a look in the mirror. And I it's partly because she was doing again, when I say Steve Jobs was a grifter, it's not that he didn't eventually produce great stuff, it's that he knew how to lie and obfuscate and con people until the product was ready. And that's I think that's what she was trying to do. But I think it it my impression of Steve Jobs was always like he knew more what he was doing and like just didn't care versus like totally scissor ******* your own brain into believing something that is patently untrue. I think he was a very comfortable person with himself, and I doubt she ever was. Maybe she is now. Maybe. I mean, she looks happy in the picture. She's got a hot boyfriend. They're going to Burning Man. That's everything that's annoying to me. So cool. It's possible that if she doesn't wind up doing 20 years behind bars, Elizabeth Holmes may have gotten over the need to cosplay as Steve Jobs. I don't know. What I do know is that the system that allowed her to **** with so many people's lives and cost so much money and cons, so much money, is still alive and well. That Vanity Fair article I keep referring to has a great breakdown of this quote. It generally works like this. The venture capitalists, who are mostly white men don't really know what they're doing with any certainty. It's impossible, after all, to truly predict the next big thing. So they bet a little money on every company that they can with the hope that one of them hits it big. Entrepreneurs, also mostly white men, often work on a lot of meaningless stuff, like using code to deliver frozen yogurt more expeditiously, or apps that let you say yo and only yo to your friends and people are so hard on yo. It was a fun app. The entrepreneurs generally glorify their efforts by saying that their innovation could change the world, which tends to appease the venture capitalists because they can also then pretend that they're not only there to make money. Also, this helps to seduce the tech press, also largely composed of white men, which is often ready to play a game of access in exchange for a few more page views of their story about the company that is trying to change the world. Getting frozen yogurt to companies more expeditiously, the financial rewards speak for themselves. Silicon Valley, which is 50 square miles, has created more wealth than any place in human history. In the end, it isn't in anyone's interest to call ******** hardigree. Yeah, kind of, kind of nailed it. Yeah, no, that's like a terrific piece. That is everything that's happening in that little chunk of California. And it's and it's very unclear of like whether anything will actually be done to nothing. She might, yeah. I mean she might, but it's. But there's always so many cases of like sacrificial lambs in just, just so like Silicon Valley can move forward with being like, look, no, we took care of that. Elizabeth Holmes is in jail, the one female CEO is in jail, 1 grifter in Silicon Valley is in jail. Like there is so. Mark Zuckerberg is disrupting aids medicine. Either way, I feel confident that ******** will prevail. That also could be this country's new motto. ********. Will prevail. Will prevail. I hope that you know if Elizabeth Holmes goes to prison, she does a do Facebook live streams from her gorgeous cell. I hope that she tries to write a novel. Allah, Lauren Conrad. I bet it'll be great. I hope she tries to start a lifestyle company. I hope she does every scam. I hope she tries to write a novel that is like a fictional way of addressing America's race problem. Because Elizabeth Holmes goes to prison. She does a do Facebook live. Dreams from her gorgeous cell. I hope that she tries to write a novel a la Lauren Conrad. I bet it'll be great. I hope she tries to start a lifestyle company. I hope she does every scam. I hope she tries to write a novel that is like a fictional way of addressing America's race problem. Because I I think if anyone's qualified qualified, it's liho. God, I I don't know. I guess we just have to sit tight and and hope that this Jennifer Lawrence movie doesn't. Come out because it sounds insufferable. Yeah, I hope it proves to be like Theranos, a giant, overfunded, unworkable mess. Still. I mean blood Keurig. A good idea? A great idea? A great idea for a haunted house? A great idea for, like, the sequel to what we do in the shadows? Like a fantastic idea for that. That would be great. Absolutely a great idea for that. Well, she should have just been in, in, in in Hollywood. She's just in the wrong area of California. Yeah. And I think it was just that she came in too late to, like, try to make a tech product. Like, she saw that. Like, well, no, like, that's that. Clearly we're near the end of where you can just jump into that company with a new gadget. So blood. Blood. Yeah. Hey, #relatable. #relatable got it, right. We've all got blood, except for Peter Thiel, which is why he needs your blood. Peter Thiel, vampire narrative. That's what I want Adam McKay movie about. I wanted Peter Thiel, vampire Peter Thiel, the vampire nerd who is helping the government track undocumented immigrants in using, like appropriating, talking terms to do it. Like, that's a better use of stealing the name of 1's time. The worst guy in those books is device to name his company after. Like stop it. Stop it, Peter. Don't think we need to run Elizabeth Holmes over with another intellectual property. Are like, I just don't think we do, no. So Jamie Loftus? Yeah. We're back in the P zone here. We are OHP zone of the zone. It's freezing. Here it is. It's very cold. It's for my turtlenecks. Yeah, you can listen to the Bechdel cast every Thursday with me and Caitlin Durante. You can find me on Twitter at Jamie Loftus help. And I'm touring my show boss, whom is girl, about a fictional girl boss called Shell Gasoline Sandwich. Touring that around the country in the spring and summer. Well, that sounds great. Check out her show, even if you're not in Cleveland, what can I get you to say? Steve Jobs, 10 different ways throughout these. I don't apologize for pronouncing Steve Jobs 10 different ways throughout this episode. And you know why? Why? Because he was * ****. Well. He burn. I'm kidding. I don't feel strongly. Yeah, I don't feel that strongly about it either. I just feel badly for Steve Wozniak, who I'm sure still mourns him dutifully because he's a nice guy for his daughter. Read her book. Ohh, that's a heartbreaker. Yeah, it's a tough one. Bad. Dad. Dad? Dad. Dad. Dad, dad. Check out our website behindthebastards.com. Check us out on the twits and the grams that ******* pod. Listen to the to our church T-shirts. Buy them public. They have a lot of. Listen to our T-shirts on teepublic. Behind the ********. I have a new podcast called it could happen here. It's a sad podcast about how we're all going to die in horrible, horrible conflict soon. Awesome. Can't wait. I love you. Bye. Hey there, it's Ebony Monet, your cohost for the San Diego Zoo's Amazing wildlife podcast. In this special episode, we're speaking with Doctor Jane Goodall about the fascinating journey that led to her impactful behavioral discoveries on chimpanzees. It wasn't until one of the chimpanzees began to lose his fear of me, but I began to really make discoveries that actually shook the scientific world. Listen to amazing wildlife on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Sisters of the Underground is a podcast about fearless Dominican women who stood up against the brutal dictator Raphael Trujillo. He needs to be stopped. We've been silent and complacent for far too long. I am Daniel Ramirez, and as a Dominicana myself, I am proud to be narrating this true story that is often left out of the history books to read. Your has blood on his hands. Listen to sisters of the underground wherever you get your podcasts. So by now we imagine that you've seen the theories on Tik T.O.K. You maybe even heard the rumors from your friends and loved ones. But are any of the stories about government conspiracies and cover ups actually true? The answer is surprisingly or unsurprisingly, yes. For more than a decade, we hear at stuff they don't want you to know have been seeking answers to these questions. Sometimes there are answers that people would rather us not explore. Now we're sharing. This research with you for the first time ever in a book format you can pre-order stuff they don't want you to know now. It's the new book from us, the creators of the podcast and video series. You can turn back now or read the stuff they don't want you to know. Available for pre-order now, it's stuff you should read books.com or wherever you find your favorite books.