NYT: Elizabeth Holmes Was Just Pegging the Patriarchy
You would prosecute this woman for the crime of being a woman who did crime?
The sorority girls and one man at Gawker often wake up and wonder: When will “a charismatic woman with a compelling vision, actually [be] able to raise huge amounts of funding at astronomic valuations?”
To that end, we are in sync with Ellen Pao, the former venture capitalist and CEO of Reddit, who wrote a New York Times opinion piece on Thursday titled “The Sexism That Led to the Elizabeth Holmes Trial.” As Pao sees it, the Theranos founder, who is currently on trial for 12 federal charges related to wire fraud and may face up to 20 years in prison, has fallen victim to the glass ceiling for white collar crime.
“Elizabeth Holmes followed the Silicon Valley playbook to a T,” begins Pao, who stepped down as CEO of Reddit in 2015, following an outcry over the termination of a widely-admired (woman) administrator named Victoria Taylor. Holmes was “focused and ambitious.” She “fit the pattern of the young, brilliant college dropout, even dressing like Steve Jobs.” She had “a compelling vision to help humanity.” Here’s how Pao recalls her rise:
When she founded the unconventional blood-testing company Theranos in 2003, I was relieved to see a woman finally benefit from the hyperbole that dominates venture investing, a world I worked in for nine years, total. Why shouldn’t a woman show the same single-minded confidence that her male peers did? By 2015, Ms. Holmes raised more than $400 million in financing and Theranos was valued at $9 billion. At last, I thought: a charismatic woman with a compelling vision, actually able to raise huge amounts of funding at astronomic valuations.
At last, someone had convinced Henry Kissinger, Jim Mattis, and Bill Frist to fork over seed funding for a product as medically viable as John Brinkley’s goat nut transplants. Many men had lied and over-promised their way to startup money and Forbes coverage before her, but she was the only one brave enough to put real human lives at risk, allegedly. That’s a win for women everywhere.
Why is it that Holmes faces incarceration, while WeWork grifter Adam Neumann gets to eat pizza in the Hamptons? Good question. But it appears federal prosecutors are not ready to have that conversation as they take on Elizabeth Holmes for the crime of doing it better than the boys.
