{"id":17021,"date":"2023-05-08T02:31:03","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T02:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/08\/elizabeth-holmes-left-to-her-own-devices\/"},"modified":"2023-05-08T02:31:03","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T02:31:03","slug":"elizabeth-holmes-left-to-her-own-devices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/08\/elizabeth-holmes-left-to-her-own-devices\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Holmes, left to her own devices"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Critics are flaming The New York Times today for posting what they says is an overly empathetic 5,500-word profile<\/a> of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes this morning.<\/p>\n

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Nice to be a pretty white lady working your charm on a nyt reporter. https:\/\/t.co\/BTPukyMt9A<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Soledad O\u2019Brien (@soledadobrien) May 7, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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pretty incredible to write a performatively angsty bazillion-word profile of Elizabeth Holmes without ever addressing the certainty that her lies would have killed people if she hadn\u2019t been busted, or the equal certainty that she herself knew this<\/p>\n

\u2014 Albert Burneko (@AlbertBurneko) May 7, 2023<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Here\u2019s the thing: writer Amy Chozick is in on the con. In fact, her story may provide the\u00a0 clearest understanding yet of how Holmes so captivated investors, business partners, and the U.S. media, before The Wall Street Journal finally blew the lid on her company.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not an easy thing to pull off. First, as any reporter can tell you, writing a profile piece that does not feature some degree of puffery is not easy, and profiling someone like Holmes has to be more complicated than most. She hasn\u2019t talked to the media since 2016, and she is a highly persuasive character who managed to make many powerful people bend to her will.<\/p>\n

As former Theranos employee and whistleblower Tyler Shultz told CBS News<\/a> early last year of Holmes, \u201cElizabeth is a very, very charismatic person. When she speaks to you, she makes you feel like you are the most important person in her world in that moment. She almost has this reality distortion field around her that people can just get sucked into.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Chozick might have written a heavier-handed story \u2014 one that people who reflexively read the story might have preferred \u2014 the brilliance of this piece is that she takes the opposite approach. She lets Holmes bury herself.<\/p>\n

Chozick spends time with not only\u00a0 Holmes, her romantic partner, Billy Evans, and their two children, but also Holmes\u2019s parents and others in Holmes\u2019s orbit. Holmes and Evans take Chozick to the beach with their dog, Teddy. They invite her to join them for Mexican food at their quaint rental home on the Pacific coast. They visit the San Diego Zoo together and, in a separate meeting, have croissants and berries and coffee made by Evans. Chozick doesn\u2019t need to mention each of these outings discretely, but by doing so, she let us witness Holmes\u2019s subtle charm campaign as if we were there with her.<\/p>\n

Holmes \u2014 whose prison sentence was recently delayed<\/a> \u2014 grows so confident in Chozick\u2019s presence that she even imagines inventing another Theranos. \u201cI still dream about being able to contribute in that space,\u201d Holmes tells her. \u201cI still feel the same calling to it as I always did and I still think the need is there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The campaign almost works. \u201cI realized that I was essentially writing a story about two different people,\u201d Chozick writes. \u201dThere was Elizabeth, celebrated in the media as a rock-star inventor whose brilliance dazzled illustrious rich men, and whose criminal trial captivated the world. Then there is \u2018Liz,\u2019 (as Mr. Evans and her friends call her), the mom of two who, for the past year, has been volunteering for a rape crisis hotline. Who can\u2019t stomach R-rated movies and who rushed after me one afternoon with a paper towel to wipe a mix of sand and her dog\u2019s slobber off my shoe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The writer is so dazzled by \u201cLiz\u201d and finds her so \u201cnormal\u201d that her editors have to snap her out of her trance, after which she begins to see the picture more clearly.<\/p>\n

Writes Chozick, \u201cI was admittedly swept up in Liz as an authentic and sympathetic person. She\u2019s gentle and charismatic, in a quiet way. My editor laughed at me when I shared these impressions, telling me (and I quote), \u2018Amy Chozick, you got rolled!’\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially, she doubts her editor, saying she is certain she has come to know Holmes in a way that might surprise readers. But then, she adds, \u201csomething very strange happened. I worked my way through a list of Ms. Holmes\u2019s friends, family and longtime supporters, whom she and Mr. Evans suggested I speak to. One of these friends said Ms. Holmes had genuine intentions at Theranos and didn\u2019t deserve a lengthy prison sentence. Then, this person requested anonymity to caution me not to believe everything Ms. Holmes says.\u201d<\/p>\n

At another point, Chozick is understated about seeing behind the artifice, writing, \u201cMs. Holmes\u2019s story of how she got here \u2014 to the bright, cozy house and the supportive partner and the two babies \u2014 feels a lot like the story of someone who had finally broken out of a cult and been deprogrammed. After her relationship with Mr. Balwani ended and Theranos dissolved, Ms. Holmes said, \u2018I began my life again.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then I remember that Ms. Holmes was running the cult.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the story ends, Chozick deliberately marvels at how much more time Holmes and Evans want to spend with her, inviting her to join them and their friends for yet another dinner, asking if her family would like to come back for another date to the zoo. \u201cI appreciated their hospitality,\u201d she writes, \u201cbut I didn\u2019t fully understand it. Usually interview subjects can\u2019t wait to get rid of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then Chozick realizes why they \u201ckeep opening the door wider.\u201d If \u201cyou are in her presence, it is impossible not to believe her, not to be taken with her and be taken in by her.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n