Ol' Dirty Basement: True Crime and Vintage Movie Reviews
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Ol' Dirty Basement: True Crime and Vintage Movie Reviews
" Blood, Lies, And Silicon Valley: Inside The Theranos Scandal" Part 2
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Witness the astonishing rise and catastrophic fall of Theranos, a company that once promised to change the medical diagnostics landscape forever. Elizabeth Holmes, the enigmatic founder, captivated the world with her grand vision and bold declarations, rallying immense venture capital and influential supporters to her cause. Yet beneath the veneer of innovation lay a tangled web of deception, bolstered by secrecy and a relentless pursuit of power. Discover how Holmes, alongside her confidante Sunny Balwani, masterfully curated an image of success, while behind closed doors, the technology faltered and the stakes grew ever higher.
2015 proved to be a pivotal year for Theranos as whispers of doubt began to echo within the scientific community. Hear how whistleblower Tyler Schultz's courageous revelation pierced through the company's daunting facade, exposing the reliance on traditional methods while falsely claiming groundbreaking advancements. The toxic atmosphere within Theranos, where dissent was met with swift retribution, paints a chilling picture of ethical decay. From malfunctioning machines to false demonstrations, the shocking truths unveiled had dire consequences for patient safety and laid the groundwork for the company's eventual demise.
As the Theranos empire crumbled, we ponder the wider implications of unchecked ambition and the allure of perceived success. The federal investigations that followed wiped out years of faulty test results, shattering Holmes's fortune and reputation. We dissect the dramatic trial and its outcome, reflecting on the broader responsibilities of investors and entrepreneurs in safeguarding against such grand illusions. With Theranos now a cautionary tale, we explore the ephemeral nature of innovation and the relentless pursuit of the next big breakthrough—one that often leaves a trail of shattered dreams and sobering lessons in its wake.
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Speaker 2:With a little bit of humor history and copious consciousness.
Speaker 1:I'm your announcer Shallow Throat. Your hosts are Dave, matt and Zap. I love you, matthew McConaughey.
Speaker 4:All right, all right, all right. Hey, this is Dave, matt and Zap, and welcome to the old, dirty basement. Where every week we cover a true crime murder or compelling story, so sit back relax and comprehend hello, hello everyone, and welcome back to another edition of old, dirty basement. I'm matt. With me always is dave and zap. I think we're going into a part due of something here part due.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a long overdue part due yeah, this is a juicy one man, good one it is.
Speaker 3:You know, I didn't expect it to be as long as it is, but I guess you know, when you get into something like this, it's it's going to take that kind of time for us to uncover every rock and see what's under there. It's, uh, what miss miss elizabeth holmes is elizabeth holmes and her company theranos?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Part. Do so just to bring everybody up to speed. In our last episode we discussed the upbringing of Ms Holmes. She was. We talked about everything from her birth to her stellar high school career. You know, she kind of was on her own there, moved around a lot but didn't have any friends. But she had friends in books and she had an incredible imagination. Let's see, see, oh, she became fluent in mandarin, spent her summer between, uh, high school and college.
Speaker 2:She spent that over in uh singapore, I'm sorry, beijing.
Speaker 3:She's been in beijing and that's where she met this dude, sunny balwani, balwan me some elizabeth holmes she did man? This guy left his old lady? Well, I can't say so. It does beg the question was elizabeth the impetus for them divorcing? I believe, yeah, you would think or was it already love on the rocks?
Speaker 4:and he did you mention the 19 years her elder.
Speaker 3:19 years, her elder robin that cradle, chasing that butt yeah so she was, uh, of course, accepted to Stanford, went into chemical engineering. However, you know her work oh, I'm sorry. After her freshman year, she worked over in Singapore in their genome labs and it was there that she things just started clicking for her. She said, well, look, there's this, everybody's using this old tech. You know, I want to have a one-stop shop. I think it can be done more efficiently, more effectively and more expediently by virtue of if there was only this thing we had that could just do it all, just do it all In her brain. And she started filing for patents for a device that could not only perform the tests, not only adjust the dosage of drug delivery, but also have those results automatically by virtue of the wireless internet, the magical world of telecommunications, send all these results to the patient's doctor. Not bad, not bad, let's see.
Speaker 3:Dropped out of school. So, with all this in mind, now she dropped out of college in her almost finished her sophomore year, dropped out in March of her sophomore year, ended up recruiting her old, one of her old professors and mentors to work at Theranos with her. Started then. From there, you know, it's like all right, look, we need startup capital, let's get this going.
Speaker 3:That professor of hers had the connections to some venture capitalists, started to grow little by little by little she started, I should say, from there she started to build the board. She needed a good, reputable board. She got a list of, I mean, some heavy, heavy hitters in the political world, the diplomatic world, the corporate world, who's who, the who's who like a really incredible list of board members on which, of course, gives the company clout Also relationships also just the sky's the limit. Started landing some deals with some big drug manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline, pfizer From there got some additional investment. This is now, I guess, second round of investors. This is the private equity investors coming out of some big names like the Cox family, rupert Murdoch and the Walton family.
Speaker 2:It's like a shark tank on steroids.
Speaker 3:It is.
Speaker 2:It's so much investment.
Speaker 4:It really is. You're like I'll give you $150 million. You're like okay.
Speaker 2:Because on there they're, like I'll give you $500,000 for a company, yeah.
Speaker 4:But I want 35% of that and your top two years earnings.
Speaker 3:I want to own your business basically, we get 92% of the. Dude, I always watch that, Dude. I'm telling you, I watch that show and I love to see the ideas that come across. But man, it is in fact the shark tank, because you come with this idea and they are going to gobble it up. Oh, absolutely, look, we'll give you the money to do it, but thanks for the idea. I'm basically going to take over your car yeah, it's my idea.
Speaker 4:Now, you know what?
Speaker 2:you know what, though? In their defense, though, they can take it to that and that next level, that 100 but so. But they're going to get paid for and that's why they're rich absolutely you know what I mean. You get there not by being. Uh, I mean, I shouldn't say that, but you're usually cutthroat.
Speaker 4:Well, that goes back to which, which I don't think uh zap ever agrees with no but in order to make that kind of money. You're doing crooked shit. Somewhere along the line. Something's happening where you're like ah somebody's getting screwed.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a. It's a matter of choices it's just a thin line it. It is a forever a matter of choices. Now look at where we're at. I don't want to go off on too far of a tangent, but let's, let's look where we're at right. Like so, we all have, just call it your standard decent nine to five jobs, right? So, just typical, typical middle class. That that's where we're at. You know, when we were kids, we talked about wanting to be astronauts or policemen or doctors or you name it.
Speaker 4:Like the only four jobs you knew as a kid. That's right, that's right. So you?
Speaker 3:had these, these aspirations. And let's say, well, elizabeth holmes here.
Speaker 3:Her aspiration was to be a billionaire, all right, so good for her now we oh, let's say the three of us over the course of our lives, we've made choices. Every day it's a different choice fork in the road. I'm either going to do this or I'm going to do that. Then that's going to spider web into. Well, then the next time I'm going to do this or that based on this. And it just keeps going and going and going. Every day is full of so many choices, yeses or no's. We ended up, over the course of those years, making x number of choices. That here's where we are. Here's what we're doing. Elizabeth she made every choice that she wanted to make that got her to the point of I want to be a billionaire. And for damn sure she was a fucking billionaire, absolutely because she dropped out of college. In what was it?
Speaker 2:2002, 2003 so early 2015 she was named the youngest self-made billionaire. So if that's what you're trying, eight or nine years yeah you're talking about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's by yeah, by early 20, by early 2014 that company had a valuation of 10 billion and in early 2015 that's when that's right, and so that that's where it takes us now. So they had operated so long for so much under the radar. Finally, she gets featured in a forbes article. Having landed all these things, I mean they're, it's really coming out now. She's just now hitting the scene that in 2015, forbes names her the youngest self-made female billionaire, having a net worth of four and a half billion dollars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, To hit that level. So just think if she would have went to Stanford, did like the basic courses and, you know, just went into business somewhere, Like what do you think an income like a normal income would be for somebody at Stanford, you know, with a degree?
Speaker 3:250 to 300. I was going to say, yeah, matt's about right on 250, 300. So right.
