The rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO of the now-defunct health technology company Theranos, is a case study of how greed for wealth has, in many cases, been overtaken by greed for influence.
Holmes claimed Theranos had technology capable of doing hundreds of different tests utilizing only a few drops of blood as opposed to drawing with a needle. Those claims turned out to be false and Holmes is under federal indictment for wire fraud for bilking investors, doctors, and patients.
A new, six-part ABC News podcast called “The Dropout,” a reference to Holmes leaving Stanford University to found Theranos, chronicles the story with previously secret deposition testimony from Holmes. Unlike high-profile ripoff artists such as Bernie Madoff, who was in it only to enrich himself, Holmes was more intrigued with the idea of being the “next Steve Jobs.”
The rise of Theranos put Holmes on the covers of magazines. She appeared on stage with former President Bill Clinton. She cajoled high-profile investors such as Larry Ellison and venture capitalist giant Tim Draper. She was obsessed with Jobs. She modeled her demands for secrecy on Jobs, wore black turtlenecks like him, decorated her office with furnishings he favored, and bragged that, like Jobs, she never took vacations. Holmes even managed to hire former Apple employees.
Some who have known her long enough say that even the uncharacteristically deep voice she has is fake — that she made it part of her image to heighten her role as an influencer in a male-dominated business environment. For whatever reason, she hired bodyguards who drove her around in a black Audi. She even had a Secret Service type nickname: “Eagle One.” She had bulletproof glass windows in her office.
All in service of a technology that never worked.
But that’s the allure of influence. We see it all around, even in smaller circles. Twitter has a slew of political people with hundreds of thousands of followers who can tweet out banal statements that get retweeted and liked thousands of times. Chances are, people outside that sphere have no idea who that person is, but does that matter?
Holmes did the same thing, just on a grander scale. The sad part is that she acts like she did nothing wrong and she has people still defending her. That’s the power, not of money, but of influence.
