TLDR: the best thing that Elizabeth Holmes could possibly do is to succeed , and actually pay restitution to her victims and get herself in a mental headspace where she could realize what happened to her and talk about it publicly and own up to it. There's more to this story even meets the eye.
So everyone wants to describe Elizabeth Holmes as a fraud in these monstrous terms, but I'm trying to figure out the ground truth of who she is. Somewhere deep underneath, there is a person: someone with an internal monologue, someone who probably has more information about who she actually is than any of us do.
To get to that ground truth, since she appears to be such an emotional chameleon, we have to look at where she came from. She was raised by parents who valued status above almost all else. They cared deeply about the family name. Elizabeth Holmes's great grandfather lost a fortune in the Fleischmann's Yeast debacle, which left the family lowered in status compared to where they used to be.
Elizabeth was raised in an environment shaped by a desire for status, a desire for money, and, much like Donald Trump, a desire to avoid failure. Failure was not an option for Donald Trump, and it wasn't an option for Elizabeth Holmes. Her father being fired from Enron (yes, he worked for Enron) made it all worse. So, she grew up with immense pressure to deliver a certain level of success to restore her family's name. When you're judging her, you should remember this, or at least ask yourself: is it fair to put all of this pressure on a young woman, or any child, for that matter?
This dichotomy is shown in The Dropout TV show in a scene where Elizabeth floats the idea to her mom of being a regular person and not being a CEO. Her mom could have extended her hand and offered her daughter an off ramp, but she didn't. Instead, she made it clear to Elizabeth that she needed to keep going.
So under this pressure, Elizabeth came up with her idea. Because she admired Steve Jobs, like many Americans do, she saw figures like Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg encouraging the youth to pursue their dreams and providing a roadmap. Elizabeth tried to follow that roadmap. She also hated having her blood drawn.
So, she started Theranos. She did this while already knowing Sunny Balwani, who entered her life when she was only 18. He imprinted upon her the idea of being tough and ruthless.
People sometimes ask me why I'm so interested in defending Elizabeth Holmes, and the answer is because I feel sorry for her. Even though I grew up low income, I know what it is to have immense pressure put on you. I raised myself out of poverty and into a comfortable middle class life almost entirely through force of personality and being self taught.
So, Elizabeth gets deeply into business with Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani. She's 18 when she meets him, and he's almost 40. I've worked for guys like Sunny. I've worked around people like Sunny, and I recognize what he is when I see him and understand how he operates.
Guys like Sunny care about power, money, and status. They often have a big chip on their shoulder, they have something to prove, and they don't care who they hurt along the way. I think Sunny, a mediocre software engineer, met Elizabeth Holmes and molded her into the monster she became. He took advantage of her dream and used it to place himself on a pedestal he would have never reached without her.
I've read the text messages, and you can see the way he dictates how she works, how she dresses, and how she manages her schedule. So, I don't know why it's so hard for people to believe that he had a tremendous, negative influence on her.
Elizabeth accuses Sunny of emotional abuse. He yelled, and he was aggressive, a dynamic he publicly displayed around employees at work. She said he was prone to rage, which is also well documented. She also accused him of sexual abuse, saying he forced himself upon her.
When you think about the dynamics of an almost 40 year old man who enters into a relationship with an 18 year old girl, it isn't hard for me to believe. Given his publicly displayed personality, his controlling ways, cultural influences, and other factors, it makes it very easy for me to believe that he actually did sexually abuse her, a young woman who was already a survivor of sexual assault.
So to summarize briefly, we have an impressionable, ambitious, driven young woman who enters into business with a man driven to succeed at all costs, who doesn't seem to care much about people. I think he lent the worst of himself to her and impressed it upon her personality. This is what the defense argued, and I believe them. Elizabeth was already feeling the pressure from her parents and from society, and then you add Sunny. Her parents seem a bit emotionally distant, like they weren't big on talking about feelings, so what outlet did she have?
All of this is to say that deep down, I believe there is a real Elizabeth Holmes. Perhaps it's the Elizabeth we see with Billy, the one where she appears happy, where she seems to be living somewhat of an authentic life. I've heard from people that Billy's not a good guy, and I've heard from others that he is. He's apparently a dreamer like her and has so far raised $3.5 million with his new blood testing company, one that Elizabeth no doubt has some influence over, further showing that she still hasn't given up on trying to make a positive difference and possibly redeem herself by creating something real.
I see things in her background that lead me to have some sympathy for her, not because she's an attractive woman, but because I see things through a particular lens based on my own perspective. There are plenty of people here to tear her down at every turn, and that's fine, that's their right. She committed fraud, she's a criminal, and she's convicted. She did things that are unconscionable, but the story is more than just the simplistic "she's an evil woman."
Elizabeth probably knows more than she's saying, and I believe the only way anyone is ever going to get that out of her is to understand how she became the person she was. It didn't just happen in a vacuum. I blame her parents, I blame Sunny, and I blame all the powerful people around her who were happy to trot her out on stage to sell this product.
And, of course, most of all, I blame Elizabeth. She's an adult. She hurt people. Fortunately for her, except for maybe one case, none of them died.
I have had opportunities in my life when I was younger, as a talk radio host, to interview people. I would love to interview Elizabeth, and I would start from a different place than most people. Over a long period of time, I would try to dig down to get to the truth underneath it all. I think by taking that approach, we are more likely to get the answers that many still seek.
Because I love a comeback story, and because I've determined for myself, as a person who grew up around hardcore gang members and drug dealers, she's not evil. She's misguided, she's deluded, she's possibly a sociopath, but she's not evil. I would love to see her do something productive and prove all the people wrong who always want to boil every issue down to its most simplistic terms. I detest and cannot stand the way the internet endlessly fosters a culture of outrage, simplicity, and zero nuance.
Life is nuanced. Life is gray. Good people do bad things, bad people do good things, and I'm sick and tired of the overly simplistic narratives that get created around people unfairly.
So in that way, I'm rooting for Elizabeth to do something good, to maybe make enough money to pay her victims back, which I highly encourage her to do. I don't know if she'll ever see this message, but if she or her people are reading: please tell Elizabeth you need to succeed. You need to do what you set out to do in some form or fashion, and you need to pay people back and make restitution. That will show that what I believe about you is true, that you're not evil. So that's what I urge Elizabeth Holmes to do.
Thanks for reading my dissertation. And in case you doubt me, in case you ask if I'm being real right now: I came from the streets, yo. I may wear a suit, but I came from the streets, and I'm always being real.
