Fresh blood: why everyone fell for Theranos (2018)

Charged with “massive fraud”, Elizabeth Holmes has plummeted from the pedestal she built for herself

Andrew Hill, The Financial Times. Opinion, 19 March 2018

Image: Elizabeth Holmes, 2014. Credit: Max Morse, TechCrunch/ Wikimedia Commons

“…It is no surprise to find the founder of Theranos at the centre of one of the world’s oldest and best-known tales: genesis, hubris, crisis, nemesis.”

“There is a dark side to the incessant search for publicity…full of ardent self-promoters who over-reached and plunged to failure.”

““The well-told story erases scepticism by wrapping [its] meaning inside an emotion”…Trouble often hits, though, when leaders stick to their story after it has diverged from reality, swerving into embellishment, mythmaking and, in Ms Holmes’s case, apparently fraud.”

“What is novel is the speed with which today’s cover stars rise and fall. In their haste to expand, companies cut corners or exaggerate advances. “Fast growth stresses processes, controls and the leadership itself,” says Matt Nixon, author of Pariahs, a book about hubris and organisational crises.”

Read the full article at the Financial Times (paywall): Fresh blood: why everyone fell for Theranos