Beyond the Memes: Unpacking the Rise and Fall of Elizabeth Holmes

Because they didn't really believe the great story that they were hearing and they were perhaps more sophisticated at evaluating that particular kind of company. She also stacked the company with this really illustrious board, Jim Mattis, who went on to be the Defense Secretary, Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, that she kind of borrowed from a Stanford center that those people were all fellows at. And I think that was able to kind of lend her some additional credibility as she went to other investors and other folks to sell the vision that she had, which indeed was compelling. It just wasn't backed up by true technological achievement at that time. I think what you're mentioning or kind of hitting on is that it kind of became like a word of mouth thing. It seems like one person who is able to invest says, hey, I've got this really great up and coming technology and I just invested a bunch of money, maybe you should too. But I want to kind of drill down on how was she able to do this without the technology working. I mean, is it, was it her personality? Was she like, was what was so special about her that, you know, I guess A, gave her the confidence to go out and just pitch asked for people's money and then B, made her credible or seem credible to all these investors. Was there something about her? Yeah, you know, she, she was obviously very effective at kind of like bringing people into her, you know, into her kind of worldview. And she was, you know, she was able to convince a lot of really powerful people, you know those board members I mentioned. Yeah. Some of the corporate executives who either invested or partnered with her, you know, David Boies, her lawyer at the time, to kind of buy into that vision. And you know, she struck a very compelling figure. Like the youngest, you know, female self made billionaire at the time. And she was a, you know, she was like a. She was compared to Steve Jobs at one point. I think she was compared to Steve Jobs. And she, and she did a lot to invite that comparison. Right. If you remember like the black turtle. Yes. And the kind of like, like they tightly pulled back hair and sort of like sort of replicated the vibe. And you know, it was, it was, it was really convincing to a lot of people. And you know, we heard even, even outside of those people who sort of publicly, you know, back the company, we heard from a lot of people who really believed in that technology before my colleague John Carrey, Rus story on it kind of pierced the veil. Well, you're.