Back in 2019, I was a huge fan of the book Bad Blood. I was intrigued by how Theranos and its attorney David Boies intimidated their employees and bewildered so many powerful people including George Shultz, Henry Kissenger, and even Rupert Murdoch. However, after I watched The Dropout, I no longer feel that sense of curiosity for truth. Instead, I looked at these characters and saw their imperfect and struggles.
Do or Do Not. There is No Try.
Elizabeth Holmes is neither a victim nor a villain. At first, I believe she intended to do something different. Instead, she took the shortcut and took the path that led her to become a fraud in the end. Her story sadly echoed the downfall of Enron (where her father lost his job as an employee ironically) and so many other companies that turned out to be merely bubbles in the end.
The mantra “Fake it till you make it” might work in software companies or other technology unicorns. Nonetheless, what Theranos did was different. Theranos is not just a tech company. It’s a company that sold medical devices and should have told patients about their health conditions first-handly. Theranos was dealing with real human life. Real people could be getting hurt if Theranos got it wrong. So there’s no grey area for falsified results or buzz words. There’s only right or wrong.
First, do no harm. -Hippocractic Oath
In the Hippocratic Oath every doctor solemnly swears before he/she becomes a doctor, it requires them to do no harm. It should be the same when it comes to medical treatment and devices. Theranos broke this unspoken rule and knowingly hurt people with inaccurate results.
In Elizabeth Holmes's sales pitch it sounds nice to be a game-changer to a billion dollars worth blood testing industry. However, it’s not those big companies that were standing in the way of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos’ success. It’s Elizabeth Holmes’s own short-sightedness. She forgot that behind every blood sample there’s a true human waiting for his/her report to be sent back to them. She might also forget what it felt like to be a vulnerable patient.
One of the characters that I related to the most, is the head chemist, Ian Gibbons (played by lovable Stephen Fry). I understand the insignificance and struggle one might feel working in a toxic environment where you cannot work with your good conscience.
As a consultant, I used to work with a senior manager who never really cared about how we got our results, but only whether we could successfully sell something to our clients. My work wasn’t about human life; however, I was tortured by my conscience that how we constantly twisted a number, beautified the results, or pretended our presentations were based on solid statistical results (while in reality there were only two data sets). I was distressed and found myself questioning my very existence and the meaning of my work. I left that company in the end heartbreakingly, knowing that whatever the senior manager promised the clients would never happen.
The dropout also made me wonder if we spent a long time thinking we knew someone, but maybe all alone we are only in love with the one we imagine in our own minds as Sunny did. (whilst at the same time Elizabeth Holmes did not have true feelings) When I was reading the book Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, I never thought that I would feel sorry for Sunny. But I did pity him after watching the series. He could have enjoyed a very comfortable life if it were not for Theranos. After those years gone by with Elizabeth, she might never actually love him. He might only fall for his imagination.
The Dropout series might have ended, but Elizabeth Holmes's story has not ended yet. We can only pray the next time when a female entrepreneur comes out that she won’t be stopped because she’s too like Elizabeth Holmes.