Speaker 2:So that's just your person that, like you know, doesn't ruffle any feathers. I'm just going to go do this. Yeah, Do a job here with my Stanford diploma but to take it to that next level you really got to go that extra mile.
Speaker 3:And it's it is infrequent, so you're going to hear the concepts of CEOs or CFOs or COOs, like there are certainly for any big business you got. You know you're going to have call them employees, which is truly what you know your CEO, your, your high level, your executive management they're basically boards. They're, they're they are employees. Right, they're. They're certainly employees. You will certainly have those that make a good amount of money, absolutely a good amount of money, but to make real money you need to own your own business yes right.
Speaker 3:That's the only way you're going to know that you can make it, because you're the one that's in control of it. It's all what you make of it. Either be lazy and you know, just let it ride, or run for that money every day.
Speaker 4:Be your own boss. But even that going from like what you're talking as fuck.
Speaker 3:Don't get me wrong. You can lose everything but going from a millionaire status or like all.
Speaker 4:That guy's a millionaire but you're talking bees now. The billionaire status is where. And forbes magazine that's where you're noticed. People are looking at you like, okay, this is, this is a person to deal with. Yeah, this is a baller in the game right, just yeah, she's definitely got some.
Speaker 3:I think with that voice of hers she might have at least one ball in the game. She is a baller, let's go go. It's a deep voice Again. Instant sensation. Instant sensation.
Speaker 3:All right, well, picking up where we left off. In my humble opinion, I think they should have stayed under the radar. 2015 would prove to be somewhat of a challenging year for Theranos, to say the least. Year for Theranos, to say the least. So early in the year, there were two separate instances of collegiate professors that were crying foul play. So, again out of nowhere came this company. They had been operating under the radar 10 years. Right, call it ballpark 10 years Out of nowhere. This company is this broad, is featured in Forbes. Theranos, theranos, theranos. They have this great tech. They do all of this stuff. They can do incredible things. The people that aren't working with it right? The collegiate people, the people that are hell, other service providers, your Quest Diagnostics or even Siemens that are making other the equipment that enables Quest to do what they do.
Speaker 2:These are people with like, a like. They have a knowledge of the inner workings of all this and probably can call bullshit is what you're saying.
Speaker 3:Indeed exactly that. So one of the guys that called bullshit is a guy by the name of John Ioannidis.
Speaker 4:That's fun to say.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's fun to say. What was that Francisco?
Speaker 4:Francisco, that's fun to say yeah, that's fun to say oh, what was a francisco? Francisco, that's like I like iwanitis yeah, so john iwanitis.
Speaker 3:He was a, of all places, stanford professor. He penned a letter to the journal of the american medical association calling out theranos for not having had any of its research peer-reviewed, which is true again. There's no fda, there's no. This is just some magical that they're dropping on the market that they're. They've sold it to walgreens or they've sold whatever. They've sold the contract, the ability to provide service to walgreens safeway. They're doing lab work for glaxo, smith klein and p Pfizer.
Speaker 4:It's just when I'm by the book. Guys, though, they always ruin everything for everybody, Like you know. If it's not hurting you in any way, why do you need to get involved?
Speaker 3:Matt, I'm with you. I'm with you. This is basically a hater.
Speaker 4:It's the way you try to teach your kids in like grade school.
Speaker 3:You're like, look of it, it's not a big deal. This hater, this john e1e, just came out and said well shit, basically, man, exactly what you said. I don't understand your tech. I don't understand how that could do. It's impossible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you guys must be bullshit it must be or it's a way. Just get your name in the paper or name out there.
Speaker 3:You know there is criticized well, there's nothing better to feed the ego of any elite professor or whatever to be published. Yes, that's what they want to do is be published, yeah, than to be published in, let's say, the AMA Journal or anything like that, the Harvard Review you name it. And there was this other dude, Eleftherios Diamandis.
Speaker 2:So, much fun, both Greeks. By the way, I have a suit jacket.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he makes shoes with metal tips on them.
Speaker 4:Hell with the Brutinis, that's right. How about the Diamantis?
Speaker 3:Yeah you have Therios Diamantis. He was a professor for the University of Toronto. He penned an article. Goddamn Canadians, Goddamn it. Thanks Canada.
Speaker 4:What do you see? Your new tariffs, canada. Hell yeah, you can keep your fucking trees, we don't need your sap.
Speaker 3:That's right. Keep the syrup, keep the syrup. So he penned an article in the Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medical Journal Sorry, medicine Journal Claiming that Theranos' tech couldn't possibly do what it claimed to do. Now he claimed that, again, the same thing as Ioannidis, despite not having any access to this tech. He's just calling out, saying it's fucking impossible Without even having hands-on. That's right.
Speaker 2:One thing, though, for sure they were with their technology and their patents and everything they were very like, played it close to the vest. They went. They had like employees signing non-disclosure, like you cannot talk about this, you know, and we'll get into that later, I'm sure.
Speaker 4:Well, that's like any business now these days.
Speaker 2:They were over the top with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. There was some shit that went on, that was like so something like this, this proprietary information, is a really significant fucking thing, right? I mean, this is, this is like she, you know. Let's hearken back to her childhood. You know, dave, you were apt to point out last episode that she, as a kid, had come up with this idea for a time machine, right? So obviously, that's that doesn't exist and it's you know, we don't have that tech but it was the same one using napoleon dynamite only I've been on the internet the colander she
Speaker 4:actually sold six of those Hurts.
Speaker 3:Hurts. They have this tech and for damn sure they don't want any of it getting out. It's not unlike creating a time machine you create a time machine and you've got people working for you. Making time machine.
Speaker 2:You don't want them to go off.
Speaker 3:You don't want that shit leaking out. You want to be the only one that's doing that. It's essentially what these guys were doing. We have this magical technology. Nobody else has it and nobody else is ever going to have it and plus their machines weren't commercially available at this point correct.
Speaker 2:So it's not like. A lot of times you'll release something and then people will buy it and take it apart, break it down how are they, are they doing this Reverse engineer?
Speaker 3:sure, china does that to America all the time, all the time right, russia did that with our nuclear tech. I mean, it's just the way it goes.
Speaker 2:Did you see the machine? A picture of it? Yeah, what's it called the Einstein? I think it was the first one, oh no, the Edison. Edison, I'm sorry, the from Apple. It was sleek. They wanted it to look like an iPhone, so it had like actually they kind of modeled after the first or one of the Mac computers, with a horizontal not horizontal, but like an angled line breaking up the two colors on it. It was a cool looking machine. It was Whether it worked.
Speaker 3:So that's the thing we talk about these contracts and whatever that Theranos had gotten into with these other companies, again, the providers or the service delivery people. They're selling it, every single one of their pitches. Basically, what do you want it to look like? We can make it look like anything you want to. They're almost overselling Like you pick. Do you want a different color? Do you want it this shape? Do you want to have this kind of interaction with it? Do you want it this shape? Do you want to have this kind of in uh, you know interaction with it? Do you want it a digital? Do you want it? You know manual? How do you want it?
Speaker 2:no matter what, we can make the box look like whatever you want it to be it was like a, probably like a shoebox size box, I believe, and then the card that you would put the was like credit card size and that's how it would read. You would leave the uh blood sample on the credit card thing and like swipe it almost like a credit card that was.
Speaker 3:That was a version, and other version looked like um, I don't want to say a desktop computer, but like a tower it looked like a computer, like an xbox. Uh, the tall okay yeah, yeah, well, again, like the old towers where you had a cd rom driver, you had a floppy drive or whatever. So essentially like the, the, the cd rom thing bay popped out, I got bay would open up and you drop this Yep and you drop Matt.
Speaker 4:I wish that the listeners could see the demonstration you just did and then button, and then it comes out like that it was exactly that.
Speaker 2:And transformer.
Speaker 3:Yep. So you drop the John in there and it goes back in and it does its magical things in this box and it comes out with all of these results.
