Putin's Daughter Gives Up Theranos Dream

A wise woman once asked, “What if we lived in a world in which no one ever has to say goodbye too soon?” Unfortunately, we never got an answer to that question because that woman turned out to be Elizabeth Holmes. So sad. Even worse: Holmes’s heir apparent Dr. Maria Vorontsova won’t be able to open her elite medical center outside of St. Petersburg because her dad Vladimir Putin has been bombing civilians in Ukraine for a month. Plus, Vorontsova’s Dutch-born husband, who is father to her children (Putin’s grandchildren), left her. Why do people hate to see women in STEM thriving?

Born to Putin and Lyudmila Putina, Dr. Vorontsova kept a low-profile for the first 36 years of her life, though her and her sister’s identity has long been an “open secret,” according to the Sun. Vorontsova, who uses her grandmother’s surname, is an expert on genetic diseases in children at the National Medical Research Center for Endocrinology of the Ministry of Health of Russia, according to the Mirror. She’s seen her dream of opening a “money-spinning elite medical center for super rich foreigners in Russia” flushed down the tubes since Papa started the war.

The Mirror spoke to exiled Russian investigative journalist Sergey Kanev who explained, “The plans were to attract patients from Europe and rich sheikhs from the Persian Gulf countries. And now, after the attack on Ukraine, what kind of Europeans and sheikhs will come?”

Valid questions, of course, but I hate to see the good Russian doctor take a knock after one tiny PR setback like this. She’s her own person. She was born to do this. As a wall in the state-of-the-art Theranos lobby once said, “Do. Or do not. There is no try. -Yoda.”