Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos are once again in the news*: Theranos CEO and former president charged with massive fraud
The interesting thing is that while a settlement has been reached, I don’t think we know anything more today about the much vaunted Theranos technology than we did in 2016 when I wrote Going through the motions.
However, while we still don’t really know the details behind the deception, this seems like a good time to revisit how Holmes came to become a famous billionaire in the first place. For some reason you won’t find much on this in the recent news stories. For example, CNN released an article today titled The rise and fall of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. But while the CNN article notes that she dropped out of Stanford to start the company in 2003, the timeline in the article doesn’t start until 2014.
Thankfully there are still stories around from 2014 and 2015 when the press was touting Holmes as the feminist heroine of the century. While there is still a huge gap between the founding of the company and 2014, the older articles do cover how she came to launch her own company at age 19. From the 2014 article The Dropout Who Became A CEO, And The Professor Who Became Her Employee we learn that Holmes attended Stanford after graduating high school. As she was just beginning her studies she imagined herself using what she was learning to change the world:
The inspiration to start a business came from Holmes taking Robertson’s freshman seminar on advanced drug-delivery devices. This, and a summer internship at the Genome Institute in Singapore, spawned her idea of a patch that would dispense a drug while monitoring a patient’s blood, as well as sending the results to the patient and doctor.
Dr. Channing Robertson was a professor and dean at Stanford. When he looked into the pretty young coed’s eyes he felt something very special:
I realized I could have just as well been looking into the eyes of a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates.
Inc’s 2015 piece How Playing the Long Game Made Elizabeth Holmes a Billionaire describes the magic moment slightly differently, presenting Holmes’ freshman fantasy as if it were a real invention (emphasis mine):
The summer before her sophomore year, she worked at the Genome Institute of Singapore, doing SARS testing with traditional methods, like nasal swabs. At Stanford, she’d been exploring lab-on-a-chip technology, which enables diverse results to be extracted from a minuscule amount of liquid on a microchip. By the time she returned to California in 2003, Holmes had developed a novel drug-delivery device–a wearable patch, or an ingestible, that could adjust dosage according to variables in the patient’s blood and update doctors wirelessly. She filed it for her first patent. “It was not only bold, but also remarkable in terms of its engineering and scientific integrity,” says Robertson.
The Inc piece says Holmes was only 19 when she hired Robertson as an adviser and hired a number of his students to develop… something. Exactly what Holmes dropped out of college to create is a mystery. The Inc piece speculates that the original intent was to invent what Holmes had ostensibly already invented, but somewhere along the way they decided it wasn’t feasible and switched to revolutionizing blood testing:
Theranos won’t share many details about those early days, but it seems to have been trying to build on the wearable-patch patent that had so impressed Robertson.
Robertson was just the first of many prominent older men who looked into Holmes’ eyes and felt something special, and this allowed Holmes to raise hundreds of millions of dollars. The money in turn allowed her to acquire office space and hire scientists, and kept her swimming in lab coats and black turtlenecks. But after over a decade of confidently dressing like Steve Jobs, her ability to create that special feeling was no longer enough. Ultimately it all fell apart.
*H/T Deti.
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Dal, it’s not such a mystery on what happened between 2003-2014…
Watching the video at Heartiste,
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2018/03/14/the-queerness-of-the-female-ceo/
You can ‘see’ it in her crazy eyes. She’s probably one of the few women who’ve ever ridden a purely STEM carousel, until she graduated to the VC carousel. That’s got to be some sort of record. Wonder how many BS,MS,ME,PhD she ‘dazzled’ with her “engineering and scientific integrity”
Watching the video at Heartiste,
I almost thought the first few seconds of the voice was a deliberate distortion. But that is her real voice!
Could have been worse, they could have let her design a bridge
At least Liz only killed a few pension funds and careers.
Oops, meant to post
My bad
Mmmmmm! Pussy Power!
How that deep voice and those bugged out crazy eyes could win anyone over is beyond me.
Yeah can you imagine having the lights out with her and hearing James Earl Jones voice saying “give it to me, give it to me HARDER!”
Your welcome for that visual!
That black turtleneck sweater though….
I realized I could have just as well been looking into the eyes of a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates.
I stopped laughing derisively at the Stanford professor and dean that made this statement about a 19 year old chick long enough to look up who the other old men were that looked into her eyes. That turns out to be quite the list of luminaries.
http://fortune.com/2015/10/15/theranos-board-leadership/
Is this tradCON white knighting on steroids looking for Empath’s “Lift” from a young woman, or did these men know a good scam when they saw one and wanted to get in on it?