Speaker 3:almost I don't want to say in real time, but pretty quickly, and then it's sent off to wherever and you're good to go. Magic. Well, a month later, after these two haters are publishing in their respective periodicals that they don't believe this, despite the fact of having not seen it, they just can't believe it's true. A month later, diamantis's uh alerts and findings made their way to the business insider. So bet, uh. Business insider says wait a second. Uh, hey, theranos, you know you've got your peers out there saying that you're not, you're not sharing your tech, or you're not, you're not. Uh, nobody, nobody can corroborate what you're saying. Hell, even your customers can't corroborate what you're saying. Hell, even your customers can't corroborate what you're saying, right, well, this creates bad press.
Speaker 3:Bad press is bad for business. Fortunately, you know, with that board let's not forget that board that these guys have, which again includes former secretaries of state, former CEOs, former United States senators, former secretaries of defense, former Navy admiral, former Marine generals I mean you've got a stellar board With that kind of connection they're going to need to call in some favors kind of connection they're gonna need to call in some favors. Yeah, so, after this bad press, almost immediately after the bad press, uh, in july 2015, just one month after that, the damning article came out holmes invited then vice president joe biden to visit and tour their manufacturing facility in newark california.
Speaker 4:He thought he was at like a ball field or something.
Speaker 3:Is this Universal man? He thought it was a baseball game.
Speaker 4:Is this Epcot? It wasn't hard to pull the wool over his eyes.
Speaker 3:He was impressed, very impressed. And he actually he went on to sing the praises of Theranos' operation. I think there was a presser. There would have had to have been. When you own a company company, you have the vice president of the united states visit your business you for damn sure are going to put out a press release.
Speaker 4:There's a lot of people there he's answering questions, saying how great it is. Yep, yeah, well mischief managed.
Speaker 3:Good for them. Uh, in fact, thanks to that to uh, let's not leave. Yeah, alleviate any other would-be fears. Uh, that same month, theranos ink to deal with Central Pennsylvania's own Capital Blue Cross to be its lab work provider and provide its testing capabilities at Capital Blue Cross's retail space in Enola, pennsylvania. How about that? I have been to that Stones throw from here.
Speaker 2:Where at? Is that up in the plaza there, or where is that?
Speaker 3:Take 81 South. Get off the wurtzville road exit oh, over there, uh, technology parkway by the train tracks, ish oh shit um it's. It's in the same plaza as members members first corporate headquarters yes, okay, it's right there, it's at the end of a strip mall, next to a giant okay, yep, yep, I know that place is obnoxious it is, yeah, it is wait, wait, wait, wait what's obnoxious?
Speaker 4:the it is yeah, yeah, it is obnoxious.
Speaker 3:Wait, wait, wait, wait. What's obnoxious.
Speaker 4:The members, first the facility there the big building, yeah, the building.
Speaker 3:I've been in. It is obnoxious. I thought you were going to talk about the traffic. No, the traffic's obnoxious also.
Speaker 4:yes, but that whole area, that whole, uh, big buildings, not for nothing, that members first headquarters, it's pretty baller inside. It is baller. I like the veranda area with, like the, the shea lounges, oh my god yeah, it's incredible in there.
Speaker 3:It's absolutely incredible. It's just, it's a beautiful, it's very nice. Let's not forget. I'm sorry, let's let's. I'll call a spade a spade and say it's a. It's an incredible waste of space. But I mean, in the banking business, if you want to impress customers, you got to make, you got to act the part and they got it. I mean members first, kudos for you know, looking as good as you do.
Speaker 4:They put their members first, after they build their building, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I mean that's neat to, if nothing else, it's neat to have that own little hometown touch there that, uh, they sold this to our own capital, pennsylvania capital, blue cross you're right here in central pa, that's right providing jobs, yeah, yeah well, alas, good old sleepy joe's praises while relatively credible at the time as we had said, he was still kind of there could not stop what is called a whistleblower. Are you guys familiar with whistleblowers?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, they're all over the government absolutely really whistleblowers, yeah, yeah, that's huge.
Speaker 4:It's a huge thing you're saying like government employees.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes yes, I mean I heard like an fbi whistleblower, but I just didn't know if it's prevalence no, a lot of um.
Speaker 4:I guess it would be like in the upper echelons, like it's mostly with with management, management, but yeah, a lot of, a lot of whistleblowing.
Speaker 3:Oh well, Theranos had its own little whistleblower toot and his little little horny, his little horn guy by the name of Tyler Schultz.
Speaker 4:Schultz, you say there's another Schultz in there.
Speaker 3:There is another Schultz there relative. So Tyler Schultz was a not only a theranos employee, he was the grandson of by far and away its most prestigious board member, former secretary of state george schultz. Tyler dropped a dime to the wall street journal. He decided he'd had enough. He alerted the wall street journal that theranos tech did not work at all. I feel shocked. Yeah, I'm shocked.
Speaker 4:Well, these are usually like disgruntled employees too, like he probably got passed over for a big job or wanted on the board, you know no, I I saw an interview with him, but we'll get through this okay yeah, I'm anxious to hear what you have to say so
Speaker 3:this, uh. What uh old tyler schultz had to say was uh, in fact, theranos had been using existing traditional testing methods and technology to generate its results. To be clear on that theranos's sale its selling point was being able to use a minuscule amount of blood that you could take just from a fingertip. You did not need to use vials and vials of blood. What Theranos was also promising is that, thanks, not only did you only need this little bit of blood, we would give to you almost immediate or very quick results, very, very swift results, and we would send that, we would expedite that right to your doctor. So everything was just in real time. So, indeed, not only were they using the existing old methods to produce their results, when they were using their own technology, the results were inaccurate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were way off, Way off.
Speaker 3:So not only did they not have the existing tech that they were trying to sell, according to Tyler here not only did they have the the wrong tech or tech that didn't work, they were using existing methods. The stuff that they were trying to get away from they still had to go back to the old way right, they were just like putting it as a front, almost like this little small machine is doing everything. But it's, it's really not yeah, that story broke in october of and then that would be a bad day in fucking Bosnia for Theranos.
Speaker 2:It would be bad. But yeah, on that interview, I think it was like with 2020 or one of the news programs he was describing like the equipment they would use like parts would be falling off of it Like it like they had that little machine that was supposed to be reading, like it would lock up, they would do these demos and stuff, and like the stuff just did not work.
Speaker 2:There was one instance now I don't know if this was from him, but that one of the employees talked about where they flew over to Sweden to meet with Novartis and they had this big presentation with their machines to show off the technology. Well, the night before the machines were freezing and like giving error messages and stuff. So they were up all night trying to trick the machine into spitting something out so they could give a result. And they were actually beaming in results from California. It wasn't even from the machine itself. They were bringing in these results from bogus results just to put something on the screen, jesus.
Speaker 2:So you just had it linked into a computer and they were just typing the stuff in, or it was just like wireless, it was all fake, like it was all, um, basically like the machine wasn't doing like he was saying it's, it's another lab, but they were spitting out fake results. So and they also talked about which, luckily this uh, there were like cancer patients in this one thing that they were doing, uh, this trial, and luckily they weren't using this more as like they weren't using this to make decisions. Luckily for these patients.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because that's To see if they were improving.
Speaker 3:You're talking about people's lives.
Speaker 4:People's lives, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's what we were talking about earlier in the last episode, about like you're not dealing with, like Facebook, or like an app that, if it crashes or something that doesn't work right, like oh, it's not the end of the world with this, it's your health. But they were using these Theranos machines to uh diagnose these people like on a daily basis. They were checking their blood just to get a reading like on the if the medicine's working or if the tumor, you know whatever they were on these cancer patients.
Speaker 2:So, that that shit's crazy. If this, these machines weren't working correctly and they knew it, if that was the case, that they were allowing that to happen. So these people that are working there, like this Alex Schultz, are probably seeing these things like wait a minute, tyler.
Speaker 3:Schultz.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry. Yeah, tyler Schultz, we better call him out. So I don't think there was any of that where he got fired. But I do know that when these people would question them, or but I do know that when these people would question them, they would belittle them and be like you, don't know your math.
Speaker 4:You don't know this. You don't know how to work this machine, so you're just stupid head.
Speaker 3:I. I read and actually saw some of that too in that little bio. That's that that was absolutely a thing. If you didn't fall in line and believe in the dream and believe in the, the, the smoke and mirrors that we're selling here, we're either going to marginalize you or we're going to fucking fire you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you were in trouble.
