Bad Blood: Erika Cheung on Bringing Down Theranos

[00:00:00] This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical or mental health advice. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion group, club organization, business individual, anyone or anything.

[00:00:30] This podcast is for the podcast, a little bit Culty. A podcast about what happens when things that seem like a great thing at first go bad.

[00:00:37] Every week we chat with survivors, experts and whistleblowers for real cult stories told directly by the people who live through them.

[00:00:44] Because we want you to learn a few things, we've had to learn the hard way.

[00:00:47] Like if you think you're too smart to get sucked into something Culty, you're already prime recruitment material.

[00:00:53] You might even already be an occult.

[00:00:55] Oops, you better keep listening to Find Out.

[00:00:58] Welcome to season 6 of A Little Bit Culty.

[00:01:02] See you down to the death of the ocean.

[00:01:06] You look too in my love.

[00:01:10] For the gold, I'm all that could leave but no one else.

[00:01:18] Welcome back everyone to this episode of ALBC.

[00:01:21] We are very excited about this week's guest.

[00:01:24] Erica Chung arrived at the Theranos corporate headquarters at just 22 years old as a newly minted graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.

[00:01:33] At the time, the chemists and biologists saw Elizabeth Holmes just as so many other people did.

[00:01:39] A visionary CEO, a genius and a disruptor who was about to completely rewrite the healthcare paradigm.

[00:01:46] But Erica's honeymoon phase at her dream gig working for this so-called visionary lasted all of the seven months.

[00:01:53] That's when she quit her job in the Theranos lab and became a whistleblower, exposing one of the biggest cons in American business history.

[00:02:00] Erica helped federal regulators see Elizabeth Holmes for who she really was, a liar who'd put patients' lives in jeopardy and a fraud who duped investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

[00:02:11] These days, Holmes is wearing prison jumpsuits, not her signature black turtlenecks because she's serving out an 11 year three-month sentence for her role in wire fraud

[00:02:20] at the now-defront company she founded.

[00:02:22] Theranos and our guest, Erica, is moving on with her life.

[00:02:26] She just happens to be doing it in the permaspot light that comes with being a whistleblower in a giant headline making case.

[00:02:32] The Theranos story not only seems made for movies. It's already been the subject of a scripted Hulu series, The Dropout, and the recent doc, The Inventor, out for blood in Silicon Valley.

[00:02:42] That's where we first spotted her and thought we need her on our podcast, Stat.

[00:02:46] And we've been in touch ever since.

[00:02:48] Everything about the Theranos story seems a little bit culty to us so we jumped at the chance to chat with her.

[00:02:54] After all, sometimes a cult looks like a really great job offer with an up-and-coming visionary who turns out to be a faux humanitarian.

[00:03:02] Hmm, I think we've been there.

[00:03:04] Lots to cover in this episode. We're talking Theranos. The cult of personality in Silicon Valley and what happens when good people say, enough is enough.

[00:03:13] Anytime someone blows the whistle on criminal characters, we want to know more.

[00:03:17] So here's our chat with Theranos, whistleblower, chemist and biologist and overall badass, Erica Chung.

[00:03:35] Erica, welcome to a little bit culty.

[00:03:37] We are so excited. We have re-emerced ourselves into the world of Theranos to prep for this interview having...

[00:03:45] We did a deep dive about a year ago.

[00:03:47] Well, I think whenever the doc came out and I remember watching it thinking I was taking a break from cult content.

[00:03:52] And you were one of the first people in the episode to say, drinking the Kool-Aid, which everyone on this podcast know what that is a reference to.

[00:04:00] So, well, first of all, how are you? Welcome to the podcast and how are you in your journey.

[00:04:05] I'm doing quite well. I'm doing quite well. So you figure for me, even though the Theranos case is kind of popularized in the media, probably in the last five years, for me this whole journey has lasted about a decade.

[00:04:17] So I have to say, at the end of 2023 in beginning into this year of 2024, I feel quite at peace and a bit liberated from the case because there's no litigation.

[00:04:30] There's no having to await for a federal trial. There's no fear of any type of lingering retaliation and any way shape or form that that might take.

[00:04:40] And so you're seeing a very different version of me than you probably would have seen at very different junctures throughout this process, whether that was the cute whistle blowing process, whether that was being immersed in the company and working at Theranos, whether that was fleeing the Silicon Valley going to Hong Kong rebuilding my life in Asia.

