Wow. It feels like a miracle whenever anyone takes a principled stand despite the hype and pressure of Silicon Valley and startup culture, never mind the usual corporate pressure. But this kid stood up to his own family, and lawyers hired by his family.
Fairly or not, Stanford will always have some association with the legend of Elizabeth Holmes, but the engineering school can feel proud that they produced a graduate who showed real ethical backbone. It's fairly easy to imagine oneself bravely standing up to Theranos after reading the WSJ investigation last year. It's another thing to be the guy who launched it despite legal and familial pressure.
If an ordinary employee tried to take such a stand, he would be ignored, shut up, fired, sued, or perhaps jailed, depending on how firmly he was willing and able to take it.
FYI: "As household staff served them dinner in the formal dining room, the elder Mr. Shultz said Ms. Holmes had told him Theranos’s blood-testing devices worked so well that they were being used in medevac helicopters and hospital operating rooms, Tyler Shultz recalls. He and his colleague knew that wasn’t true."
Integrity is a costly thing, rarely appreciated by the people who should. Over the years I've discovered that the scummier the management the more it costs so in that way what it will cost you is sort of determined by your manager (or maybe their manager as well). I've also asked people who were looking to hire me how highly they valued integrity. Sadly both bad managers and good managers say they value it highly, but bad managers will work to get rid of you as soon as they realize you really meant it :-)
> But this kid stood up to his own family, and lawyers hired by his family
If I'm reading the article correctly, the lawyers who harassed him were hired by the company and not by his grandfather. The only lawyers his family hired were the ones fighting for him.
I just want to point out that Theranos is involved in lawsuits with nearly everyone now. Former employees, investors, its pivotal business partner Walgreens, the federal government, state governments and they've threatened legal actions against journalist and news outlets. Their product turned out to be sham. They covered up the evidence. They threatened everyone. They resorted to intimidation tactics. All while people's health were on the line.
Theranos is without a doubt among the worst companies to ever come out of the Bay Area. They're like a real life UNorth (Michael Clayton film). I hope their collapse is complete, utter and thorough. Everything and everyone in their leadership team painted with that brush for the rest of their career.
The WSJ and their journalist John Carreyrou ought to be commended and probably win a pulitzer for their coverage of Theranos.
> Theranos is involved in lawsuits with nearly everyone now.
Good. They were playing games with people's lives. It is one thing to play startup when it is Uber for Dogs and puppy ended up not seeing its friends at the park that day, it is another thing to mess up blood test results.
If someone who got hurt can come forward and wants to press criminal charges, they should get all the support needed. I can understand mistakes happening, but lying and going forward after they knew was abhorent.
"The only reason I have taken so much time away from work to address this personally is because you are Mr. Shultz’s grandson."
--Theranos President Sunny Balwani to [Theranos employee/whistlblower] Tyler Shultz in a 2014 email
Ouch.
(Tyler is the grandson of fmr Sec. of State/Treasury/Labor George Shultz, who was also a Theranos board member)
Edit: Another quote from the email:
"We saw your email to Elizabeth. Before I get into specifics, let me share with you that had this email come from anyone else in the company, I would have already held them accountable for the arrogant and patronizing tone and reckless comments."
> "As household staff served them dinner in the formal dining room, the [95 year old] elder Mr. Shultz said Ms. Holmes had told him Theranos’s blood-testing devices worked so well that they were being used in medevac helicopters and hospital operating rooms, Tyler Shultz recalls. He and his colleague knew that wasn’t true."
I'm absolutely against ageism, but when you're 95... maybe it's not the period in your life where you should be attempting to vouch for groundbreaking biology on the basis of someone else's claims.
This kind of stuff makes my blood boil. I work at a medical device manufacturer that does it right, and when such shoddy products and process get passed off as viable, like they did at Theranos, it's never not on purpose. Everyone in charge there is a hack fraud and well aware of what they did. But I doubt they'll ever experience any negative consequences beyond temporary business setbacks.
Shultz seems alright. Too bad it takes someone fresh out of school with little to loose and not yet jaded to blow the whistle.
I ask myself would I have had the balls to do this, to stand up to the lawsuit, which I clearly couldn't afford? In my 20s maybe. Now probably not. It seems wrong that you can threaten whistle-blowers with stealing trade secrets. There really needs to be a solution to this problem. Obviously a company has a right to trade secrets but an employee thinking they faked results is hardly a trade secret. Maybe we need a special court to examine such things. Do the whistle blower statutes have any solution for this like extra penalties for trying to intimidate whistle blowers with lawsuits?
I think there are laws covering intimidation/threats/etc of whistleblowers; I'm not sure what their status is, or whether they are federal only, and/or if states (etc on down the pyramid) have their own statutes...
...at least, that's what I understand currently - for all I know they've been so gutted to be completely useless.