Speaker 3:That's it. If you question exactly as you had said, dave, if you question our authority, if you question our dream, you're out.
Speaker 2:And one other story I heard in that audio book. Actually I listened to the Bad Blood. It was a really good. I listened to the audio book this week during work. I was driving around, but there was a story like they're kind of giving an idea how, like when she wanted something done.
Speaker 4:It. Better be done, or you fear for your job. Like that day was she like this needs.
Speaker 2:It's on your desk yeah, so the day of they were supposed to be moving out of that building into the new facebook building. Yeah, uh, the owner of the building they were in previously said like if you're not out by midnight today, you have to pay rent for like the following month or however many months.
Speaker 2:And she was like that can't happen. You need to call the moving company and get them here today. We need to be out by midnight. The guy's like that's not even possible. But I knew that if I challenged her on it like it I'd probably get fired, lose my job. So he called this moving company and laughed them off. They're like we're not doing that, we're not coming tonight and moving between you know we have nine hours or whatever till midnight.
Speaker 2:And he called like a couple of other places and they were like you know that these moving companies are mob, tied, like unionized, and if you try to like, if we try to take this work from them, like there could be like physical harm brought on us and all this shit. But this guy was so fearful of her and you know, and like challenging her, that he was trying to make this happen. Yeah Well, finally came back that obviously they couldn't make that move happen and she did kind of go along with it, but they were all scared to like tell her, like no, we can't do that. So, yeah, if you challenged her on anything business wise or anything business-wise, she would take you out, fire you, get rid of you, blackball you.
Speaker 3:I've met a number of entrepreneurs in my day and I know at least a handful that if you tell them that, look, this can't happen. What you're asking for is not possible, given a timeframe or given even just the reality of it, you will absolutely be shut down. No, no, hell, no, I'll make it happen. We can make it happen. Let's do it. We're going to make it happen because I want to will it to happen. Yeah, dude, sorry man, it just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 4:They're so used to having things too with the money that they have that when they hear it can't be done, it's like impossible in their minds because like everything I want done is done.
Speaker 3:I would agree, matt so there's a price for every sense.
Speaker 4:Yes, like here I'll give you whatever you need, just get it done.
Speaker 3:Yep, if I need to hire 10 moving companies exactly.
Speaker 2:We're gonna make it happen, that's why they have like pet lines and weird shit yeah, I mean just because they can yeah, that's the same reason.
Speaker 3:A dog licks his balls yeah because he can't well. Again articles come out, bad press. Now whistleblower theranos was absolutely now on the defense. They lawyered up. And not only did they lawyer up, they attempted to scrub the internet how do you do that, yeah? How does one do? Is that even possible? Sure, it's absolutely possible.
Speaker 4:It happens all the time like completely, though look what any, anything that they put out, they can scrub 100, you can absolutely scrub the internet hell, there's, but once it's received or anything from another entity, right like you can't eliminate any of that. Like there's still dark web, there's not dark web, but there's still ties to everything you know there is as, but if it's pulled quickly enough, okay it's.
Speaker 3:some people might have visited and might have seen it. But look, you've, you've seen that all the time, like, if you follow, like a Twitter thing or whatever thing you know, somebody pulls that off or something will happen, or hell, there's I mean countless, countless numbers of but there's still a fingerprint Like you can still get in.
Speaker 3:Some guy with a computer can get in and retrieve Correct you have to, so you have to, so you have to, on purpose, with significant purpose, be looking for it. Okay, what theranos was trying to do. We got to scrub this. So going forward, nobody's going to find this no casual browser make it hard, make it really really no potential no potential customer is browsing around trying to get references for us and they, they, they pull this bad press.
Speaker 3:I got you, so that is absolutely possible. 100 hell, 100% Hell. I know of businesses out there that will scrub the internet for you if you get bad reviews for your product, service, restaurant, you name it, your podcast, sure.
Speaker 2:We got to get that.
Speaker 3:We got to get that. Whoever gave us the one star?
Speaker 2:Well, there's a video I've been looking for. I saw it like two years ago and I'm assuming this kid's. He was like a frat boy, like you know college kid, and there's like a fight, melee going on and this kid drops out of the sky almost Looks like holding a beer and falls into the. It's like the funniest video, but I'm thinking like his parents are probably rich and connected or like get that out of there because it's like an idiot. I'll try to pull it up all the time and it's scrubbed from the internet. Like I look. Frat kid falls from sky holding beer. I can't find the video.
Speaker 3:It's out, you can scrub the internet, man. I promise you.
Speaker 2:His parents, maybe the dad's, like on this board or something, and he was like, got rid of it.
Speaker 4:Get a business like. Get a business for like people that pass away to scrub their web browsers yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what a guy worked out about, Like when he dies cause he lives alone.
Speaker 4:He's like he's somebody to come clean up, clean up his house, get all this shit out of his house.
Speaker 3:I know people who have that in place like in their wills, or they have like a like. As soon as I'm found dead, let this person know, give them a call and then the wolf they will send the wolf, absolutely the wolf before you like parents, come to your house.
Speaker 3:Oh shit, that's all you had to say. Yeah, palpation. Well, word of this. Uh, again trying to scrub the internet. They lawyered up that didn't work again. Once you get whistleblower, you now have protection. Now, granted, your career might be significantly hindered going forward because you know your employer, potential employer, is going to know oh well, this is this, this guy's a whistleblower. We I don't know if we can trust him because he's gonna you know, yeah, what if they find something wrong while they're working here?
Speaker 3:that's right, then we're screwed. You have that, you're you're. You're a snitch man. We don't know if we want to hire you. Yeah, either way. Word of theranos is bad tech made its way to the fda again. This is they didn't necessarily need licensing.
Speaker 4:You don't want any federal agency involved with any of your uh your scandalous affairs.
Speaker 3:That's it that's exactly right. Um, once uh, it got it. Once it made its way to the fda, uh, theranos suspended its testing and ongoing due diligence for its devices. Basically, look, we're done. We're not going to do anything more for now. We're just going to hold off until all of this. Everything will calm down. We're just going to suspend what we're doing. They say to the FDA. Well, in addition to that bad or I should say as a result of that bad press, in addition to the FDA finding out about it, safeway canceled their plans to outfit 800 of their stores with those in-store blood tests, not long after Walgreens canceled their plans for that pilot program that it had negotiated back in 2013. And, of course, use of Theranos' tests at the Capital Blue Cross retail space in Enola, pennsylvania, were suspended as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, House of Cards man, it's falling down.
Speaker 3:It just started falling. Everything started falling. Well, it did not get any better. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services revoked Theranos' certification as a clinical laboratory and suspended Elizabeth and Sonny for two years from owning or operating any certified clinical laboratory. Can you imagine that, like two years, what you have been doing for 10, you now have to never do again, or you?
Speaker 4:cannot do this again for two fucking years. That even sounds like not a big thing, though, like if you have that kind of money you can sit and like just hang on that for like two years it doesn't seem like any kind of penalty?
Speaker 2:In a way yes, but I guess for what they're doing that penalty in a way yes, but I guess for what they're doing? Yeah, that's how their livelihood is. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:No, I mean. So you think about that, though, with the money, when you, when you have that money and it's all tied up when we, when we write a lot of that.
Speaker 4:it's tied up in all of these proceedings, yeah.
Speaker 3:When we hear of a four and a half billion dollars. Well, all of that value is in one company Now. They can't go cashing out, they can't go selling anything.
Speaker 3:That's just their value. If, for whatever reason things today, they would liquidate it and somebody would buy it, sure, four and a half billion, but what they? What? Instead, it happens is when you have that value. I mean this is we're talking Jeffrey Bezos, we're talking Elon Musk, like you name any one of them anyone where car doors go like this. While they have that value, they just borrow against it. You're taking out lines of credit and loans for, for cash you're never using actual money, correct you're?
Speaker 3:you're. You are borrowing against your wealth to collateralize all of that wealth, and you, you again you're just taking some cash out. You pay it back. Hell, you can write off the interest, which is great right uh, yeah, well, let's see where that goes.
