Thomas, the founder of an early stage venture capital firm called ATA
Ventures—conferred inside.
After some discussion, the four men reached a consensus: they
would remove Elizabeth as CEO. She had proven herself too young
and inexperienced for the job. Tom Brodeen would step in to lead the
company for a temporary period until a more permanent replacement
could be found. They called in Elizabeth to confront her with what they
had learned and inform her of their decision.
But then something extraordinary happened.
Over the course of the next two hours, Elizabeth convinced them to
change their minds. She told them she recognized there were issues
with her management and promised to change. She would be more
transparent and responsive going forward. It wouldn’t happen again.
Brodeen wasn’t exactly dying to come out of retirement to run a
startup in a field in which he had no expertise, so he took a neutral
stance and watched as Elizabeth used just the right mix of contrition
and charm to gradually win back his three board colleagues. It was an
impressive performance, he thought. A much older and more
experienced CEO skilled in the art of corporate infighting would have
been hard-pressed to turn the situation around like she had. He was
reminded of an old saying: “When you strike at the king, you must kill
him.” Todd Surdey and Michael Esquivel had struck at the king, or
rather the queen. But she’d survived.
—
THE QUEEN DIDN’T WASTE any time putting down the rebellion.
Elizabeth fired Surdey first and Esquivel a few weeks later.
To Aaron Moore, Mike Bauerly, and Justin Maxwell, this new purge
was one more negative development. They weren’t privy to what had
happened, but they did know that Theranos had lost two good
employees. Todd and Michael weren’t just nice guys they got along
with, they were smart and principled colleagues. In Mike Bauerly’s
words, they were cut from good cloth.
The firings caused Justin to further sour on Theranos. The staff