It's incredible to think of all of the harm that Elizabeth Holmes has created through her desire to be the next Steve Jobs.
She has very probably killed people, ruined families, and caused at least one suicide [1].
And all for what? The company will probably be bankrupt. She'll suffer few consequences, as her connections will probably be enough for her to get a job as, at the very least, a VC or as an entrepreneur-in-residence at a VC firm.
From the article: "the elder Mr. Shultz said Ms. Holmes had told him Theranos’s blood-testing devices worked so well that they were being used in medevac helicopters and hospital operating rooms, Tyler Shultz recalls. He and his colleague knew that wasn’t true."
At that point it was an internally known failure yet she lied with a straight face. I'm full of contempt for such a creature and full of admiration for Tyler Shultz.
She is like Steve Jobs only in a superficial way. She has a privileged background while Steve Jobs grew up in a middle-class family which could not afford his college. She dropped out because she wanted to be like a dropout like Steve Jobs. She lied about her revolutionary products while Steve Jobs did create revolutionary products with others. She wears a turtle neck because Steve Jobs did.
Like most sociopaths, she will no doubt reappear in a few years. She'll show up with some well-honed, vague expression of regret and implication that she was overwhelmed by her duty as a woman do accomplish whatever.
> "When Rochelle called Holmes's office to explain what had happened, the secretary was devastated and offered her sincere condolences. She told Rochelle Gibbons that she would let Holmes know immediately. But a few hours later, rather than a condolence message from Holmes, Rochelle instead received a phone call from someone at Theranos demanding that she immediately return any and all confidential Theranos property."
A note to anyone who ever works for a CLIA or FDA regulated company: disclosing that a company is falsifying test data is NOT violation of a trade secret and in most cases a company that takes action against you for doing so is in violation of the False Claims Act.
It's time now for all the VCs and entrepreneurs who supported Holmes to now come out and say that this behavior is abhorrent and should not be tolerated.
So has Theranos fully collapsed yet? Is it still a thing? I keep hearing how it's this big house of cards that has collapsed but then... it's still going on?
It still has a ton of cash, and the share structure is such that (as I understand it) Holmes still has voting majority. It can survive in "zombie mode" for a long time depending on how long the lawsuits take.
It seems to me his family was ultimately incredibly supportive (granted, they were initially skeptical) and are doing their best to balance their interests. His parents were willing to sell their house to cover legal fees. His grandfather referred him to a lawyer and supported his grandson in the meeting with company lawyers. Also their statements regarding him were very heart felt and positive. They mention the relationship with the grandfather being strained but that could very well be a result of PI surveillance and impending litigation making discussions risky, so it's not necessarily anything personal.
It's trivial by comparison but I can't help but imagine all of the people who are pressured to do unethical or questionable things by their managers who can do little but quit. This probably happens across corporate America on a daily basis where the stakes are much smaller.
> Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former Sen. Sam Nunn, all fellows with Mr. Shultz at the Hoover Institution, joined the Theranos board around the same time
Quick heuristic: if a startup all of the sudden needs secretary of defense and secretary of state on the board, there is probably shady stuff going on and they need some powerful people with connection to cover it up.
You have to admire him for standing up to them and not folding under pressure. Sending that initial email just painted a target on his back. I wonder if things would have played out differently if he quit first, then leaked the information in secrecy.
Pretty brave man. 400k legal fees...yikes. I can't wait for Theranos to be over.
As an aside:
"""One validation report about an Edison test to detect a sexually-transmitted infectious disease said the test was sensitive enough to detect the disease 95% of the time"""
I'm assuming this is reported wrong and it was actually 5% alpha/95% confidence and they were basically p-hacking?
John Carreyrou at WSJ did a masterful job of making sure it wasn't a mystery that the risk to the family was how profoundly connected and wealthy they are. Holmes eating thanksgiving, etc.
I feel the email from the president was enough to justify the title by saying 'you're connected, which is the only reason I'm responding' but the other comments like 'staff served dinner' and 'lawyers hiding upstairs'.
It would never be a mystery in majority of homes if there was someone waiting in the wings to present papers.
What's missing from all this discussion is how everyone (including this forum) was full of nothing but lavish praises for Theranos when it was the darling of Silicon Valley. It took an employee who was related to a senior official of the company whistleblowing it and then investigative journalism by WSJ for this company to be exposed.
How many other Theranos-like companies is the "Change the world" culture of the valley who refuses to bow down to scrutiny still praising I wonder?
[+] [-] danso|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cft|9 years ago|reply
FYI: "As household staff served them dinner in the formal dining room, the elder Mr. Shultz said Ms. Holmes had told him Theranos’s blood-testing devices worked so well that they were being used in medevac helicopters and hospital operating rooms, Tyler Shultz recalls. He and his colleague knew that wasn’t true."