I don’t know. I’m busy lining this new hat with tin foil.
But the glass ceiling! She must have broken some glass ceiling or other.
Wait, I know: she madeoff with enough money to buy her own glass ceiling, and have it installed as a floor.
The video is … interesting. At first, what with the art-history student AKA Steve Jobs look I thought that her voice was dubbed. Then I noticed she doesn’t blink for the first minute, and wondered if Disney had come up with a new Princess, “LIzzie of Silly Valley” and this was an animatron. Like Pirates of the Carib. But, no, it appears to be an actual carbon-unit type human of one sex or the other. Complete with bleached hair and blue eyes.
Well, hundreds of millions of dollars vanished, but at least she wasn’t held back by Teh Patriarchy!
No way we are at peak feminism.
“Robertson was just the first of many prominent older men who looked into Holmes’ eyes and felt something special, and this allowed Holmes to raise hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Moral of the story: Don’t think with your genitals.
Conservatives have done the same thing with how they throw money at tradthots rather than right-wing men who do actual thinking.
Aaron Clarey did a video a while ago on this.
Inc. should be charged as an accessory in the fraud case.
The Spanx lady is probably laughing her head off.
The wearable patch idea is not so different from things in many science fiction stories all written at least 40 years before she was born.
Dalrock, they are talking about this over at Bloomberg:
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/theranos-misled-investors-and-consumers-who-used-its-blood-test
I mean the concept is great, a pin prick of blood at your local Walgreens for diagnostics and we can tell you everything. The fact that the whole thing was some great Music Man scam is awful (especially because this put people’s lives in jeopardy.) Yes, there absolutely would have been much more scrutiny if it were a man and not a woman founding this company. But never under estimate the feminist imperative power of the dark side.
She needs to do time in jail. At $500,000 she is getting off so easy. She will never do time, but she needs to do time.
Dang I’ve seen manjaws and heard slightly deeper voiced women…but that was almost comical.
Donald Trump Jr.’s wife Vanessa frivorce’s him: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/donald-trump-jr-s-wife-files-divorce-article-1.3876829
Cheque d’Out, regarding your bridge article:
Said Leonor: “It’s very important for me as a woman and an engineer to be able to promote that to my daughter, because I think women have a different perspective. We’re able to put in an artistic touch and we’re able to build, too.”
True. Women do have “a different perspective” on building bridges. Women want bridges that look pretty — what she calls “an artistic touch.” Men want bridges that don’t collapse.
@RPL, you’re mansplaining. Remedial diversity training for you!
It should be obvious to all that Ms. Leonor is correct. It’s not like men ever do anything artistic.
Elizabeth Holmes really does have crazy eyes. And her voice is even worse than Lauren Southern’s.
@The Question: “Conservatives have done the same thing with how they throw money at tradthots rather than right-wing men who do actual thinking.”
She had a scientist as a partner who left a few years ago (I’m not going to look up the specifics but they are available). From what I was reading back then, it seemed that he did the work. He was the Wozniak to her Jobs. She may have had ideas, but early reading seemed to suggest that he was the one with the smarts to turn the ideas into tangible products.
Everything seemed to go to hell in a handbasket after the scientist left. So – it is possible that the early money-throwers were throwing money at the one who did the thinking (invested because they trusted the scientist). And the scientist maybe left because he took the project(s) far enough to prove that what she dreamed of couldn’t be turned into reality – or at least not at a low-enough cost point to make the product sellable.
Imagine the thought process one would go through in realizing that you have ideas, but you need the scientist to make them happen – and he just left. Talk about facing a “the emperor has no clothes” moment. So she started spinning, to keep from exposing the truth of her (lack of) abilities. And I believe that is when the fraud began. Up to that point, the money was legitimately being used to try to bring an idea to life. The fraud began when she continued to raise money for that purpose after it was clear that the idea couldn’t be brought to market.
