From Stanford University dropout to Theranos' $9 billion valuation to conviction, it is an epic rise and fall that will be chewed over in the coffee shops and juice bars of Palo Alto, California, until the tech industry departs for a new life in Elon Musk's and Jeff Bezos' off-world colonies
Elizabeth Holmes at the headquarters of Theranos, the company she founded, in Newark, Calif., Dec. 4, 2015. In Silicon Valley’s world of make-believe, the philosophy of “fake it until you make it” finally gets its comeuppance. (Carlos Chavarria/The New York Times)
SAN FRANCISCO — Near the end of Elizabeth Holmes’ criminal trial, her lawyers submitted into evidence her punishing self-improvement plan.
“4 a.m. Rise and thank God,” the handwritten memo began. Exercise, meditation, prayer, breakfast (whey and, as she spelled it, “bannanna”) followed. By 6:45 a.m., a time when slackers were still fumbling for the alarm clock, she was at the office of Theranos, the blood-testing company she founded in 2003.
Holmes had many rules at Theranos: “I am never a minute late. I show no excitement. ALL ABOUT BUSINESS. I am not impulsive. I know the outcome of every encounter. I do not hesitate. I constantly make decisions and change them as needed. I speak rarely. I call bullshit immediately.”
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