terminal cancer patients.
—
TO BLOW OFF STEAM, Ed went out for beers with Shaunak on Friday
evenings at a raucous sports bar called the Old Pro in Palo Alto. Often,
Gary Frenzel, the head of the chemistry team, would join them.
Gary was a good old boy from Texas. He liked to tell war stories
about his days as a rodeo rider. He’d given up riding and pursued a
career as a chemist after breaking too many bones. Gary loved to
gossip and crack jokes, causing Shaunak to burst into a loud, high-
pitched giggle that was the most ridiculous laugh Ed had ever heard.
The three bonded during these outings and became good friends.
Then one day, Gary stopped coming to the Old Pro. Ed and Shaunak
weren’t sure why at first but they soon had their answer.
In late August 2007, an email went out to Theranos employees to
gather upstairs for a meeting. The company had grown to more than
seventy people. Everyone stopped what he or she was doing and
assembled in front of Elizabeth’s office on the second floor.
The mood was serious. Elizabeth had a frown on her face. She
looked angry. Standing next to her was Michael Esquivel, a sharply
dressed, fast-talking lawyer who had joined Theranos a few months
earlier as its general counsel from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati,
Silicon Valley’s premier law firm.
Esquivel did most of the talking. He said Theranos was suing three
former employees for stealing its intellectual property. Their names
were Michael O’Connell, Chris Todd, and John Howard. Howard had
overseen all research and development and interviewed Ed before he
was hired. Todd was Ed’s predecessor and had led the design of the 1.0
prototype. And O’Connell was an employee who had worked on the 1.0
cartridge until he left the previous summer.
No one was to have any contact with them going forward and all
emails and documents must be preserved, Esquivel instructed. He
would be conducting a thorough investigation to gather evidence with
the assistance of Wilson Sonsini. Then he added something that sent a