Veil Lifted: Elizabeth Holmes

[Music] hey guys what's up and welcome back to my channel is the first episode of avail lifted a video essay where I discuss fascinating cases that involve secrecy and discovery I will not be making these videos every week just every so often I'm sorry if there's glare from my glasses ready to glare I have a migraine so I need to keep them on this is the story of a woman whose unwavering conviction and delusion helped her rise to the top but lies can only hold on for so long especially when your 4.5 billion dollar worth can turn to zero in the matter of months this is the story of Elizabeth Holmes Holmes is a 35 year old health technology entrepreneur she was born in Washington DC Holmes attended Stanford studying chemical engineering she also worked as a student researcher and lab assistant in 2004 Holmes dropped out and chose to use her tuition money for her future healthcare technology company this was a bold move for someone who had not finished their studies in a field that requires it contrary to art healthcare in the medical field demand certification nonetheless Holmes continued in her mission to create her company a few striking things about Elizabeth involve her appearance and her voice usually appearance would not be brought up but here I believe it's a pertinent part of a puzzle in videos one can note that Holmes rarely blinks people don't even know that they have a basic human right to be able to get access to information about themselves and their own bodies which gives her gaze and intense and potentially disturbing quality her blue eyes are often bloodshot and videos as well additionally as a big fan of Steve Jobs her wardrobe resembled his in the documentary the inventor out for blood in Silicon Valley she states that her closet contains the same pieces of clothing in Mass in order to avoid wasting time picking an outfit she wore a black turtleneck black slacks in a blazer at times another interesting element is her deep voice that too many appears unnatural ex-coworkers of hers clean her voice is actually a few octaves higher and that she purposely adjusted it her family maintains that it's real well this isn't of paramount importance it just adds to the questions when describing herself and the footage shown in the documentary home seems to be a business version of I'm not like the other girls explaining how her friends were books that she was always working rather than having a healthy social life she also had a Yoda quote painted on the wall of her company to remind you she's not like the other girls question was what was the process of dropping out of Stanford when I was 19 like and and what kind of advice did I get I'm interestingly it was a fairly binary decision and I got to a point where I actually originally did not intend to drop out of Stanford but I wasn't going to any classes and I was spending all of my time talking to be seized and so thank you logistically it just seems like a waste of money because I was you know taking 20 units and I wasn't showing up so I'm so so originally the concept was will I take a leave of absence and then I it became really clear that you know I I was at a point where another few classes in chemical engineering it was not necessary for what I wanted to do Holmes likened having blood drawn intravenously to a torture experiment with this in mind Theron owes her company aim to create a system where blood could be analyzed via only a few drops taken from the tip of a finger she pitched this idea to her professor Phyllis Gardner who taught medicine at Stanford garner told Holmes that she didn't think it would work and that her claim of reaping vast amounts of data from a few drops of blood was impossible however Holmes persisted and managed to get someone to back her idea his name was chaining Robertson Dean at the School of Engineering a recurring the theme we see with Holmes is her ability to charm people specifically older and powerful men into not only investing in her company but in her the investors were so impressed with her that it appears that none of them really looked into her data it seems no one looked closely enough to see that she was misrepresenting everything and its peak fairness was worth nine billion dollars another factor in this story is that one of the leaders of Thayer knows Sonny Baldwin he actually was romantically involved with Holmes they did not disclose this relationship to investors but the employees seemed to know that something was going on it needs to be a documentary many real a that she had a charm that made people give in to her ideas even if they really were just ideas and realistically impossible this charm is what allowed thier nose to staff looked as long as it did that long with incredibly strict and paranoid contracts that locked people into silence [Music] it's all secret I don't have many secrets Holmes was paranoid most people in Silicon Valley want to keep their ideas secret but Holmes one up to them the contracts employees signed included not being allowed to speak ill of the company at any point and not being allowed to discuss their knows generally Holmes also was there at interviews even when it was for a position such as a receptionist that usually doesn't warrant the founders presence though her presence could have been a positive about how involved she was it only showed how actually controlling she was before her receptionist said her screen was being monitored so higher-ups could see every single tab she opened other employees discussed how they'd email someone without copying baloise near Holmes and somehow bomani responded in fact even when she hired interns or engineers she wasn't open or clear about what their mission was Engineers claimed that this was an abnormal force Silicon Valley and startups generally but later they realized why she was vague all of those who came forward with information after leaving thier nose were threatened with lawsuits Holmes had astutely hired lawyers from the get-go in order to silence anyone who might offer critique eventually they had bodyguards escorting people in and out along with key cards that tracked who entered and exited the room this is understandable but along with the rest it just shows a suffocating environment fairness mission appealed to many because Holmes marketed it as a way to democratize health care she likened getting typical blood tests once a year to a picture versus using their nose as a video why because the central selling point for thier nose was a machine called the Edison this was inspired by Thomas Edison and his quote I have not failed I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work interestingly Edison was also fraudulent in similar ways to Holmes so her choice was perfect this Edison machine was supposed to take the few drops of blood and analyze them it was made small enough to fit on a countertop so people could easily