Speaker 3:Uh, let's see, let's see. Oh yeah, so they're out of biz for two years, can't do shit. Federal prosecutors and the sec began a criminal investigation against theranos for misleading investors and government officials about its tech. All of this from a whistleblower which came after two doctors, or two clinical two professors stanford professors yeah who said you guys are fucked, that's impossible.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, may 2016, theranos voided two years of its machines testing results. Now can you dig that? This business was being built on the results of its tests, like, like, look. According to our results, according to our tech, according to what we can do, this is what we can do for you. Two years of those results were voided, gone, gone, in June 2016,. This is not but a year, and change after whenever. This is not but a year and change after whenever. In June 2016, forbes magazine issued a correction to its 2015 article which, having previously estimated Elizabeth Holmes' net worth at $4.5 billion, forbes now estimated her value to be zero. Bam.
Speaker 4:Zero. So it seems like Forbes too, with the $4.5 billion. They kind of ask like, hey, what do you think you're worth? She's like $4.5 billion and a half billion, like okay, let me print that you know. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh wait, it's uh zero. Now I'm sorry, we we had 4.5 billion. Now it's zero.
Speaker 3:It's like my draft kings account it's like my fantasy football team yeah right oh god, I I just can't wrap my head around that to lose that much money that quickly to lose that worth so quickly it's like Brewster's Millions.
Speaker 2:He had to spend all that money in 30 days it was one million, wasn't it? You can't even spend it that quick but he couldn't gain anything.
Speaker 4:You had to spend the money, but you weren't able to. That was a good movie, john Candy it was Richard Pryor. John Candy was in it too. He was the catcher.
Speaker 2:And Master Bates that was the kid. So that was the toy. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:That was the toy that was the toy.
Speaker 4:So Richard Pryor was in it.
Speaker 2:Oh, he's the best.
Speaker 3:Which makes it good.
Speaker 2:But yeah, to lose that much is insane.
Speaker 3:But yeah, to lose that much is insane. One year later, just one year later, which I get it, matt, you're absolutely right. Well, okay, hey, elizabeth, what's your stake in this company? Well, the company's worth 10. I got 45% of it.
Speaker 4:So I'm worth four and a half billion. It seems like they don't really dig in before they printed it.
Speaker 3:You know it's kind of like oh, let say sure, at this time it's worth this and this is your stake in it. So, mathematically, yes, you would be worth that well, talking to shark tank.
Speaker 2:They do that all the time like people say this is our valuation and they're like, how did you get there?
Speaker 1:and then they start calling bullshit like those guys and the girl on their own shark tank.
Speaker 2:I forget her name, but they're on there and they're like I don't know. That number seems fishy to me. I'll'll tell you, dude, just to get called out.
Speaker 3:One year earlier, just one year earlier, this chick was the bell of the ball. I mean, everybody wanted to talk to her. She was the female Steve Jobs bro.
Speaker 4:It was the people she had backing her too. Like we said, everybody was on her side and they were big names, and you had the vice president in there. They were like this is real everything was in her favor.
Speaker 3:One year later, dude, over, it was worth zero. Yeah. Within a few months after that, theranos announced that it would close its labs and lay off 40 of its workforce. After failing an fda inspection in late 2016, theranos laid off an additional 41 of its workforce and closed it dude, I know and laid off its last quick math, quick math, quick math, quick math. And uh, oh, I'm sorry and it closed its last remaining blood testing facility in january of 2017. Dude, it's basically like we're fucking done. Yeah, we're. If nothing else, we got to put the brakes on everything and they closed it. They closed it all. You got to believe that lawsuits are going to follow.
Speaker 4:Yeah, once you have those fire sales like that, you know something's wrong right yeah, somebody's coming in there. Like you said, the the lawyers are are going to be checking things out. You're lowering up.
Speaker 3:It's going to be uh, going to go to court somewhere yeah, you think about the, the decade that it took to build this right the decade and change 12 years whatever it was to to build this. I mean, this took time, this took diligence. It certainly must have taken a lot of fucking lies too right, or just a lot of aloofness, or a lot of really coercive talking, to, just within a matter of months, go down to nothing. Nothing now granted, but it makes sense. It makes sense because there was nothing there to begin with.
Speaker 3:It was all a fucking lie Based on nothing, really. I mean again, I can't stress enough the idea of somebody having to do their due diligence before you go into business with somebody.
Speaker 2:I always wonder what's going through somebody like her, like, like, and we've had a lot of stories like this, where somebody is basically living a lifestyle based on all lies and shit that's made up and they're making money. I mean, we had it with, like the Z carpet guy you you mentioned.
Speaker 2:I can't remember his name or or any of these people that are scam artists that you know like each day is like a gift, because at any time it's going to come crashing down. Like how do you live your life looking over your shoulder, I mean, I think about that with like mobsters and stuff too. You know you're eating at the best restaurants, you're living that lifestyle, but it's all like you know, it's all going to end at some point.
Speaker 3:You have to know I couldn't do it.
Speaker 2:You know a friend of the show, la Ron. He told me a good story about a guy that this guy basically went in and he scammed out. It was like all these like tech companies I forget because it was AV related, that's why we were talking about it. I'm going to say it was like Techniques and a couple other ones that he scammed them out all this money, knowing that if he moved to this specific country he would make a deal with this country. Like hey, I'm about to get like they're going to want to. Well, they have no extradition. Basically, they're going to try to get me for these crimes. If you put me in jail here, I'll give you some money when I get out, because all this money will still be there.
Speaker 4:Are you talking about LA Ron?
Speaker 2:He was telling me a story about that.
Speaker 4:I was like damn LA Ron.
Speaker 2:No, he was telling me a story about this guy.
Speaker 4:Put it all out there.
Speaker 2:Basically he knew, like what he was doing was wrong, that he was gonna get caught. So he made a deal with this small country, basically like hey, like put me in jail here for what's going on and let me out, and then, like he just had some kind of deal where he did like minimal time.
Speaker 4:I think that's the way we're built as humans, though I think it's that satisfaction now like you get that now and it, like we'll worry about tomorrow when that comes. Think about it. You're not talking like a. It is in a lifetime 10 years, 12 years is a snap of a finger While she was in it. She's just enjoying this. Look what I've done, look what I've built. It's hard to just. Once you get into that funnel, you're in it.
Speaker 2:Then she'll get out and probably write a book.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's one of the things and you're not.
Speaker 3:you haven't killed anybody you haven't like in this, I mean I'm sure with, like drug dealers too and things like that. I mean she could have come close though.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, sure, but you're always running from something and it's a hard way to live I, I again, I could not do it. I would have a nervous fucking breakdown again white collar crime, though like is there any? You know, martha stewart, god bless her yeah, but you're not really you're.
Speaker 3:You're ending up in a country club pretty much for maybe two, three years, depending depends, I wonder if she'll end up in a country I don't know well, as we had, you know, suggested, the lawsuits did in fact come pouring in walgreens safeway, state agencies, investors, you name it lawsuit after lawsuit. Now, in addition to the accusations of false advertising and inaccurate test results, one of the most notable claims and we touched on this before was that Theranos had been using lab equipment purchased from other diagnostic equipment manufacturers to run fake demonstrations and perform its in-house lab tests. So one more time to summarize this Theranos was selling a product and service. What they were ultimately delivering was provided by other manufacturers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they were using other people's shit to do the work. It's like buying a. Why don't you just go buy a television, slap your name at the bottom of it and then resell it? That's exactly what they were doing.
Speaker 4:Which is not technically illegal in a way, but the way that they were doing it.
Speaker 3:They were selling it with some random pie-in-the-sky idea technology that just didn't exist.
Speaker 3:It's like dude, it was just a magician's act yeah it was all illusion, copperfield, not to be confused with collusion yeah wow, and you know, as we had suggested, it would soon come to light that the lab that biden had visited back in 2015, that whole thing, complete sham. The facility, he facility, he was at, it was staged, the stuff he was looking at, the products like we talked about the magic boxes and shit that were delivering these results. It was just a pristinely manufactured like a Hollywood-like set within their facility Again with the money.
Speaker 4:like that, you can perform like this Disney Magic Kingdom type. Yeah, just fake it. And then what was that? The sweeper guy, Like you said. You know, let's get all these things in here and make it look like we got all the latest technology. Barry Minkow, Minkow.