[00:05:03] And then kind of getting sucked back into that world when the case sort of blew up and all the litigation and the indictments and the media kind of picked up on the case.

[00:05:15] So it's a very different version of me, very liberated, very at peace. And it's a good place to be after this very long 10 year experience.

[00:05:27] So timeline we relate to. Yeah, it was so similar timeline for us and I'm so glad that you can say that now that I think about it when we first started emailing which was almost over a year ago, you're like, I'd love to but we got a wait for the trial, which is now all done. So yay for that.

[00:05:44] But let's go back to the beginning. I'm not sure how much of our podcast you're aware of but our format is pretty standard in terms of like what drew people in and what red flags were and how they got out.

[00:05:54] This is not your standard cults but definitely a lot of cult like behavior culty tactics. But tell us back at the beginning, what did you think you were signing up for and what drew you to Elizabeth homes if you don't mind rewinding the clock a little bit.

[00:06:09] Yeah, that early days, the good days, you know, the days, yeah, the good days.

[00:06:14] Everything looks like it's going to be rainbows and butterflies. I think their early draw for homes, I always try and contextualize for people the kind of the Silicon Valley at that time too. So I started Theranos as my first job out of college so I was 22 years old just graduated from UC Berkeley.

[00:06:34] And was kind of starry eyed around homes and the fact that she was this female entrepreneur dropped out of Stanford age 19 to start at that time a revolutionary tech company where she was really trying to provide less painful, more affordable, more accessible blood diagnostics people.

[00:07:00] I was super bought into her really bought into the vision and really bought into the hype of the Silicon Valley. I think it was one of the few kind of gems that was kind of blossoming in the economy at that time because for the most part being in university during that time, it was all talk of how the recession if the entirety of the United States so hard no one was getting jobs.

[00:07:25] No one wanted to be of course involved in finance or this industry or that industry, but tech seemed to be this new industry that was generating all of these cool companies that everyone wanted to be a part of and was managing to still at least financially perform well amongst all of this devastation that had happened in the sort of financial recession.

[00:07:48] So in those days kind of like seeing all of this right seeing her seeing the tech seeing the hype of being a part of what felt like a change in the course of time of this kind of like dour financial landscape to this like land of opportunity really got me excited and and kind of bought into wanting to work for Theranos wanting to be a part of tech and wanting to kind of be on this mission to be a part of you know

[00:08:17] a revolutionary company. How far in was Theranos at the time like how old was the company at that point?

[00:08:24] So the company was fairly young it was fairly young and fairly old I suppose you say so it's been around for about 10 years and there wasn't much information about the company so they raised a fair amount of capital so in the hundreds of millions

[00:08:38] and they had a stack board as many people know you know they had Henry Kissinger and George Schaul in all these political figures kind of in there but there wasn't a lot of info about what was going on

[00:08:52] aside the fact that there was this medical device that she had developed in order to convert blood diagnostics from stick in the vein versus it's stick in the finger right like to collect all the blood device.

[00:09:05] So it was around for about 10 years the size of it was maybe about 100 200 people at that time it wasn't a baby but it was it was still fairly new in terms of being in the public eye and people's interest in kind of you know what is the secretive company doing that seems to have this ambitious vision and big goals.

[00:09:29] You don't have to tell the whole story because it's really out there in so many formats but there's clearly a pattern and I was looking at my my notes from when I watch it the first time before we had the podcast of all the similarities between next year.

[00:09:42] There are notes and the patterns there but for you what was the one the first red flags the potential issues that you saw before you left.

[00:09:51] I think the first thing that was kind of strange was the fact that there was such a lack of information about what was happening internally and that there was this real emphasis on secrecy.

[00:10:02] Of competitors are going to come after us if we share any trade secrets the fact that there was so much that was hush hush seemed a bit strange and I had kind of written that off especially being really young.

[00:10:17] Of oh well they're probably working with the military or they're working with the government and maybe there's some kind of rhyme a reason for why you're secretive because that is a place in a domain where you tend to have acceptable secrecy or wanting to keep things kind of quiet.

[00:10:36] But later did I find out that that was actually a giant red flag you know not wanting to have transparency in any facet of the business is typically a giant red flag.

[00:10:49] Another thing like later on and it was hard to really identify while I was working for the company because it was quite cool was how young people were so a lot of people were just like me recent grads out of college didn't have a lot of.

