By now, you’ve probably read the piece (or the tweets about the piece) in the New York Times about Elizabeth Liz Holmes. Why this was not an audio interview, I don’t know, but I’m still grateful for it. (IF SHE DOESN’T SPEAK IN THE DEEP VOICE SO THEN WHAT DOES SHE SOUND LIKE?)
I’ve long had a fascination with this character. I was Elizabeth Holmes for Halloween in 2016, when I was living in New York. No one got the reference. I had started a new job and all these bros were talking about what they were going to be dressing as (dinosaurs? I don’t remember. Whatever straight guys dress as for Halloween) and when I said, “Elizabeth Holmes,” I just got a bunch of blank looks.
I posted a photo of me holding the Forbes magazine cover and a mason jar of red juice (blood!) but it still didn’t click for many folks. (Granted, the look of me, bearded, in a sloppy wig, wasn’t … great. But still.) It had already been a year since the Wall Street Journal article came out blowing the cover off the whole thing, but pre-podcast, books, TV series, documentaries, etc. Watching all of that content come out was like opening a Christmas present again and again. I was in from Day 0 – and I couldn’t get enough.
That is to say, I also was one of the breathless fans a few years prior. One of my jobs was to write blog posts about inspiring women and Elizabeth Holmes was a front page piece for quite a while. She was the youngest self-made female billionaire! I wrote tweets about how fantastic she was in changing how Americans interact with health care – which, noble cause. It was inspiring. How could it not be, in the era of girlbossing, when we were pushed all sorts of memes and stats and advice for millennials about asking for more and leaning in and whatever else. If all these smart people in the Bay Area could get behind it than I could too.
And then. The moment the Journal piece came out, I changed my tune, and gleefully watched the whole thing burn. My interest wasn’t deep enough to hurt.
In the Times piece, Holmes is still thinking she can change the world through her work – even though she’s about to go to prison for it. What I found most disturbing isn’t that she’s thinking of ways to revolutionize healthcare from behind bars, but that I found myself thinking in support, yeah, maybe.
(Which, I just lol’ed writing that sentence. I feel like a maniac.)
Perhaps I’m still stung from the heady second Obama administration years when everything felt so … possible. We got gay marriage and Instagram was fun and Hillary Clinton wasn’t awesome but hey she’s going to make a great president. After the chaos of 2016 – 2020 and on this side of a pandemic, that time feels sunny as hell. Why wouldn’t I want to find out my whole health story with just the prick of a finger?
Is that optimism or delusion? I know the answer, but I don’t want to look it in the face. I’d rather have Elizabeth tell me, in her Liz voice.