spite of everything my reporting had revealed. He and Tyler hadn’t
seen each other for the better part of a year and they communicated
only through lawyers. The previous December, the Shultzes had
hosted a party at a penthouse apartment they owned in San Francisco
to celebrate George’s ninety-fifth birthday. Holmes had attended, but
not Tyler.
Tyler had heard through his parents that his grandfather continued
to believe in the promise of Theranos. In a complete about-face after
years of intense secrecy, Holmes was going to unveil the inner
workings of her technology at the American Association for Clinical
Chemistry’s annual meeting on August 1, 2016. George believed that
her presentation would silence the doubters. Tyler didn’t understand
why he couldn’t see through her lies. What would it take for him to
finally accept the truth?
As we parted, Tyler thanked me for doggedly pursuing the story. He
pointed out that Theranos had consumed the past four years of his life
dating back to his summer internship at the company between his
junior and senior years in college. I thanked him in turn for helping
me get the story out and for withstanding the immense pressure under
which he had been placed.
Not long afterward, Theranos contacted Tyler’s lawyers and told
them it knew about our meeting. Since neither of us had told a soul
about it, we deduced that Holmes was having one or both of us
followed. Fortunately, Tyler didn’t seem too worried about it. “Next
time maybe I’ll take a selfie with you and send it her way to save her
the trouble of hiring PIs,” he quipped in an email.
I now suspected Theranos had had both of us under continuous
surveillance for a year. And, more than likely, Erika Cheung and Alan
Beam too.
—
HOLMES HAD TOLD Maria Shriver on the Today show that she took
responsibility for the Newark lab’s failings, but it was Balwani who
suffered the consequences. Rather than take the fall herself, she