Two minutes of hate, corporate version.

Sep 21, 2016 12:50


By the time she returned to Palo Alto, the consensus was that it was time, at last, for Holmes to address her hundreds of employees. A company-wide e-mail instructed technicians in lab coats, programmers in T-shirts and jeans, and a slew of support staff to meet in the cafeteria. There, Holmes, with Balwani at her side, began an eloquent speech in her typical baritone, explaining to her loyal colleagues that they were changing the world. As she continued, Holmes grew more impassioned. The Journal, she said, had gotten the story wrong. Carreyrou, she insisted, with a tinge of fury, was simply picking a fight. She handed the stage to Balwani, who echoed her sentiments.
After he wrapped up, the leaders of Theranos stood before their employees and surveyed the room. Then a chant erupted. “Fuck you . . .,” employees began yelling in unison, “Carreyrou.” It began to grow louder still. “Fuck you, Carreyrou!” Soon men and women in lab coats, and programmers in T-shirts and jeans, joined in. They were chanting with fervor: “Fuck you, Carreyrou!,” they cried out. “Fuck you, Carreyrou! Fuck. You. Carrey-rou!”

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-exclusive

Doublethink as well:
As the suit progressed-it was eventually settled-Fuisz’s lawyers issued subpoenas to Theranos executives involved with the “proprietary” aspects of the technology. This included Ian Gibbons. But Gibbons didn’t want to testify. If he told the court that the technology did not work, he would harm the people he worked with; if he wasn’t honest about the technology’s problems, however, consumers could potentially harm their health, maybe even fatally.
Holmes, meanwhile, did not seem willing to tolerate his resistance, according to his wife, Rochelle Gibbons. Even though Gibbons had warned that the technology wasn’t ready for the public, Holmes was preparing to open “Theranos Wellness Centers” in dozens of Walgreens across Arizona. “Ian felt like he would lose his job if he told the truth,” Rochelle told me as she wept one summer morning in Palo Alto. “Ian was a real obstacle for Elizabeth. He started to be very vocal. They kept him around to keep him quiet.” Channing Robertson, who had brought Gibbons to Theranos, recalls a different conversation, noting, “He suggested to me on numerous occasions that what we had accomplished at that time was sufficient to commercialize.”

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