I

| TWELVE |

Ian Gibbons

an Gibbons was the first experienced scientist Elizabeth had hired
after launching Theranos. He came recommended by her Stanford
mentor, Channing Robertson. Ian and Robertson had met at
Biotrack in the 1980s, where they had invented and patented a new
mechanism to dilute and mix liquid samples.

From 2005 to 2010, Ian led Theranos’s chemistry work alongside
Gary Frenzel. Ian, who had joined the startup first, was initially senior
to Gary. But Elizabeth soon inverted their roles because Gary had
better people skills, which made him a smoother manager. The two of
them cut quite a contrast—Ian, the reserved Englishman with a wry
sense of humor, and Gary, the garrulous former rodeo rider who spoke
with a Texas twang. But they had a good relationship grounded in
their respect for each other as scientists and would sometimes roast
each other in meetings.

Ian fit the stereotype of the nerdy scientist to a T. He wore a beard
and glasses and hiked his pants high above his waist. He could spend
hours on end analyzing data and took copious notes documenting
everything he did at work. This meticulousness carried over to his
leisure time: he was an avid reader and kept a list of every single book
he’d read. It included Marcel Proust’s seven-volume opus,
Remembrance of Things Past, which he reread more than once.

Ian and his wife, Rochelle, had met in the early 1970s at Berkeley.
He had come over from England to do a postdoctorate fellowship in
the university’s department of molecular biology, where Rochelle was