Well since yesterday's blogpost, I have now whizzed through all eight episodes of "The Dropout" starring Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes. I guess that some visitors will have already seen it as it was released in the summer of 2022.
You have probably heard of Elizabeth Holmes. She dropped out of Stanford University in order to pursue a dream that would incidentally make her fabulously rich. That dream was of a blood testing system which, with one drop of blood, would diagnose health issues such as cancer, sepsis, diabetes, HIV and host of other conditions.
In one visit to a wellness centre, a member of the public could get answers almost immediately. The drop of blood would be on something like a credit card which would be popped into a fancy machine and - hey presto - the result would be displayed. Holmes's company was called Theranos - a combination of the words "therapy" and "diagnosis". Between 2003 and 2013, Theranos garnered a lot of investment and a lot of prestige too. It was scheduled to become the next big thing.
The trouble was that the system never worked. It was all a big lie and ultimately Holmes and her inner circle could not hide that fact. They had tried desperately to create a system that would match the dream but they always fell short and instead resorted to deception.
In the series, Elizabeth Holmes emerges as some sort of manic depressive with strong narcissistic tendencies. She comes to believe in her own hype and bubbles with hidden anger and frustration whenever anybody tries to cross her or ask searching questions.
The Theranos offices and labs are ultra-modern but also a hive of secrets and unsaid words. People get sacked and head chemist Ian Gibbons played by Stephen Fry commits suicide. The Holmes effect may bamboozle some but it riles others.
By the end of the series, the Theranos bubble has been burst and Elizabeth Holmes must at last face the law.
One of the morals of this recent commercial tale is that if you are going to build a great business you must build it on solid ground. The centre should not be hollow and internal connections should certainly be characterised by integrity, mutual understanding and a shared vision. "Follow my leader" may be a fun game for kids in a school playground but in the working world of adults it can seem like the blind leading the blind.
In 2022, Holmes was sentenced to 11+1⁄4 years in jail for fraud. After various appeals, she finally began that sentence last November and is not expected to be released from prison until 2032. She made a lot of influential people look very stupid.
The real Elizabeth Holmes
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