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| EIGHTEEN |

The Hippocratic Oath

lan Beam, Theranos’s laboratory director, was late to the
party.
A white tent had been set up on basketball courts next to the
old Facebook building, which the company was in the process of
vacating. Music was blaring from big outdoor speakers and lights
projected images of giant pink spiders onto the makeshift dance floor.
The grass field behind the tent was decorated with pumpkins and
bales of hay. As he breathed in the cooling evening air of Palo Alto’s
Indian summer, Alan scanned the costumed crowd and caught sight of
Elizabeth. She was wearing a long velvet dress with gold trim and a big
upright collar, and her blond hair was done up in an elaborate bun.
The irony of her Queen Elizabeth attire wasn’t lost on him. With a net
worth that Forbes had just estimated at $4.5 billion in its October 20,
2014, issue, she had become Silicon Valley royalty.

Elizabeth loved to throw company parties. And none more so than
the one she organized every year for Halloween. It was a Theranos
tradition for which no expense was spared. The company’s senior
executives all played along. Sunny was dressed as an Arab sheik.
Daniel Young was Walter White, the high school chemistry teacher
turned drug dealer from the show Breaking Bad. Christian Holmes
and the Frat Pack were characters from Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill
movies.

Ordinarily stiff and aloof at the office, Elizabeth liked to let loose on
these occasions. At last year’s party, she’d jumped up and down in a