theory that Google could use the web browser to spy on Theranos’s
R&D. Employees who worked at the office complex in Newark were
discouraged from using the gym there because it might lead them to
mingle with workers from other companies that leased space at the
site.
In the part of the clinical lab dubbed “Normandy,” partitions were
erected around the Edisons so that Siemens technicians wouldn’t be
able to see them when they came to service the German
manufacturer’s machines. The partitions turned the room into a maze
and blocked egress. The lab’s windows were tinted, which made it
nearly impossible to see in from the outside, but the company still
taped sheets of opaque plastic to the inside. The doors to the corridor
that led to the lab rooms, and the lab rooms themselves, were
equipped with fingerprint scanners. If more than one person entered
at a time, sensors set off an alarm and activated a camera that sent a
photo to the security desk. As for surveillance cameras, they were
everywhere. They were the kind with dark blue dome covers that kept
you guessing about which way the lens was directed. All of this was
ostensibly to protect trade secrets, but it’s now clear that it was also a
way for Holmes to cover up her lies about the state of Theranos’s
technology.
Hyping your product to get funding while concealing your true
progress and hoping that reality will eventually catch up to the hype
continues to be tolerated in the tech industry. But it’s crucial to bear in
mind that Theranos wasn’t a tech company in the traditional sense. It
was first and foremost a health-care company. Its product wasn’t
software but a medical device that analyzed people’s blood. As Holmes
herself liked to point out in media interviews and public appearances
at the height of her fame, doctors base 70 percent of their treatment
decisions on lab results. They rely on lab equipment to work as
advertised. Otherwise, patient health is jeopardized.
So how was Holmes able to rationalize gambling with people’s lives?
One school of thought is that she became captive to Balwani’s
nefarious influence. Under this theory, Balwani was Holmes’s Svengali
and molded her—the innocent ingénue with big dreams—into the