humans have ever built or if you’re cynical, then you should leave,” she
said, reprising the themes of her Christmas speech. Then, while
continuing to look directly at Greg, she singled out Trey, Jordan, and
Ted for special praise. There were some 150 employees assembled and
she could have called out the names of any one of them, but she chose
to commend the three people she knew were his friends. It was a final
public rebuke.
—
IN THE MONTHS after Greg left, the revolving door at Theranos
continued to swing at a furious pace. One of the more surreal incidents
involved a burly software engineer named Del Barnwell. Big Del, as
people called him, was a former Marine helicopter pilot. Sunny was on
his case about not working long-enough hours. He’d gone as far as to
review security footage to track Big Del’s comings and goings and
confronted him in a meeting in his office, claiming the tapes showed
he worked only eight hours a day. “I’m going to fix you,” Sunny told
him, as if Del were a broken toy.
But Big Del didn’t want to be fixed. Shortly after the meeting, he
emailed his resignation notice to Elizabeth’s assistant. He heard
nothing back and dutifully worked the last two weeks of his notice
period. Then, at four p.m. on a Friday, Big Del picked up his
belongings and walked toward the building’s exit. Sunny and Elizabeth
suddenly came running down the stairs behind him. He couldn’t leave
without signing a nondisclosure agreement, they said.
Big Del refused. He’d already signed a confidentiality agreement
when he was hired and, besides, they’d had two weeks to schedule an
exit interview with him. Now he was free to go as he pleased and he
damn well intended to. As he pulled out of the parking lot in his yellow
Toyota FJ Cruiser, Sunny sent a security guard after him to try to stop
him. Big Del ignored the guard and drove off.
Sunny called the cops. Twenty minutes later, a police cruiser quietly
pulled up to the building with its lights off. A highly agitated Sunny
told the officer that an employee had quit and departed with company