That response made no sense to Anjali. Walgreens was just a
business partner. Theranos’s ultimate customers would be the patients
who came to Walgreens stores and ordered its blood tests thinking
they could rely on them to make medical decisions. Those were the
customers Elizabeth should be worrying about. By the time Anjali got
back to her desk, word of her resignation had spread and coworkers
were coming up to her to say goodbye. She had given one week’s notice
and was planning to work until the end of her notice period, but Sunny
didn’t like the scene these public farewells were causing. He sent Mona
Ramamurthy, the head of human resources, to tell her that she had to
leave immediately.
On her way out, Anjali printed the email she had sent to Elizabeth
and Daniel. She had a feeling this wasn’t going to end well and she
needed something to protect herself, something that would show she
had disagreed with the decision to launch. Forwarding the email to her
personal Yahoo account would have been easier, but she knew Sunny
closely monitored employees’ email activity. So she hid the printout in
her bag and smuggled it out. Anjali wasn’t the only one with
misgivings. Tina Noyes, her deputy in the immunoassay group who
had worked at Theranos for more than seven years, also quit.
The resignations infuriated Elizabeth and Sunny. The following day,
they summoned the staff for an all-hands meeting in the cafeteria.
Copies of The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho’s famous novel about an
Andalusian shepherd boy who finds his destiny by going on a journey
to Egypt, had been placed on every chair. Still visibly angry, Elizabeth
told the gathered employees that she was building a religion. If there
were any among them who didn’t believe, they should leave. Sunny put
it more bluntly: anyone not prepared to show complete devotion and
unmitigated loyalty to the company should “get the fuck out.”