[00:11:06] I have experience in the working world at all full stop not even in diagnostics or health care this sort of really specialized field but really just didn't have very much work experience at all.

[00:11:18] And we're being put into situations where we're given responsibility that we shouldn't have probably had ownership over and I think seeing that there were a lot of us who just didn't really know what was going on or had any background context into the health care field being the primary people at the front lines dealing with this technology.

[00:11:45] And dealing with resulting out patients and sort of all these other shady practices that were kind of going on was a bit of a red flag of like why why we have so many young people.

[00:11:56] Do you think that was intentional do you think that was a strategy on her part so it was weird it was like there are two strategies going on it was like at the investment strategy it's like let's get people who are way older where they don't have the insight and scope around what the technology is.

[00:12:14] That they're actually investing in so they can't ask the right questions did notice and then at the other.

[00:12:21] Converse side on the side of actually working for the company there was a whole bunch of young staff who equally you know they were smart enough to be able to ask questions on the day to day of what we're doing but then didn't have the sort of full perspective of well how does this really stack up in comparison to other types of technologies that are going on.

[00:12:43] So I think it was a lot of the kind of technology that exists in the world today or other types of health care institutions that exist today because it didn't have that primary background of being able to analyze that and so I think it was by design.

[00:12:57] And even I'll give you an example there's a special position called the clinical lab scientists that essentially approves if the patient sample is acceptable or not and what they would do is they would stick these CLS is instead of putting them in the laboratory where all these experimental methodologies were kind of happening.

[00:13:19] They would stick them in a separate office and have them sit there just being exposed to the numbers but not actually seeing how any of these numbers were developed until they could be trusted to be able to go into the laboratory where all these experimental methodologies were going on.

[00:13:38] That was very clear to me when it was like why we've hired all these people, we've hired all of these qualified people but none of them are in the lab side by side with me and what was the explanation for that is because oh they need to be trusted first whether they can actually view the technology that we've been operating on patients this whole time.

[00:14:01] So that was a pretty clear sign. Oh, this is this is deliberate. This is deliberate and again when you're young like how I was young I was you know 22 at that point.

[00:14:12] Instinctually you're like something's not quite right here but your framing of it is also not oh they're doing something nefarious or malevolent or oh they're doing this because they're trying to create an environment in which people aren't able to ask for help.

[00:14:31] So that's the critical questions that could get them in trouble. You know, that's not the line of salon particularly it seems with the cache and the buy-in that she was able to establish.

[00:14:43] And I can relate to this and tell me if this is what was going on was that she's been vetted by people far more experienced than me like I must be kind of in a safe environment in spite of my instincts which I can relate to so how did you if that's accurate how did you reconcile that and what was the process of having those

[00:15:01] effects and then that got you to ultimately do what you did. It's a long question but I think it's a very normal right you have that gut feeling you're like something's not right here.

[00:15:10] I'm also you know I was trained as a researcher and a scientist so what is the fundamentals of being a good scientist is being skeptical but not only skeptical of other people but skeptical of yourself.

[00:15:23] And I think being in the position of one very little power being quite young and in addition to that looking as you said at all of these powerful people that have you stacked resumes that are coming from some of the best institutions in the world saying this word.

[00:15:43] We bought into this we've invested tens of millions of dollars into this it's you know my at least in that position my first expectation is you might air you might be doing something wrong here like there might be.

[00:15:59] It's almost like an internal gaslighting is an internal gaslighting and now I can identify that that's what was going on like oh air who did an immense amount of gas lighting yourself throughout that experience because.

[00:16:12] It just it doesn't add up right it doesn't add up but the beauty of also being from the sciences is at the end of the day if you gather enough evidence and because we were doing things that.

[00:16:26] At the end of the day you can't fight the numbers and so for the type of testing we were doing you know what if I'm doing a sample test.

[00:16:37] This is basically just comparing okay I know this one sample has you know 10 diagrams per mill of vitamin D in it and I run it through my machine and if it comes out 500 we've got a problem right so it was very.

[00:16:54] Straight forward in many cases to recognize like oh yeah you know 10 10 doesn't equal 500 and so through the process of being able to.

[00:17:04] Accumulate a lot of that information it made me a bit more confident to mobilize on being able to come forward and speak up.

[00:17:13] And before we get to that key moment which we obviously want to hear about when you're in take form you said you wouldn't mind riffing on some of the.