Speaker 3:I think you're right. I think it was Barry Minkow. That just came to me, well done.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, when you have the money, like that, you know you're not doing anything. You're the one that knows it, maybe one or two other people, and so we're like let's just put this front up and when things look good, oh well, fall for. It takes me back to a thing on 2020. They did with payless shoes, right. So they were talking about how, like designer brand shoes, are they really worth the money? So they took payless shoes and put them in this store, in this, like beverly hills.
Speaker 2:I think it was like beverly hills or something and they called it like palizios or something right, right, and they had all pay less shoes and they had all. They did like a big grand opening and all these wealthy people were going to look at these like ten dollar, payless shoes, but they were like four grand, seven grand and they're like, wow, these are like great shoes. And they were like, uh, they're interviewing the people like do you think it's worth the money? Like absolutely, the craftsmanship in these shoes but, they were all like pay less shoes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they just changed the name and, like people believed, it.
Speaker 3:So I just put the illusion on that name. Bullshit is is fucking bullshit. I will certainly give credit to the idea of, in a very different circumstance, like you're going to have a shit brand of jeans, you're going to have a good brand of jeans. You can tell the difference, you can feel the difference, but not when it comes into thousands of dollars for a pair of fucking pants or a pair of sneakers or whatever yeah, a pair of levi's compared to a pair of whatever, but levi's are still affordable.
Speaker 3:Good jeans, a thousand dollar pair of sunglasses versus a five dollar convenience store.
Speaker 2:I mean, come on, it's still blocking the fucking sun thing for sure, and I know a girl that's in actually the sunglass industry and she was telling me the big difference in sunglasses it's not. Even the frames are all the same, it's the lenses.
Speaker 4:That's where the money's at. Okay.
Speaker 2:That's where they charge more.
Speaker 4:The UV blocking rays or whatever it has.
Speaker 2:That's all bullshit though.
Speaker 3:It is all bullshit, just like Theranos was all bullshit. You know she was able to. When we talk about the contracts she had had, like the again, like the Safeways or the Walgreens, these contracts were inked years prior to this happening. She hadn't delivered much of anything to these guys.
Speaker 4:Yeah, she was selling the tech. She wasn't actually selling the product yet.
Speaker 3:Well, what's even worse, to be clear on that and she just never delivered. She just kept postponing the delivery. You know what I mean? It's like hey man, you know I'm Walgreens. We signed on to this thing, you know, back in 2012. We were supposed to start this in 2013. What's the deal? Ah well, we're still going through tests. We're not. We want to make sure that you know. We are 100 percent, you know, foolproof that we're ready to go and we're just going to hit the ground running with you guys. We're ready to go and we're just going to hit the ground running with you guys, 2014. Hey man, remember that deal we signed with you now two years ago? Where's the fucking product and service? Where's this thing? We're almost there. Maybe just give us through the end of the year, if you could. We just want to make sure it's right. She just kept stringing these people along because she had nothing to deliver, nothing. It did not fucking exist. It's amazing, just fuck.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 3:Blows my mind. Well, all these lawsuits that we talked about. Amazingly enough, these were all squashed as swiftly as possible just by reaching settlements. It's like, look man, you promised to deliver us this. We lost this much revenue in it. At least make us, we'll make you whole for the revenue you lost, right? It's not like please don't sue us into perpetuity and take us into X number of years, taking future revenues and shit like that. We'll just pay you the flat amount now and be done with it so Holmes still had capital.
Speaker 4:Then Correct Okay.
Speaker 3:Again, let's not forget, while delivering a product and service that was, in fact, completely bogus, she still was delivering product and services again, like for for GSKs, for Pfizer's. She was doing lab work, it's just she wasn't using Theranos tech. Yes, she was using the old shit, but they were still providing a service and still making income.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:However, let's not forget that, after you know, even settling all of those, those lawsuits, theranos was in fact out of the blood testing business for at least two years, so they're not making any fucking money. I should say income.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but she still has money.
Speaker 3:So in December 2017, hoping to cover their ongoing operating expenses for that two-year suspension, theranos had secured a $100 million loan in exchange. Here comes the shark tank in exchange for 4% of the company and leveraging its patents as collateral.
Speaker 2:Like if you fuck up, we're taking your patents.
Speaker 3:Well, if you default on your payments. It's like a mortgage If you don't pay your mortgage we're going to take your fucking house. Yeah, true.
Speaker 3:In this case, you don't pay the line of credit or the a hundred million dollar loan. If you don't pay it off timely, we're going to take your patents. And again, we still hold 4% of that company. Well, that was December of 2017. In March 2018. This is not but dude like.
Speaker 3:Three months later, the SEC filed charges of fraud against Theranos, elizabeth Holmes and Sonny Balawani for misleading investors. Again, this is just outright lying to them. When you've got the FDA crying foul, when you've got the CMS crying foul Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services when they're crying foul, when you've got investors crying foul, when you've got customers crying foul, it's going to make its way to the SEC, despite them not being a publicly traded company. It's still going to make it to the highest of the high. A month later, by March 2018, the company was down to 25 employees From 800. From 800. Damn.
Speaker 3:A couple of months later, in June 2018, the USs attorney's office indicted holmes and sunny on multiple counts of fraud, and by multiple. I'm talking wire fraud and defrauding investors, doctors, even patients and shit. Within days, holmes resigned as the ceo, but she did remain the chair of the board, okay, okay. A couple months after that, august 31st 2018, just a couple of months after the indictments, all but a handful of theranos personnel were let go and by handful I'm talking let's, you know. So she stepped down as the ceo. So they had to have an interim ceo. I'm sure they had to have some kind of general counsel on board and I'm sure, like a couple of secretaries here there, some administrative help. Yeah, on september 4th not but a few days later theranos announced that all operations were ceased totally done done reminds me like when we had this, there was a nice james way plaza.
Speaker 4:Yeah, out, where this whole thing is like the crumbling of james. It is god, breast your soul james way.
Speaker 3:I used to love that place, dude. James way was the best.
Speaker 4:It was absolutely the best I don't know, was that just local or was that like a real?
Speaker 2:I think that was a chain.
Speaker 4:I would think really okay, yeah, I thought james way was very similar to ames yeah, ames, when I was good, like in that little place there in the middle, I thought it was like a family owned, like it was like joe james way that had that a little too like no, I don't want to.
Speaker 3:I don't want to do a Joe's way. I'm doing it, James.
Speaker 4:Like I thought it was somebody's last name. I thought that was just like for I don't know, being a kid, I just thought that was like our area.
Speaker 3:Your own thing, yeah, I didn't know anybody had James. It happened to be located in a plaza. Jamesway was the anchor store, the Jamesway plaza.
Speaker 4:I thought it was the Jamesway plaza. I thought that was the name of the actual place.
Speaker 3:Nowadays there might be a Target plaza.
Speaker 2:The biggest baller area.
Speaker 4:A Wegmans plaza. It went from something to nothing. Just like that, just like this.
Speaker 3:Dude nothing. Operations are done. We are shut the fuck down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no such thing as too big to fail, you know you would think with that valuation and the money going in and the people involved like how could it ever fail?
Speaker 3:but you just never know well, it fails when there's nothing, again nothing. There's no underlying product, there's no underlying service according to the tech that you're selling us. It's bullshit, it's all smoke and mirrors. This is like I know in the one documentary I'd seen that there was a reference to. In fact they called their machine the Edison machine was a great performer for it, for lack of a better word. He was forever pushing and selling this idea that, hey man, I got this incandescent light bulb, I, I got this incandescent light bulb. In reality he didn't. When he was selling it to the westinghouses or the whomevers of the world westinghouse is probably the wrong reference, but when he was selling it to electric companies or to towns or to cities, like, hey man, I'm, I'm going to illuminate your streets, I've got this light bulb, they all bought in. They all said, yeah, man, I'll take as many as you can fucking give.
Speaker 2:But he had the idea for it.
Speaker 4:Tesla had the idea, I believe right.
Speaker 3:He only had the idea he did not have the product the tech.
Speaker 4:The way to do it.
Speaker 3:Did not have it and he was dude. Fun fact thomas edison was like almost broken bankrupt by the time he finally, after his 10 000 fucking try at working at incandescent light bulbs, he finally figured out what worked like he was down to his ride man, yeah. So sometimes it works out. He got lucky yeah he got damn lucky.