happen at home he said it could run 200 tests the reality coming from engineers who worked in the lab was that not even half of those tests worked in fact Ian Gibbons the former theron os-- chief scientist was driven into despair by the lies and misrepresentation thier nose continuously pushed sadly this led to his suicide the same day he was let go their nose never contacted the family to express condolences they did however ask for some confidential documents back [Music] Walgreens is a pharmacy store chain their nose eventually made a deal with them this deal got an additional four hundred million dollars of funding for Holmes company Walgreens ended up being a part of what finally exposed their nose as misleading it to say the least blood would be taken from patients at Walgreens and was then brought to thier nose where they tested blood with machines not there Edison machine competitor machines that shows you how little trust there was in the Edison as time went on patients would come to get their few drops taken and the phlebotomist would tell them that due to the test their doctor required they need to have blood taken the traditional way so they felt tricked obviously the reason they needed more blood was because as her professor told Holmes what she was trying to do was impossible Wall Street Journal was where thoroughness began its public demise a journalist by the name John Kerry rue wrote a piece that exposed their nose and their misleading claims I strongly suggest reading it it'll be linked down below one of the sources that tipped the Wall Street Journal was a man named Tyler Schultz his grandfather was a former Secretary of State and was a huge huge believer in Holmes calories family had known Holmes for a long time and when Tyler Schultz heard of her project he wanted to be a part of it so he was hired as an intern he gave the Wall Street Journal information about the accuracy or rather an accuracy of the tests needless to say thier nose figured out it was him and one day he went to his grandfather's house and had two lawyers there waiting for him in the end no legal battle occurred as their nose had bigger fish to fry The Wall Street Journal's story hit everyone began analyzing Holmes actions asked more questions demanded to see proper results and so on as of now both homes in bhiwani are facing fraud charges that could land them in prison for 20 years the case is currently in discovery so the defense and prosecution are exchanging information so now all we can do is wait I think the first piece is realizing that it's not necessarily about age and I'm people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and the Google guys and Michael Dell and Larry Ellison and others have demonstrated that I'm I think it's about time it's about technology it's about people it's about the the conviction and dedication that that an entrepreneur has in going into it to make something work no matter what and then it's about finding people who believe in you because the worst possible thing in the world is to have someone who doesn't believe in you backing you because it's not going to result in a good situation [Music] though I thought this case was deeply fascinating because it astounds me that she got away with it for so long I genuinely don't understand how that happened she started her company at 19 and pretty much only ten years later did people start really asking questions so though I can't outline the entire story I tried to include everything that I thought was relevant this story seems so surreal how do people invest large amounts of money without looking at the company's financial audit how can they invest without looking critically at the results shown so far if there are even any results to show did people just want a breakthrough is that why they were blinded was the fact that she was an attractive woman a significant part in the trust given to her these are the questions I found myself asking how does one woman who clearly didn't have as much knowledge as she thought fool the world like this I also wondered why it is that people would trust someone without certification for something that's in the scientific / medical field I also wondered considering she doesn't have certification why did people believe that she had this advanced idea that could work because she didn't have a team of scientists until she had already formed the idea so the implication is she formed the idea by herself and how would someone with limited knowledge form such an advanced idea my bottom line here and what really aggravates me apart from people lying about who they are and what they do which makes me want to bash my head in this fraud is life-endangering fraud plenty of people took tests via their nose and easily may have received incorrect information about their health so there is actually an interview where Holmes is told a man got results the ethera notes that he believes were incorrect and shortly after he had a heart attack so perhaps those are unrelated but if you watch the HBO documentary that I brought up many of the people who were working in the lab were saying that sometimes they would just fudge the results sometimes they'd have to pass the results through Edison and then a competing machine to see what was right and what was wrong and the reality was that Edison barely ever came up with the true and accurate results that reflect reality while I don't have much faith in any system it's mind-boggling to me that someone who claims that they really want to democratize health and healthcare don't do any research and then on the contrary put people's life at risk I believe 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 the right to protect the health and well-being of every person of those we love is a basic human right a right to find in the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights yet in the United States today healthcare is the leading cause of bankruptcy and the lack of it the leading cause of the suffering associated with finding out too late in the disease progression process someone you love is really really sick how does that happen how does someone get away with that for so long anyways guys let me know what you think about this in the comments down below do you think she's deluded or do you think she's aware that she's lying because an argument that was made in the documentaries that she really believes the lies she brings up so let me know we think in the comments down below thank you guys so much for watching thank you to my patrons as always let's get right into the thinner [Music] you [Music] [Music]

Channel: READY TO GLARE

Views: 562,676

Rating: 4.940331 out of 5

Keywords: elizabeth holmes, out for blood, out for blood HBO, silicon valley, healthcare, healthcare fraud, theranos, documentary

Id: 1MTKJpU-Mm8

Length: 15min 49sec (949 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 27 2019