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Rock (and the rest of you, I guess), the play on Theranos was always to drag it across the finish line to an IPO. Always. She was running around telling people the testing regimen was already on the battlefield and DOD had barely had time to look into it. Domestically however, the little people at DOD Med declared the tests not efficient enough to deploy. Also, infections and pathogens over there weren’t programmed into Theranos’ gear and so a further degradation. Meanwhile, Walgreens was asking for re-takes with conventional blood samples and commercial testing because THEY were almost immediately sued for shortcomings in their testing with Theranos’ methods and equipment. The whole thing was viewed industry-wide as not viable and yet she was still out there scamming the likes of George Schultz, Rumsfeld and others of similar goy wealth and also going for an IPO on NASDAQ or S&P, not sure which, both were vying to have her on their exchange. In fact Colin Powell was enlisted (heh) to pressure Michael Flynn at the time, around 2011, to get the little people to alter past perceptions and grant the battlefield contract because they were, even then edging close to putting the IPO together. . Every call Flynn made, they kicked back, they said Theranos’ methods didn’t work. She told a lot of lies during those years 2010 and 2016, broke dozens of SEC regs, she really should have done 5 years. Her partner, some Indian finance guy, he’s doing a stretch.
As recently as May 2016, Hillary’s election ‘in the bag’, Holmes and Chelsea Hubbell and Hillary Clinton and Huma were BFFs, running around classrooms showing themselves to be successful women. It was around then it got out that Chelsea was a tax cheat, Elizabeth Holmes was exposed for Theranos, Huma’s husband blew up with another pervert scandal and Huma’s email on his pervert-pc. Best of all, Hillary lost. But all of these women would have been propped up had Hillary won. That’s what’s so sickening about all this. Decades they’ve had, every opportunity and women in this here feminist society haven’t created a damned thing I can think of, and yet, we’re to pretend.
Lost Patrol — “Is this tradCON white knighting on steroids looking for Empath’s “Lift” from a young woman, or did these men know a good scam when they saw one and wanted to get in on it?”
The first certainly, the second possibly, so to short-sell any company entering into affiliation with her.
But it’s more. In college I had a girlfriend, young and good looking. Vivacious and gregarious.
Anyway, she lived in a nice two bedroom apt. just down the road from University. Prime. When I asked her about money, she bluntly said the place belonged to a certain man, an older, successful defense atty. in a lucrative field, da wink. As I gradually learned, she had an entire orbit of these older men, some in their fifties and sixties, many in the legal field, where a family member was notable in that city.
It didn’t come to sex — not with those guys, anyway — or anything overt. Most of these doods were thrilled merely to be seen at a well-known restaurant or bar in the city with her. Cloud nine. Sometimes I even went with her; often there was a group of ‘beautiful people’ and her moneybags invariably picked up the hefty tab.
Point being, although I find Ms. Holmes a cleverish zombie, with prominent insectoid features, MANY men in financial and other circles would find her close attention and accompaniment a huge feather in their portfolio. As has been pointed out by many herein, American men are frozen in a desperate state concerning women, tremendously needy and thirsty. Not just for sex, but for some kind of validation that should come to them instead from God.
Likewise as this site has documented, this pan-cultural submissiveness and neediness of men defines American culture, especially the churches. When Christ arrives he will expect, as directed in Malachi 4, for both Christians and Hebrews to have made evidenced efforts to obey His command to support and defend the bond of dads and their children. The reason is because this is a foundational stone of his coming Kingdom. Those that work against this are servants of Jezebel and children of Baal. Those that just do nothing, He will spit out.
Whether collectively or individually, if this restoration isn’t at least initiated, those who made no true efforts will be in trouble, moreso for those profiting from, or celebrating in, the father-led family destruction. It’ll be one of those deals where He starts asking questions but doesn’t expect answers.
ray, it seems the whole country has turned into Hollywood, with every woman a bimbo.
Back in the 1980s, when I was in my 20s and of modest means, living in Los Angeles, I knew a young aspiring actress. She had no money and no real credits. But she was invited to fancy parties and free travel.
Once, she told me about having been invited to a party at the French embassy (as she put it — it was more likely a consulate). Another time, she’d been invited to tour Europe with “a friend” (a man). Not her “boyfriend,” just “a friend.”
She was less an actress than an ornament. Invited places because she looked pretty. I’m sure many of the men who paid for her expenses didn’t get sex (though some did).
Yes, many men will pay just to be in the presence of a pretty young bimbo, even if she is dumb as a … well, a bimbo.
Related concerning wealthy, empowered Western women —
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5501803/Cate-Blanchett-reveals-got-PENIS-FACIAL.html
source: http://www.dailycrow.com/
I’m reminded of Arrested Development, Season 4.
“Fakeblock”
“I realized I could have just as well been looking into the eyes of a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates.”
Funny thing, when professors looked into the eyes of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, they saw “loser dropout, can’t finish what he started”.
