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In 2017, I interviewed with Elizabeth Holmes to be Head of Finance at Theranos
- snypher 5y agohttps://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1433595857304055814.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1433595857304055814.html
- dmarchand90 5y agoThanks for providing this!
- throwawaysea 5y agoThanks. It is incredibly frustrating that clicking the post to view the whole thread on Twitter prompts a login. Such an annoying but increasingly common dark pattern.
- sillycross 5y agoThis is the best story I've read in a while. No idea what fraction of her words are truth, but it's sad that such charisma is only used to build a fraudulent product in the end, instead of making the world a better place.
- kbenson 5y agoOne wonders what they could have accomplished with more tempered reports of what they had accomplished (that is, not fraudulent) and the likely less vertical funding trajectory that would have resulted. I'm not sure if we're left having just washed a lot of time and money, or if it's worse and investors have been scared away still. Whatever the case, one thing it is is sad.
- bambax 5y agoAbsolutely great story and great insights at the end. She really is a sociopath but what is fascinating is how she uses her own vulnerabilities to exploit others. This is beyond masterful. Also: beware of compliments.
- pupppet 5y agoTweet...tweet...tweet... The hoops people jump through to avoid a proper blogging platform.
- mhh__ 5y agoBetter than no tweet at all though i.e. spontaneity is easily lost
- bambax 5y agoAlso much better than shitty platforms like Medium.
- type0 5y agoyou don't need to make this comparison, as if twitter wasn't shitty enough
- bambax 5y agoYou can read Twitter without an account.
- approxim8ion 5y agoAfter a few tweets, Twitter typically pushes you to sign up or log in.
- kbenson 5y agoWasn't there a post from a bit over a week ago about how Twitter is going to start requiring accounts for reading more than a few tweets?
- NetOpWibby 5y agoExcellent point
- dkobia 5y ago
- hatmatrix 5y agoShe didn't even call the wife of her head-of-lab that committed suicide. Why would she give this personal call at the end of the story to someone who she just met - did she think he really had the powers to help her or something?
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoI didn't understand the first meeting either. Sounds like they were keen enough to lean on two respected connections to snag this guy. And he himself wonders why they'd want someone so green to be CFO. Is this some elaborate psychopathic humblebrag? Did he have some other connection that would be useful? The other two things they mention are big money and high level hires so it would seem it's not desperation, which is how it would have read if they didn't mention those things. So was he being set up to take the blame? How would that even work at that late stage.
- NetOpWibby 5y agoYour conclusion was the same thing I was thinking. Hiring a fall guy.
- watwut 5y agoProbably desperate to find employee to fill an empty position. Calling around, to see who is going to buy compliment and join sinking ship in exchange.
- rich_sasha 5y agoI worked for someone who sounds remarkably similar to Holmes, in details big and small. No frauds were committed AFAIK. My old boss would sometimes get bizarre ideas into his head and be hell-bent on executing them. Sometimes he would, for no good reason, love a junior interview candidate, call meetings, try to bend the company structure around them ("what if we made him head of X, then move Joe Blogs to run a new team of Y..."). He'd normally find no enthusiasm for them with anyone else in the firm, and drop them eventually, but not without droning on about them for weeks. Or complaining how his lieutenants have no imagination and business flair. Other vanity projects included: - Buying 2 (main and redundant) GPS clocks to make sure the office is on correct time. Can't trust this internet time nonsense. - Hiring clearly useless academics to do projects with no connection to anything we did, just to name-drop. Once he hired a guy who used to map food chains in wetland ecosystems to do some unspecified work, in the field of finance. - Writing numerous, lengthy, and clearly bonkers fake (positive) reviews for his favourite cafe (I think he had some stake in it too potentially). The kind that sound like members of a sect reviewing their guru. Other examples have thankfully now been garbage-collected in my head. So, after this therapeutic rant, it doesn't surprise me at all that Holmes suddenly went after some business school grad. Maybe one of the professors mentioned in passing that it's an excellent guy, or that he wrote a great essay or sth, and she would have made it somehow a point of honor to get him on board. Could be a fake story of course, but wouldn't surprise me if now.
- skywal_l 5y ago"The most important thing in life is honesty. If you can fake it, you've got it made."
- ydnaclementine 5y ago"And after that last call, everyone clapped"