As his new lawyer saw it, Alan didn’t have much of a choice.
Theranos could make a case that his actions did breach his
confidential obligations. And even if it failed to do so, it could tie him
up in court for months, if not years. This was one of the most valuable
private companies in Silicon Valley, one of the fabled unicorns. Its
financial resources were virtually limitless. The litigation could
bankrupt him. Did he really want to take that risk?
His lawyer was getting pressure from a Boies Schiller partner who
was representing Theranos and she was clearly intimidated. She urged
Alan to delete the emails and to sign the affidavit. She told him she
would send Theranos a preservation order instructing it to keep the
originals. There was no assurance the company would honor it, but
that was the best they could do, she said.
That evening, Alan glumly sat down at his computer in his
apartment in Santa Clara and logged into his Gmail account. One by
one, he erased the emails. By the time he was done, he’d counted 175
of them.
—
IT HAD BEEN nine months since Richard Fuisz had settled with
Theranos and agreed to withdraw his patent, but he was still
consumed with the case. For the first few weeks after the settlement,
he’d been nearly catatonic. His wife, Lorraine, had had to call his son
Joe to find out what had happened because he refused to talk about it.
During the litigation, Fuisz had found a friendly ear in Phyllis
Gardner, a longtime friend who was a professor at Stanford’s medical
school. Phyllis and her husband, Andrew Perlman, had briefly been
involved with Theranos during its infancy because Elizabeth had
consulted Phyllis about her original patch idea when she dropped out
of Stanford. After telling her she didn’t think her concept was remotely
feasible, Phyllis had referred Elizabeth to Andrew, a veteran biotech
industry executive. Andrew had agreed to serve on a short-lived
Theranos advisory board that Elizabeth had dissolved after just a few
months.