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrowley|9 years ago|reply
It says in the article he graduated with a degree in Biology, but point taken.
[+] [-] kylec|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dowwie|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zhemao|9 years ago|reply
If I'm reading the article correctly, the lawyers who harassed him were hired by the company and not by his grandfather. The only lawyers his family hired were the ones fighting for him.
[+] [-] mevile|9 years ago|reply
Theranos is without a doubt among the worst companies to ever come out of the Bay Area. They're like a real life UNorth (Michael Clayton film). I hope their collapse is complete, utter and thorough. Everything and everyone in their leadership team painted with that brush for the rest of their career.
The WSJ and their journalist John Carreyrou ought to be commended and probably win a pulitzer for their coverage of Theranos.
[+] [-] rdtsc|9 years ago|reply
Good. They were playing games with people's lives. It is one thing to play startup when it is Uber for Dogs and puppy ended up not seeing its friends at the park that day, it is another thing to mess up blood test results.
If someone who got hurt can come forward and wants to press criminal charges, they should get all the support needed. I can understand mistakes happening, but lying and going forward after they knew was abhorent.
[+] [-] SilasX|9 years ago|reply
--Theranos President Sunny Balwani to [Theranos employee/whistlblower] Tyler Shultz in a 2014 email
Ouch.
(Tyler is the grandson of fmr Sec. of State/Treasury/Labor George Shultz, who was also a Theranos board member)
Edit: Another quote from the email:
"We saw your email to Elizabeth. Before I get into specifics, let me share with you that had this email come from anyone else in the company, I would have already held them accountable for the arrogant and patronizing tone and reckless comments."
[+] [-] ethbro|9 years ago|reply
I'm absolutely against ageism, but when you're 95... maybe it's not the period in your life where you should be attempting to vouch for groundbreaking biology on the basis of someone else's claims.
[+] [-] rconti|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tycho|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ww520|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] temp0x62757474|9 years ago|reply
Shultz seems alright. Too bad it takes someone fresh out of school with little to loose and not yet jaded to blow the whistle.
[+] [-] seehafer|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gmarx|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cr0sh|9 years ago|reply
...at least, that's what I understand currently - for all I know they've been so gutted to be completely useless.
[+] [-] colmvp|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fnbr|9 years ago|reply
She has very probably killed people, ruined families, and caused at least one suicide [1].
And all for what? The company will probably be bankrupt. She'll suffer few consequences, as her connections will probably be enough for her to get a job as, at the very least, a VC or as an entrepreneur-in-residence at a VC firm.
It's incredible.
[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes...
[+] [-] pinewurst|9 years ago|reply
At that point it was an internally known failure yet she lied with a straight face. I'm full of contempt for such a creature and full of admiration for Tyler Shultz.
[+] [-] nullnilvoid|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|9 years ago|reply
Like most sociopaths, she will no doubt reappear in a few years. She'll show up with some well-honed, vague expression of regret and implication that she was overwhelmed by her duty as a woman do accomplish whatever.
[+] [-] ekianjo|9 years ago|reply
> "When Rochelle called Holmes's office to explain what had happened, the secretary was devastated and offered her sincere condolences. She told Rochelle Gibbons that she would let Holmes know immediately. But a few hours later, rather than a condolence message from Holmes, Rochelle instead received a phone call from someone at Theranos demanding that she immediately return any and all confidential Theranos property."
[+] [-] s_q_b|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seehafer|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dbcooper|9 years ago|reply
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/15/theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes...
Either that or some ego issues.
[+] [-] sedachv|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jessaustin|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joelandren|9 years ago|reply
But they won't.
[+] [-] ekianjo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ben_jones|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] walrus01|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JimboOmega|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adevine|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smitherfield|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sparky_|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logn|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brazzledazzle|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekianjo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rdtsc|9 years ago|reply
Quick heuristic: if a startup all of the sudden needs secretary of defense and secretary of state on the board, there is probably shady stuff going on and they need some powerful people with connection to cover it up.
[+] [-] perplex|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kriro|9 years ago|reply
As an aside:
"""One validation report about an Edison test to detect a sexually-transmitted infectious disease said the test was sensitive enough to detect the disease 95% of the time"""
I'm assuming this is reported wrong and it was actually 5% alpha/95% confidence and they were basically p-hacking?
[+] [-] bra-ket|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carlmcqueen|9 years ago|reply
I feel the email from the president was enough to justify the title by saying 'you're connected, which is the only reason I'm responding' but the other comments like 'staff served dinner' and 'lawyers hiding upstairs'.
It would never be a mystery in majority of homes if there was someone waiting in the wings to present papers.
[+] [-] manish_gill|9 years ago|reply
How many other Theranos-like companies is the "Change the world" culture of the valley who refuses to bow down to scrutiny still praising I wonder?
[+] [-] oyashius|9 years ago|reply