Host: Rebecca Jarvis(ABC News chief business, technology and economics correspondent),
Producers: Taylor Dunn, Victoria Thompson
Dropout is the story of the rise and fall of Theranos founder and Stanford dropout, Elizabeth Holmes. Young 19 year old Elizabeth had dreams of being the next Steve Jobs, and even tried to emulate him, by sporting black turtle necks.
After dropping out of Stanford, she founded Theranos, a firm that she expected to revolutionize healthcare, with a device that could be used to perform blood tests using few drops of blood, tests that required about 99% more blood from similar machines manufactured by other medical product companies.
Former employyes would attest that in Theranos, everyone was encouraged to stay secretive about the work they performed. and were divided into silos. Elizabeth poached several top companies for talent, stealing the likes of Avi Tevanian and a few others from Apple.
Things grew more mysterious when she hired Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, an older acquaintance to be her COO and unofficial enforcer. The product that Theranos provided fell short of the claims, and was not able to perform at the level of accuracy that was expected.
Elizabeth strong-armed her staff, that included leading Scientists , from disclosing any of this to the public. Meanwhile, the company was held in high regard, High profile government officials like Henry Kissinger and former senator Sam Nunn served on its Board. Elizabeth appeared with celebrities like Bill Clinton at several high profile events. Then VP Biden visited Theranos headquarters, where Elizabeth expertly led him across a fake lab to demonstrate the company’s phony progress.
Theranos would first sign a deal with Safeway, that would fall through due to Theranos’ inability to deliver the promised devices. However, Theranos would make a successful deal with Walgreens. An expert, Kevin Hunter, hired by Walgreens, to help in the collaboration would warn Walgreens, that something was amiss with Theranos, a warning that would go unheeded. Further, Elizabeth’s rash actions would even drive a Scientist she hired, to attempt suicide, and then die from stress a few days later.
A few employees like Avi Tevanian fled the company, smelling a rat. Finally, an employee Tyler Schultz the grandson of one of the members of the board, defied Elizabeth and even his own grandfather to become a whistleblower against Theranos.
This move would result in Elizabeth’s, Sunny’s and Theranos’ fall from grace and land Theranos in a lawsuit filed by the US Securities and Exchange commission.
The podcast ends with a few interviews and possible outcomes to the fate of Elizabeth and Sunny. This is a riveting podcast and serves as a great guide for the court case that would follow. Dropout is a story of blind ambition and unbridled greed that serves as a warning to all aspiring leaders.
A review of the second season of Theranos is expected to be in this blog within the next three weeks.
Bay Area Bloke 