All In Vein
Elizabeth Holmes will be remembered for her crowning achievement — the orchestrator of a colossal fraud
I’ve been obsessed with the story of Theranos. I’ve written about it extensively. I’ve consumed every podcast, TV show and book on the topic. And while I loved following the rise (with more than a bit of skepticism), the downfall has been even more captivating. The dirty laundry the saga exposed — greed, lies, toxic culture, venture capital delusion and sheer fucking hubris — was a fascinating peek at the filthy underbelly of entrepreneurship and the wrongly heralded ‘fake it till you make it’ strategy.
Ultimately, Holmes was sentenced to over 11 years in prison (her cofounder Sunny Balwani got nearly 13 years). With that ruling, one of the most interesting stories of the past decade came to a close.
Or did it?
Just last week, as Holmes edged closer to starting her prison term, a maddening article appeared in the New York Times. It was titled Liz Holmes Wants You to Forget About Elizabeth. The story tried to give Elizabeth (or Liz, as she now prefers) a persona shift. She was never the sociopathic fraud who conned investors out of hundreds of millions and put people’s lives at risk. No, she was a loving partner and mother of two who liked going to the zoo. The strange deep…