It isn’t just investors chasing tail. Money is getting flushed down the strangest drains these days. Silicon Valley is about to have a serious case of “market correction”, as the economists say. I know it because executives are using their VC money to purchase $350 hobby chickens. If they don’t have a better use for cash, for example hiring Americans instead of H1b wage slaves, then it’s fallout shelter time.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/03/02/feature/the-silicon-valley-elites-latest-status-symbol-chickens/?utm_term=.51d6ff87cdab
“In true Silicon Valley fashion, chicken owners approach their birds as any savvy venture capitalist might: By throwing lots of money at a promising flock…
“At Amazon, whenever we build anything we write the press release first and decide what we want the end to be and I bring the same mentality to the backyard chickens,” said Ken Price, the director of Amazon Go, who spent a decade in San Francisco before moving to Seattle. Price, 49, has had six chickens over the past eight years and is already “succession planning” for his next “refresh.”
“We’re moving toward a more sustainable cost structure,” he noted — zeroing in on the chickens that produce the most eggs with the least feed. … All of it happens in cutting-edge coops, with exorbitant veterinarian bills and a steady diet of organic salmon, watermelon and steak.”
I’m also waiting for the other shoe to drop on Elon Musk. Every time I watch the lamestream media polish Musk’s rod, I wonder who he’s laundering money or launching satellites for. He’s too well-funded, famous and popular with the “right” people to be legit. He’d make the best Bond movie villain ever and the truth would probably be stranger.
…
RichardP @ 8:25 pm:
“She had a scientist as a partner who left a few years ago (I’m not going to look up the specifics but they are available).”
I tried to look him up but didn’t find a likely name. Here’s something interesting, though. Now-SecDef Mattis was on the board of directors for Theranos, resigning only to take his office under Trump.
How did he get posted to Trump’s Cabinet with a resume stain like that? “I was on the Board of PonziCorp for several years but had no idea the entire company was fraudulent. I’m qualified to be the #2 commander of the U.S. military.”
@RichardP – if memory serves me, that head scientist rang the alarm bells in frustration (because the technology didn’t work) and ended up committing suicide.
http://www.businessinsider.com/theranos-ceo-elizabeth-holmes-employee-death-2016-9
“Gibbons, who was named chief scientist by Holmes in 2005, had grown increasingly vocal about the inaccuracies of Theranos’ technology, according to Vanity Fair.
In May 2013, Gibbons received a phone call and was told Holmes wanted to meet with him the next day. Fearing he was about to be fired, Gibbons attempted to kill himself, according to Vanity Fair.
When Gibbons died a week later, Holmes’ reaction was cold, according to Gibbons’ wife, Rochelle. Here’s how Vanity Fair tells it:
“When Rochelle called Holmes’s office to explain what had happened, the secretary was devastated and offered her sincere condolences. She told Rochelle Gibbons that she would let Holmes know immediately. But a few hours later, rather than a condolence message from Holmes, Rochelle instead received a phone call from someone at Theranos demanding that she immediately return any and all confidential Theranos property.”
Yeh exactly RPL, constant stream of freebies and attention, from teens to late-twenties probly. My experience also took place in the Eighties. She was twenty two. I’d been in the military, got to uni late, this ornament stuff was alien gook.
The girl was also intelligent (passed bar on first leap) and fun, thus in great demand in a major city, bright bauble as you say. I just stood back and watched the whole scene, felt like I’d grown up in a cornpatch.
Add this ‘instant celebrity’ of females to fifty years of Protected Class favoritism, you have a female-dominated, fatherless, spiritually hollow nation, economically fragile, culturally bereft, of shattered and divided families and factions. Chaos in the houses, chaos in the streets.
A situation like this motivates me to drive to the Forest Shed and fetch out Special, the internationally famed ChipMaster 220 — pound for pound, perhaps as fine a chipper as ever was engineered. Special Baby has the jumbo-load injector with optional Trailer Hitch component for expeditious projects. Mine also has mags but they were extra.
Over the years I have grown fond of ‘Baby’ and even the wife is patient about my hobby. She even helped me found the Little Chippers Club, so as to train up the next generation in grounds clearance and remediation. Also Chip Off the Old Block, for adults. Hokey, but, whatever.
The Trailer Attachment really helps as there are so many areas to cover. ChipMaster makes other practical products as well.
I’m pretty sure that I’m traumatized by watching ten seconds of that video.
But after over a decade of confidently dressing like Steve Jobs, her ability to create that special feeling was no longer enough.
I’d say it was more down to the fact that she hit the wall and didn’t have the ability to create that special feeling at all any more.