Speaker 3:Anyway, back to this poor broad, and forget this broad. She's not a poor broad, she gets what she deserves. Well, she is poor now. She is damn poor now. Very poor, zero. She doesn't even have car doors, no so, holmes is trying.
Speaker 4:I wonder what when you said oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:No, go ahead Real quick.
Speaker 4:I wonder what she did drive.
Speaker 2:Does anybody know?
Speaker 4:What she drove.
Speaker 2:Like what the crib looked like, like I said, they didn't mention, uh, that she was she like a bmw kind of chick with the? Rap, music, I forget what kind of car, if they even said was it like a chevy or something? I don't know no, I'm sorry, she drove a prius oh, yeah, she was a hippie kind.
Speaker 4:Yeah, she drove a prius all the other people out there, and yeah, that's. You know what I mean. West coast, like west coast, is very save the environment. You know that's a very liberal part of town, right so I mean at that time that was a cool thing to this was when they were new technology.
Speaker 2:Yeah that like back then 2007, 8, whatever, that was like the big thing, like I mean, leonardo dicaprio drove a, that was like a tesla.
Speaker 3:The tesla of today was the prius it was the status of yes, you're making a difference, right you're making money.
Speaker 4:You're smart enough to have a prius now it's the uh cyber truck.
Speaker 2:There's one actually around here. I love those things. I fucking they're so obnoxious I love them.
Speaker 3:It's like total recall came to life. I love it, but they're huge too.
Speaker 4:Like you don't realize how big they are until you get up close to one. Like I've seen pictures and I was like they look okay, but then then I got to see one from here to where you're at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I saw one. There was actually the other day. It was in front of me. I'm like holy shit, that thing is big.
Speaker 4:There's three at my work now.
Speaker 3:I wish I had one, but I only want one, if it's gas? I don't want an electric truck. I want the gas version of the Tesla truck. Please, Elon.
Speaker 4:Make it happen. I don't think he's going to do that, would you?
Speaker 3:please? I know you listen to our podcast, Elon. Could you please make the gasoline?
Speaker 2:version and put us on the Department of Broadcasting.
Speaker 4:Well, no, even the Hummer now has their whole electric, which is selling like crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which I think it costs With the crab walk, but I think it takes, like they said, $120 to charge.
Speaker 3:One charge what's a crab walk?
Speaker 4:It's where your wheels turn.
Speaker 2:The wheels go like you can kind of go sideways, you know what I'm saying Okay. It's called the crab walk on the Hummer. The Hummer EV does it.
Speaker 4:Which I thought it was for parking, but it's basically like for being off road If you're stuck somewhere, you can turn your wheels.
Speaker 2:You can go sideways out of it. Yeah, wheels go like this. That's when you got money.
Speaker 4:That's money wheels right there.
Speaker 3:All right. Well, Holmes' trial began on August 31st 2021. That was almost three years to the day of when Theranos shut down Again back in August 31st of 2018, three years earlier. At that time, all but a handful of employees were let go, and not but five days later, everything shut down. So here we are, three years later at that time, all but a handful of employees will let go, and not but five days later everything shut down.
Speaker 2:So here we are three years later. This is after covid. Yeah, there was postponements for code and I think she got. She got knocked up, didn't she? Yes, I thought she looked pregnant and I asked michelle I was like, is she pregnant in that picture? I couldn't tell, you know, I just can't wait. I've been eating Long John Silver's.
Speaker 3:I'm broke now, long John.
Speaker 2:Silver's. So good she had the mask on. I know the trial, the COVID, was still kind of happening, but I saw that picture. She did look pregnant.
Speaker 3:Somebody stop me. So who knocked her up? Was it Sunny? I don't know. Was it Sunny or did she have like an in vitro?
Speaker 2:fertilization Well, she probably like a in vitro fertilization. Well, she probably test did. A pregnancy test probably didn't work on her because it was a bad machine.
Speaker 3:Bad machine, it was there.
Speaker 2:She used a theranos tissue pregnancy test yeah, one other thing, too about that machine that I thought was crazy is that they talked about like not only like that they would in real time like diagnose and treat, like all from this machine that they were saying like the the things that it could do. It's just insane the list of claims that they made they really started a cup of coffee.
Speaker 3:They released. Well, close, Matt, really close. They really started overselling the capabilities of the machine. So, to be clear, the machine had zero capabilities from the gate. But just to add insult to injury, they just started rattling off basically every possible disease in the world that could test for. That. It could test for or treat or do whatever, and it's okay.
Speaker 2:Now you're just you're way the fuck out of bounds there was a claim that it could detect a specific protein or something that could could tell you 17 years ahead, if you you know, of pancreatic cancer like one of one of the it was a pancreatic cancer or something like that of course, watching now it's.
Speaker 3:This is truly, and now I will pull a rabbit out of this box. I mean, that's exactly what the fuck this is. So, yeah, okay, trial began. August 31st 2021, three years, three years later. Uh, she, of course, she pled ignorance. She just said that. Well, everybody that's working under me, I don't understand what's going on there. I've been misled. Hell, even my longtime boyfriend, my 19-year-old senior to me boyfriend. Clearly he must have been misleading me too. I had no idea this was going on. Well, the court found otherwise. Of course, as the CEO, the buck stops with her. So, by the time the jury reached its verdict in January of 2022, she was found not guilty on any charges relating to defrauding doctors and patients, which is interesting to me, but I can understand it to the extent that it was you know, it was the lab people or it was the something else that she she did not speak. To be clear, she did not speak directly to the doctors. She did not speak directly to the doctors.
Speaker 4:She did not speak directly to the patients, so it's like a sales type thing. She was involved in it, but it wasn't directly. That's something she was doing, that's right.
Speaker 3:However, however, she was found guilty on four counts of defrauding investors and she remained free on five hundred thousand dollar bail waiting her sentencing see the defrauding investors gets me too, because isn't that just stupidity on your part?
Speaker 4:because she was putting a product out there but the product wasn't doing what she was saying it was doing. But isn't it up to the people buying the product to?
Speaker 3:check on this. I agree to an extent. I agree, however-.
Speaker 4:To an extent.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know, go ahead when you're putting it on paper that look, man, in exchange for your investment, in exchange for this, that, your money, your, whatever we are going to give you this, that and the other thing, and this is what you're putting your money into. She's basically the defrauding. The investors is saying I have this magic box. Yeah she's selling illusions. This magic box works.
Speaker 4:But as an investor, wouldn't you want to be hands-on, like, let me see?
Speaker 2:the product. Let me see one of your product. It'd be like if I said I got all this gold here and you're investing, and then here it's like chocolate covered. You know, the gold covered chocolate, the foil.
Speaker 4:That's what I'm saying I have this podcast that I want you to invest in yeah and and and. Yeah, we're getting nothing for, but you want to see a product. I I would say let me see, see your first refined edition of this, and then we'll get back to you.
Speaker 3:So when they did their due diligence, Matt, when they would, let's say, send people to their labs, the lab would give them the same dog and pony show. Yeah, dog and pony.
Speaker 2:I get it the same illusion they gave to Biden.
Speaker 3:Illusion. This doesn't exist, but here's what you're investing your money in. That's just straight up fraud.
Speaker 4:I just it is straight up fraud. But the defrauding, the investor part, is what get like you have a chance yeah, you're still. You're investing in something you have. No people invest in stuff all the time that that they're taking a chance on yeah, but you gotta probably disclose that up front, like hey, there's a, a chance. But that's always a chance. I don't know. We'll talk to J-Dub about this.
Speaker 3:This is her saying you're not even taking a chance. Yeah.
Speaker 4:This is it. This is what we have. You're going to get this.
Speaker 3:She's offering a tangible product and a tangible service. That did not exist.
Speaker 2:I got you, this is it, that's. I got you this is it.
Speaker 3:That's right. That's why wait, I want to hold off on that. Let's pin that, because I want to get to that after we're done yes, yes, excellent okay all right, all right.
