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If you need convincing that Elizabeth Holmes is a man of feelings, not a bloodthirsty villain, just review her text messages. “You are light winds in the desert for me,” she sent in 2015 to Ramesh Balvani, her business partner and boyfriend. “My water. And the ocean. ” Even when Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreiro was investigating her medical testing company, Theranos, Holmes still had love in his mind. “I was thinking about you this morning,” she sent a message to Balvani in June. Balvani reminded her to stay focused: Terranos was under attack.
The six-page text message is one of the first documents to emerge from the trial against Holmes, which began this week, more than three years after she was accused of defrauding investors, as well as doctors and patients, of Terranos’ capabilities. She pleaded not guilty. The task of the defense in the coming months is to humanize Holmes, showing the jury a young and ambitious entrepreneur who has made some mistakes in his quest for success. The government will try to convince jurors that it has become a billionaire at the cost of its clients’ health and has put its investors at risk.
Silicon Valley will pay attention. The landmark case looks closely at a company, a founder – but it will shed some light on some of the norms of startup culture, including the expectation that founders will pursue their ideas with something like reckless determination. Elizabeth Holmes has become one of the most famous CEOs in Silicon Valley and the world, as Attorney General Robert Leach said in his inaugural statement on Wednesday. But under the façade of Theranos’ success, there were significant problems. The question for the jury then is to decide at what point the startup becomes a scam.
“I’m glad that the mantra ‘Falsify until you succeed’ comes into question,” said Eric Ban, co-founder of Hustle Fund, an early-stage VC company. “Over the last decade, it has almost felt like a collective cry for both founders and investors.”
At the same time, Ban says, he worries that focusing on Holmes could lead to greater control over the founding women, who studies have found it harder to raise money in Silicon Valley. “I’ve heard an anecdote about a health care founder being questioned about her thoughts on Holmes and how she felt they were already comparing her.” New York Times found that many other founding women faced comparisons with Holmes.
Holmes’ history has already left an indelible mark not only on Silicon Valley but also on American culture. She was an enchanting character for both investors and the media – the blonde baritone in black turtlenecks – and her fall attracted as much attention as her rise: hundreds of magazine articles, a best-selling book, a podcast series, several documentaries, an upcoming television show. a series starring Amanda Seyfried. As a result, the first week in court was spent mainly on the difficult task of selecting a jury that was not covered by the coverage and could present an impartial opinion.
Jurors were also asked if they had been exposed to domestic violence, as the defense planned to claim that Holmes had been subjected to a “decade-long campaign of psychological violence” by Balvani. (Balvani denies any allegations of abuse. He has also been charged with fraud and pleaded not guilty. His trial is set to begin in January.) About half of the jury raised their hands, according to New York Times.
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