‘You can’t make this stuff up’: why we remain fascinated by Elizabeth Holmes
Source: The Guardian ·
The entrepreneur turned fraudster is the subject of an Oscar-tipped new documentary that takes an unusual look at her strange legacyDavid Agus’s first encounter with Elizabeth Holmes at a health conference came as a shock. The Holmes he met in the green room was personable and pleasant. The Holmes he interviewed on stage was altogether different.“The accent changed: this deep voice, very…
From the source
David Agus’s first encounter with Elizabeth Holmes at a health conference came as a shock. The Holmes he met in the green room was personable and pleasant. The Holmes he interviewed on stage was altogether different. “The accent changed: this deep voice, very serious,” Agus, a medical oncologist, recalls by phone from Los Angeles. “It was as if I had met a person and then interviewed a separate person. That transition from the green room to the stage – I had never experienced something like that before.” Holmes is not like you or me. She was still a teenager when she founded Theranos, touting technology capable of performing medical tests using only a few drops of blood. She cultivated a distinctive persona: blond hair, an unblinking gaze, a husky voice and a black turtleneck worn in homage to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Holmes mesmerised investors and board members including Rupert Murdoch, Larry Ellison, Carlos Slim and former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George…