Wait a second… with that voice, and the choice of turtle neck to conceal the adam’s apple, isn’t it possible that she’s not a she? College professors were gushing over afterall…
I just watched the Elizabeth Holmes video. She appears lifeless. A rubbery face, bobbing as she speaks, tilting first left, then right.
She resembles one of those life-size animatronics you see in a Disneyland or Disney World ride.
As I recall Ian Gibbons the scientist who abandoned Theranos and was then suicided was English – funny the way scientists and for no apparent reason choose to top themselves – I am thinking of another English scientist David Kelly who at least according to the Coroner ended his life at the same time the then British Prime Minister was under pressure over the Iraq Dossier. No witness, no suicide note, no motive – just like Mark’s friends the Shermans – the late Mr Sherman also having been a scientist. Am I beginning to sense a pattern here?
It is not just in science that men fall for a pretty face – the sudden rise and from nowhere of any number of female Conductors at a time when funding depends on ticking equality boxes raises the suspicion that we are seeing some form of orchestral casting couch.
Don’t get me on the subject of the female members of the Judiciary (and in England Judges are not democratically elected). Expect more #metoo from the uber-privileged.
Lets do some math, 19 in 2003 plus 12 to get to 2015 equals 31.
That sound you heard was somebody hitting A Wall.
The thought crossed my mind.
@ White Guy
Watched part of the video, initially I thought weird, then began to wonder what was so unsettling to me. Eventually I realised, large eyes, but she hardly blinks when she’s looking ahead. I timed a couple of sections and she blinks every 15-20 seconds which seems an extraordinarily long time when the average is normally 6-10 seconds.
She was a lightly connected HB8 that made it to Stanford with a lot of ambition.
I can actually quote myself from the post 2 years ago:
“For all of the storytelling, she was good at raising VC funds, which is a skill unto itself. However, as a low-20s blonde-haired White Woman, does it REALLY take people that much effort to figure out how she managed to raise funds so quickly? A roll in the hay with the right connections (which she already had access to via friends’ family) can go a long way in Silicon Valley. Especially when she’s a solid 10 compared to most Women in Tech/VC.”
The Vanity Fair piece on the disaster points to all of the original funding going to a project that got killed somewhere around 2006-2007. It was the drug delivery device, more than likely. They decided to switch up to a blood testing & bought some IP in the area. Then they hired some scientists working in the area.
Neither ended up being functional, but Holmes & some inner circle clearly thought they could get the tech working. They just needed “time” to get it there. The technology doesn’t work. Capillary blood introduces too many issues to properly measure what you’re after within the blood testing. Which means the company should have folded in 2013 or so, as a failed venture. Everyone writes off a large loss and moves on. That’s when the crimes came up.
However, this would have been an UGLY case to put before a jury. Especially in the last funding round, the VCs didn’t do their due diligence. Depending what was put in emails and/or recorded, the SEC would have spent millions and gotten only a similar result. (Plus, did anyone really want the long history of the VCs she slept with being business news for 2+ months? You sometimes wonder if pressure from “connections” happens so all of the connected aren’t horribly embarrassed.)
…The money in turn allowed her to acquire office space and hire scientists, and kept her swimming in lab coats and black turtlenecks. But after over a decade of confidently dressing like Steve Jobs, her ability to create that special feeling was no longer enough….
That was gold.
@ ray
I’m familiar with the concept of “orbiters”, the young men that flock (bullseye pun) around a good looking female seeking affirmation of any kind from her, and performing all manner of service projects for her to get it. No doubt I was quite the unknowing orbiter myself while imagining I was a party of one.
I had not given any thought to old man orbiters. Not much different it seems, except that they probably have more money available to keep the wheels turning.
Wow,
I just listened to the very start of that video. It sounds like she is about to go to sleep and/or is really a guy. Amazing.
It seems as though only the technology and educational levels have changed since Anita Loos wrote “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” in 1925.
She was a lightly connected HB8 that made it to Stanford with a lot of ambition.
Eight????? Maybe at age 19, but come on.
Did you see the video linked here (and at Heartiste)? Gag!
I knew something was up when the press kept serlling us how “brilliant” she was….and then when asked about Theranos and this “amazing” technology that she invented “all by herself” and then the conversations focusing more on “women in STEM” and “her being an inspiration for millions and millions of girls who want to be scientists but can’t because mean boys wont let them”
and of course the “she is so beautiful” thing
What I don’t understand after all of this is:
Why are we supposed to feel sorry for her? ALl the stories make it out with the slant that is was just “so unfortunate”
People were defrauded money. People were straight up lierd to. VC firms lost billions.