[00:17:21] Coltie practices and you mentioned like this is this is the key point in the dark right and the event are out for blood and silicone value said that you'd been drinking the cool aid which just a little note for our audience is was actually.

[00:17:33] Flavorade which is a common misnomer but we everyone knows what you're talking about.

[00:17:37] Drinking the cool aid from Jones town reference how did you get to that reference like in our in other words you've clearly seen the correlations you're on our little bit Coltie podcast.

[00:17:47] What were some of the things you'd want to riff about in terms of the other things you saw that were quality so initially I have to credit actually one of my colleagues for pointing that out to me and it was really in the way she observed me talking about the company.

[00:18:03] That she's like hey don't drink the cool aid too fast and then that was like a moment of realization and it was one the adoration for Elizabeth homes of like wow look at her she's so impressive she started this company she's brought us all here.

[00:18:19] You know we have all these fancy machines and all these people from elite institutions and how special is it to be a part of this company.

[00:18:28] That isn't just pulling together all of this money and all of these people but also has this beautiful vision in addition to that right and I think she could almost see the gleam in my eye.

[00:18:41] Of how bought in I was and how convinced I was around what we were trying to accomplish that it was a bit of a moment of reckoning for me of like oh is this some sort of.

[00:18:57] Magical thinking or just euphoria that I have around being a part of this organization that seems to kind of check the boxes for me of what I want at a life what I want out of my career what I want to propagate and see happen in society.

[00:19:16] Your idealism was leveraged my idealism was leveraged it was leveraged transcendental exactly so I really credit this colleague or that that she was on who made that comment.

[00:19:27] And saw that in me and made me it gave me that moment of reflection of like oh do I have some sort of bizarre glaze in my eye around being a part of the company and it was a good wake up call in certain ways because then it made me a little more stew when you're doing certain actions and you're looking at your experiments better failing every day.

[00:19:50] And they're being asked despite all these failures to up the ante in terms of how many patients you run or how many different people you influence or how far you move the needle in terms of you know what.

[00:20:06] You think is acceptable in terms of things this is very nerdy but like data integrity right making sure that are we not manipulating information in a way to make it look pretty versus having it give an accurate depiction about what's happening right.

[00:20:24] And there were just these tiny little ways in which we were constantly pushing the needle of what the integrity looked like and i'm sure you guys have seen this to that it doesn't start off super strong they're not like hey.

[00:20:40] Give me you know I want you to just basically give me a number that sounds good right they don't kind of come out the door saying that but it's just the subtle way is that they store sort of get you to slightly modify what you think is acceptable over time.

[00:21:01] Right it's like the compass gets turned in a way yeah that probably made me realize okay there's some other cultural dynamics going on here in addition to more puppet mastering that's occurring and maybe I'm conscious of.

[00:21:17] This podcast wouldn't happen without our amazing supportive generous patrons are you with us come find us over on patreon at patreon.com slash a little bit Coltie for bonus episodes exclusive content in the occasional zoom with our fan favorites from our past episodes it's a lot of fun over there people.

[00:21:37] Break times over people let's get back to this episode of a little bit Coltie it's a good one.

[00:21:50] A common question we get is do you think Keith.

[00:21:54] Renary had a good idea here went went bad whatever I think Keith was bad from the start and he set this organization up for himself for whatever.

[00:22:04] And there's lots of proof of that whatever holes he wanted to fill.

[00:22:07] Do you think Elizabeth set their nose up for her own holes to fill like you know you're skipping to the end.

[00:22:15] I mean I mean I guess was there ever a product yeah in your opinion that you know what I mean like did you ever feel like if she had started to succeed does it justify everything right like does that make sense was there ever a glimmer of like this happening.

[00:22:31] Gosh so this is a huge loaded thing part of the trial pack and so many different ways yeah and of course in the trial there was there's there's of course my opinion and then there's like

[00:22:44] when the litigation saying right when it came to was this a fraud or was this not a fraud and there's a very technical definition of what patient and wire fraud is was that the case.

[00:22:55] And that was proven to be the case right that there was definitely wire fraud that occurred and that there was patient fraud that occurred of course the sentencing between.

[00:23:05] Sunny and Elizabeth had some disparities between the two of them but I think back to your earlier question you know in the case of homes do I believe that she was from the start trying to fill some sort of personal

[00:23:20] boy 100% right was it with the man the level intention I think it's it these types of psychology is are so in personalities are so hard to deconstruct because in comparison to just like almost blatant greed and blatant frauds are a little bit easier

[00:23:41] to deal with right it's like oh it's the money after the money but when you deal with people who seek things like power or fame or some sort of fulfillment of some lack that is hard to quantify.

