Silicon Valley, built on ambition and innovation. Where everyone wants to change the world and make a billion dollars while they're at it. Silicon Valley is the largest creation of wealth in a 50 square mile radius than anywhere in human history.
The allure of success drew in 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes. She had just dropped out of Stanford and had a grand vision to revolutionize health care by making blood testing more affordable and more accessible for all. She opened her first office in this building and named her company Theranos, a combination of the words therapy and diagnosis. But instead of that skin patch idea she dreamt up in college, she came to envision something else. We've made it possible to run comprehensive laboratory tests from a tiny sample.
or a few drops of blood that could be taken from a finger. She made it sound so simple. The puncture will be made. The collection tubes will now be held up to the drop and you'll see the blood wick into the channels.
The nanotainer tubes are then removed and the sample can be processed immediately. That sample was then put into a cartridge and then placed into this portable device, which she claimed processed hundreds of blood tests, which could detect diseases from STDs to even cancer in real time. The ability to be able to use a pinprick and test you right there in a doctor's office or even in a battlefield is revolutionary. It changes everything. I said, this could be the Holy Grail.
She named early prototypes of her invention the Edison after another revolutionary thinker. Elizabeth became a master at marketing. Having gone through in my own life losing people that I loved, I couldn't think of anything that was more meaningful than being able to change what people go through when they say goodbye too soon. From high-profile panels to TED Talks, that phrase... A world in which no one ever has to say goodbye too soon....became Elizabeth's mantra.
Build a world. in which you don't have to say goodbye too soon, a world in which people don't have to say goodbye too soon. She was a good storyteller. That's part of her seductiveness, which is why she was able to raise all this money. By February 2005, the 21-year-old had already raised around $6 million.
Behind those piercing eyes was a peculiar young woman who seemed to survive on her own. on ambition alone. I have this image of her as kind of like a nun-like existence, you know, black, quiet, all alone. She lived in an apartment which she wouldn't let me see.
She had just a one bedroom. The refrigerator just had bottled water in it. She had a lot of, you know, green drinks and all this stuff that I, you know, I looked at and I said, oh my God, I can't. If you are what you eat, what are you?
Green juice. Best word to describe. describe you?
Mission oriented. Favorite place to visit? My office. One of Elizabeth's most bizarre characteristics was her obsession with Steve Jobs and with the Apple computer and imitating him and the company. She even went after Steve Jobs'own right-hand man.
I'd like to now welcome one of my colleagues, somebody I've worked with for over a decade. Dr. Avi Tavanian. Avi Tavanian had been head of software at Apple and was one of Jobs'closest friends. After retiring, Avi learned about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos.
When you find these ideas that can cut across everything, it's huge. And so clearly, if this could be made to work, then it was going to be hugely impactful. Was she selling you on the mission of Theranos? How did she come across? She was definitely selling me on a vision for what she wanted to do in this realm of blood testing and making it something that was much more accessible than it's ever been.
You joined the board. Joined the board. His involvement attracted others from Apple to join Theranos, like Ana Areola, who had helped design the iPhone.
The opportunity was altruistic. It was potentially humankind-changing. And I was very curious.
Unfortunately, I left 15,000 shares at Apple, but c'est la vie. Ana might have left Apple. But to her surprise, she certainly didn't leave all of Steve Jobs behind.
Elizabeth was very curious about Steve's attire. And I explained to her that he was inspired by Sony's heritage of having Issey Miyake come in and create a lot of the line manager apparel. And then I think she went off and tracked down who Issey Miyake was.
And the rest is couture history. But Ana says Elizabeth's transformation didn't end there. Her voice, what she could figure out, a surprising baritone, was that it would likely cost her a few thousand dollars to get these tests done, was fake, according to Ana.
We didn't know that it wasn't her voice until much later. I think it was at one of the company parties, and maybe she had a little bit too much to drink or whatnot, but she fell out of character and exposed that that wasn't necessarily her true voice. In this interview with NPR from 2005, we hear a very different sounding Elizabeth. No, it hasn't.
Well, if I use traditional words to describe what we're doing, it's hard. When she came to me, she didn't have a low voice. She didn't? No.
What was her voice like when she came to you? It was just like a typical undergrad student. When I next saw her again, it was at the Harvard Medical School board meeting where she was being introduced.
She says with this low voice, and I'm like, oh my God. You know, it's this pastiche, whether it be the turtleneck, the baritone, the swagger, the sense of belief in herself, you're captivated. But then, as the money poured in, the problems poured out.
Suddenly, it wasn't just her voice that insiders were worried about. I would never expect that anyone would behave the way that she behaved as a CEO, and believe me, I work for Steve Jobs.