Erika agreed that it was worth a try.
When they got there, however, it quickly became apparent to Tyler
that his grandfather’s allegiance to Theranos had strengthened in the
intervening hours. As the Shultzes’ household staff waited on them,
Tyler and Erika ran through the list of their concerns, but only
George’s wife, Charlotte, seemed receptive to what they were saying.
She kept asking them in a shocked tone of voice to repeat various parts
of their story.
George, on the other hand, was unmoved. Tyler had noticed how
much he doted on Elizabeth. His relationship with her seemed closer
than their own. Tyler also knew that his grandfather was passionate
about science. Scientific progress would make the world a better place
and save it from such perils as pandemics and climate change, he often
told his grandson. This passion seemed to make him unable to let go of
the promise of Theranos.
George said a top surgeon in New York had told him the company
was going to revolutionize the field of surgery and this was someone
his good friend Henry Kissinger considered to be the smartest man
alive. And according to Elizabeth, Theranos’s devices were already
being used in medevac helicopters and hospital operating rooms, so
they must be working.
Tyler and Erika tried to tell him that couldn’t possibly be true given
that the devices were barely working within the walls of Theranos. But
it was clear they weren’t making any headway. George urged them to
put the company behind them and to move on with their lives. They
both had bright futures ahead, he told them. They left the dinner
frustrated, with little choice but to follow his advice.
The next morning, Erika quit too. She wrote up a short resignation
letter and gave it to Mark Pandori to pass on to Elizabeth and Sunny.
It said she disagreed with running patient samples on the Edisons and
that she didn’t think she and the company shared “the same standards
in patient care and quality.” After taking a look at it, Mark gave it back
to her and recommended she leave quietly without making waves.
Erika thought about it for a moment and decided he was probably
right. She folded the letter back up and put it in her backpack. But