Speaker 3:Now I want to rush through this because, god damn it. All right. Uh, five hundred thousand dollar ban, okay. On november 18th 2022, holmes was sentenced to 11 years three months in prison and was ordered to pay 452 million dollars, with an m, to defrauded investors. Now that 452 million needed to be paid jointly with her boyfriend, sonny. She didn't have that shit. Sonny went to prison too. I forget for how long, but he might have actually gone for longer, because there are there's allegations that he was the one that was really driving the. The falsehood. He was the there. There's a school of thought out there that, in fact, he was the one that was really driving the, the falsehood he was the there?
Speaker 3:there's a school of thought out there that in fact he was lying to her the whole fucking time. He was saying look, this shit works, you don't need to go down in the lab, it works. I'm selling it, it works, it's good.
Speaker 4:I think there was a amount of naiveness to her also with her and sunny and her like growing up with this idea and having it so fast at such a young age.
Speaker 3:She didn't blink yeah yeah, there's and I'm saying legitimately she. There were times where she would be in interviews and did not blink her eyeballs, did not blink. Yeah, she was intense so, after all of that, holmes reported to a minimum security prison in bryan, texas, on may 30th 2023 and, barring any changes from any pending appeals, she's expected to be released two years early in 2032, but she's basically at a country club 100 minimum security, you're able to do pretty much whatever yeah, in 2015 she had the value of 405 I'm sorry4.5 billion.
Speaker 3:Less than one year later, her value went to zero.
Speaker 4:But she led that life man. She still had a that's fucking Vegas baby. She still had a taste of what Lived there for a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just a taste. There's got to be money hidden somewhere too. You would think Somebody has that much.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're not completely broke. They're just put away in offshore accounts.
Speaker 2:She had somebody doing something for her she was over in, like I said in sweden, and novartis and he's come these countries.
Speaker 2:Maybe if you got money over there, you know what I mean that you can move around. I would always think, when you're dealing with this much money and you get charged with a crime, that you have money stashed away. Yeah, and when you get out, like I said, I can see her getting out writing books and doing interviews and, um, like like oh, I did my time, like she did her time, so now it's okay to talk about it. And I feel like with these type crimes too, like people forgive and forget a lot quicker than like a murder or a you know, yeah, that's didn't directly impact it's.
Speaker 4:it's based on big money, dealing with big money.
Speaker 3:It's like voting every four years. It is amazing how short voters memories are, how quickly they forget about people fucking shit up. Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely amazing, fun fact. Fun fact operation ceased in 2018. Fairness was still being issued patents.
Speaker 3:Uh, in well, into 2019, because of the lengthy time it takes to for the application process they were still getting patents it was interesting to see how these, how patents really work. You're really selling the idea by selling. I'm sorry You're applying to secure the idea. You're not giving to the patent office a demonstrated object, you're just sending them blueprints.
Speaker 4:Yeah, does it work or not? They have no clue.
Speaker 2:But the patent seems okay, so we'll, we'll this is the idea behind it, yep.
Speaker 3:Someday it'll come out and it'll be great. You know, a similar example to that Apple at one point, I know, is one I'm sure Samsung was one or somebody else was one had applied for patents years ago for folding screens for phones. Yeah, the tech did not exist, but they knew. But they knew it was going to. So they applied for the patents as soon as it came to their mind. Hey guys, can you wrap it up? Oh man Dang, Well, I guess after no. Thank you, Mrs Dave. Yes, we finally got the chance to finish my God yeah, a long-awaited part two.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a really interesting story that I knew nothing about. Part two yeah, that was a really interesting story that I knew nothing about. I actually missed this totally in the news. Um, like I said when in the first episode, I didn't even know what theranos was I love the financial crimes and I you know what it I.
Speaker 3:I see something like this. I'm gonna jump on it because still to this day, to this day, with all of the technology out there, with all of the internet, all of the social media, all of the social media, all of the sharing of information, somebody is still able to pull off the oldest trick in the book.
Speaker 4:The oldest trick in the book man.
Speaker 3:How could you fall for that man? This is somebody selling. This is a snake oil salesman. We're selling you some tonic that'll cure this. It'll cure rickets. It's better than blackstrap molasses. So where is she at? Again, prison.
Speaker 4:Yes, it's better than blackstrap molasses.
Speaker 3:So where is she at again, prison.
Speaker 2:Yes, but what's the prison called Texas? She's in Brady Bryan, Texas.
Speaker 3:Bryan.
Speaker 4:Texas. Okay, I say we write a letter or get her on because she's able to make phone calls from the minimum security.
Speaker 3:Maybe we can get her to answer questions. I don't know if. I would want to sign her NDA, just to talk to her yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I talked about in the episode. Like there are people that are around her like they were on pins and needles all the time. Like, yeah, I may write her a letter.
Speaker 4:Go for it. I may write a letter and tell her all about the podcast and the basement. Yeah, I mean how we did her story and what's Bowani up to.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't think we talked shit on her or anything like that. No, like, no, no we didn't?
Speaker 4:we all spoke of you with great fun yes, great fun, great, we would love to meet your. Your manly voice is enticing.
Speaker 3:Yes, yours is a channel on pornhub I don't visit. She'd be like how do they know about me?
Speaker 2:she's that girl from um batman, actually batman no, what's her name? She was in, uh in, like romancing the stone, and kathleen turner kathleen turner yeah, she has a deep voice, like that. It's a man, man, man. But you guys had referenced, which now I don't want you to forget to bring it up Yacht Rock.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so thank you, matt, for saying this is it. Yes, if anyone out there has not yet watched it, hbo Max, now just known as Max, is offering a Yacht Rock documentary which is d-o-c-k. You mentory, on the origins and whole story of yacht rock. This is soft rock of the late 70s and early 80s.
Speaker 3:It is phenomenal I gotta see it and, as chance would have it, it is a genre of music I have been listening to for years, thanks to yacht rock, yeah I think, uh, yeah, zap you and you and I have always been fans of this oh my god this genre which, even before it was yeah right, it was just, it was soft rock class or soft soft rock.
Speaker 4:I think they would call it shit we grew up with. Yes, it's, it's soft rock, but it's it just the the story behind it and and when you, if you ever heard of bands like steely dan or um toto, things like that, uh, yeah, just these, michael mcdonald, michael mcdonald logins.
Speaker 3:I was impressed with the incestuous relationship amongst the studio musicians that there are like toto is a great example. Before toto became toto, those guys were just studio musicians. Yes, there are members of toto who have been on an estimated 4 000 albums. You would never know.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you, you don't even know, but they said what? What? 7 200 albums I think they're at with all those guys together. It's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, from toto, from steely dan uh they're just all very good musicians that like when people, oh, we need this type player, they'll bring them in but that's it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they're even. They harken back to like music books that. What was that mich?
Speaker 3:Michael McDonald played, went back.
Speaker 4:He referenced the Harmon music Harmon yeah, harmon music books. Yeah, this is how I I look man, they come up with these riffs from this book that they're reading and, like this stuff works, it's just chord changes. Yeah, it just works.
Speaker 2:I gotta, I gotta check that out. Documentary on doc. Call it the doc.
Speaker 4:You documentary like hawking documentary, you call it doc you, doc you, that's right, but uh, it's a movie coming out on prime video, doc you doc you, but uh, dude, that was an awesome story.
Speaker 2:Uh, we're wrapping up the year here near the end of the year, so we'll back with a few episodes and then, uh, some changes in the new year. We want to really dial this in and do good work, but we hope you're enjoying the podcast. You guys got anything else in closing?
Speaker 3:No, apparently we got to get out of here again before Mrs Dave comes down here and gets us out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but don't forget to go on Spotify. Apple, Leave us a written review. Five-star review on Spotify. Check out our YouTube channel. We're on TikTok. We're on Instagram at Old Dirty Basement.
Speaker 3:And I guess that's it for now.
Speaker 4:So we'll catch you where. On the flip side, if we don't see you sooner, we'll see you later. Peace. Thanks for hanging out in the old, dirty basement. If you dig our theme music, like we do, check out the Tsunami Experiment, find them on Facebook. Their music is available streaming on Spotify and Apple and where great music is available.
Speaker 2:You can find us at Old Dirty Basement on Facebook and Instagram and at Old Dirty Basement Podcast on TikTok. Peace, we outie 5,000.