In my IBM days in the Silicon Valley……..I met Tim Koogle once at a party probably back in 2000 (CEO of Yahoo). He mentioned offhand that “adults still need to be adults in this new industry that is run by children”
Where were the “adults” in all of this?
@Anon:
At 20, she was roughly an 8. She was situationally even higher than that. She’s a lightyear from that point, now. And it’s also very possible she was/is taking some lighter amount of testosterone not to attempt a transition but to absorb the damage the stress has done.
The Genius of da Feminists movementsz
is dat it rewards
“the only men in the room”
who teach game
over
God
zllozozozozozozo
It is a curious fact about scams that whilst few have the foresight to spot them (and if they do are silenced by the Laws as to Defamation) in hindsight they seem sooooooooo obvious.
It’s a given that whenever the press does that with any woman, that it’s simply a case of spinning “the narrative”. Given that newspaper sales are in the toilet and ratings for TV news of all flavors are down, it would appear that the masses are aware that plenty of lies are being told.
In the “current year” not being a porker adds at least three points to a woman’s “score”. During more normal times she would have been a 5 at best, in her prime. But yeah, when you watch her in the videos, she comes across as being very unfeminine. Perhaps that’s what turns on low Testosterone soy boys these days?
When you think about it, what is an “orbiter” from a woman’s perspective? It’s a man she does not find attractive but who is a resource. Young orbiters who don’t have money do favors for her: fix her car, drop her off at the airport, pick a package up for her, pet sit for her while she vacations with someone else, etc. Old orbiters write checks, pay the rent, buy her a car, help her get jobs, take her to fancy parties and on pricey trips (she probably gets to fly first class), etc.
The older ones are more valuable, but are also yuckier. Still, spreading her legs once in a blue moon can be very lucrative. The real trick is to keep her side Chad hidden from daddy warbucks,
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I understand the appeal of being an orbiter.
Back in the 1990s, I got tickets to free screenings at the major studios. I’d invite pretty young aspiring actresses to accompany me. I knew they often weren’t interested in me, or even in the film, but merely wanted to get on the Fox lot or Paramount lot. Maybe for no other reason than to humblebrag to her girlfriend the next day, “I’m sorry I couldn’t return your call last night, but I was attending a screening at Universal.”
It does feel good, having a pretty young woman on your arm. It feels better than going alone. So in a sense, we used each other. Even if there’s no sex, I still got value being accompanied by them.
I was an experienced enough Beta that often I didn’t expect sex. I knew what I was giving, and what I was getting.
Some men actually pay for no-sex escorts. Tons of escort services in Los Angeles, and I suppose some are legit (i.e., not prostitutes). All I had to pay was a free ticket, a free ride, and maybe a free dinner.
Anon says:
Eight????? Maybe at age 19, but come on.
Eight is Britney Spears in her prime. Ms. Holmes might have been half that on the best day of her life. The video of her speaking is downright off-putting.
@Frank K:
Not even “current year” issues. I can’t find it now, but for a Woman that could get into Stanford and handle technical details in STEM (without looking like a joke), she looked pretty good at between 19-21. Given the situational position, she was rolling the attention a 10 would get.
Realize, this was before the cocaine (that’s probably the reason for the voice), low SMV funding carousel and one of the nastier cases of hitting the Wall while being under SEC investigation. Even the photos from the last 2 years show massive changes.
Though the argument about where should would have ranked as a Co-ed doesn’t matter. She’d been rolling in both attention and massive ability to use that attention. If they didn’t start lying about the viability of the technology, she wouldn’t be in this position.
I’ve seen it time and again myself and if I’m honest, I know the draw of having that up-and-coming attractive gal as your protege. Everywhere I’ve been from college through several companies its the same story. Some perfectly capable young woman becomes the department head’s pet project for simply doing her job like the rest of us. Even if they moved on to other companies those guys would stay in touch with them and make a point to meet up at conferences or for dinner when working on the same project on different teams. if her name came up in conversation they’d gush over what a great engineer she is.
I don’t recall ever hearing them do anything remarkable other than their jobs. They are like work “trophy wives”. Even after 10 years it was like these senior guy’s main mission at conferences to track them down and catch up.
And, of course, they would get the above average set of in-comany and in-work association awards or recognition for doing their jobs somehow better than everyone else was doing the same thing.
This sort of thing has happened before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Century_Motor_Car_Corporation
Back before it was “celebrated” he was taking hormones to make himself look like a woman in order to get the money from men who wanted the story to be real.