IN THE MEANTIME, Ana Arriola was getting antsy. Ana was by nature
excitable. She spoke quickly and was a constant whirlwind of activity.
Most of the time, it was positive energy that she channeled into her
work to great effect. But at times it could also turn into stress, anxiety,
and drama.
After their coffee, she’d stayed in contact with Avie and had learned
from her former Apple colleague that Elizabeth wanted him off the
board. She didn’t know what had prompted their rift, but it was an
ominous development.
Ana’s own relationship with Elizabeth was deteriorating. Elizabeth
didn’t like being told no, and Ana had done so on several occasions
when she’d found a demand Elizabeth made unreasonable. She was
also getting put off by her secrecy. A designer might not be as crucial
to this little enterprise as an engineer or a chemist, but she still needed
to be in the information loop about the product’s development to do
her job properly. Yet Elizabeth kept Ana on a need-to-know basis.
During one of their early morning meetings, Ana confronted
Elizabeth with what she’d heard from Aaron Moore about problems
with the Theranos system. If they were still working out kinks in the
technology, wasn’t it preferable to put the Tennessee study on pause
and concentrate on fixing the problems first? They could always
restart it once they got the machine working reliably, she told her.
Elizabeth flatly rejected the idea. Pfizer and every other big
drugmaker wanted her blood-testing system and Theranos was going
to be a great company, she said. If Ana wasn’t happy, then perhaps she
should reflect on whether this was the right place for her.
“Think about it and then tell me what you want to do,” she said.
Ana went back to her desk and stewed for several hours. She
couldn’t shake the thought that forging on with the Tennessee study
wasn’t the right thing to do. The fact that Elizabeth wanted Avie to
leave the board was also unsettling. Ana trusted Avie and considered
him a friend. If Avie and Elizabeth had a beef, she was inclined to side
with Avie.
By midafternoon, Ana had made up her mind. She wrote up a brief