[00:23:58] It gets much more complicated and I think to a certain degree is it possible that point of care diagnostics could indeed exist at that time.

[00:24:10] Yes 100% can you take a finger stick and run some blood samples on it yes where Theranos went wrong was you can't necessarily take a drop of blood and run hundreds of tests nor can you do that in one box.

[00:24:26] And maybe we'll find some sort of technological advancement that makes that viable but Theranos and where the company was was nowhere near that right there was an

[00:24:40] absolutely no scientific innovation that actually happened that moved the needle of the industry in itself that we were working on right like at all at all if anything because of Theranos it's set back people's ability to innovate in that space because people are so scared

[00:25:02] to touch the diagnostics because they don't want to probably lose face for being involved in another failure around diagnostics that really it I think created more of a risk of version and almost over excessive risk of version to that space.

[00:25:22] That's such a shame it's such a shame it's there's so many and I'm sure you guys had this to even though being at the home of whistle blowing and stopping the case like there's still so much heartbreak that comes from that right like that idealism.

[00:25:39] Absolutely those ideals didn't disappear for me right yeah moral injury is the moral injury it's the

[00:25:48] the grief and the loss in the sadness in the betrayal there's so many emotions that end up coming to the forefront of these cases and they ripple into so many different things beyond just that case itself.

[00:26:04] How far off is she is it as crazy as me going to like someone saying hey I want to do a time machine give me hundreds of millions of dollars and then how absurd is her idea.

[00:26:15] So her idea parts of it are not it's like two truths in a life so there are some truths there of things that you can do yeah but I think in terms of what we were doing at

[00:26:25] fairness how I compare it is that she promised everyone a magic carpet that could fly and delivered people a hoverboard but worse yet the hoverboard she shipped when you plug them in they explode

[00:26:38] and that's pretty much what she did.

[00:26:43] It's a great metaphor that's kind of what we were who was accomplished and so it was pretty far off it was pretty far off and it's hard right it's hard when you see these big machines and when people are working so hard to develop things

[00:27:00] that it's hard for people to see like well look we had all of these million dollar machines or we manufactured all of these different units it's like yeah but they don't work right that was one of the things they did in the trial where it was like okay if the company wasn't working on building this

[00:27:17] look at these stacks of papers of all these experiments that they had run to like show you that this technology was viable and it existed

[00:27:28] and it's like sure I can print out I can like write on a piece of paper that you know I did this experiment but if they all fail that doesn't mean I have a product that works right like I can run such a non-secretar I can run no use of experiment

[00:27:44] it doesn't seem to show a track record of progress either yeah just circling back to something you said about like the internal feeling and being overridden by the idealism

[00:27:54] I think you know one of the things we certainly saw watching watching the doc anyway is it's also the corporate ra ra like for lack of a better word the the songs and the gatherings and the hype

[00:28:06] and that aligns what you were saying like it's you know feeling special being part of all that and how great that must have felt

[00:28:12] sidebar calling them eagle one and eagle two I pretty sure we called Nancy and Keith that didn't we at certain points like

[00:28:20] one into like it was that kind of like they'd come in together and it was this that kind of vibe if not

[00:28:25] if not called that directly it was certainly that vibe but yeah so then so getting so going from that all of those red flags

[00:28:31] what was the final straw for you when did you decide that you had to speak up and become well this was probably two

[00:28:37] points speaking up and then being dismissed and then becoming a whistleblower yeah said I care yeah so I had reported

[00:28:45] internally several times right of saying like something's not right here this and it wasn't like over arching

[00:28:52] something's not right here it was like this experiment this didn't work we're having problems with this type

[00:28:58] of test we're having problems with this and so I had done a lot to report internally to different people

[00:29:05] within the organization but I think the big turning point for me of the fact that okay these aren't just

[00:29:13] issues that we have in the company that there's something bigger going on here is when I had a

[00:29:18] conversation with the COO of the company and I had gone into his office and basically told him

[00:29:25] I'm concerned about the issues that we're having in terms of the failures of our patient test

[00:29:31] and frequency of them and the fact that when we make a mistake on a patient sample we don't notify

[00:29:39] and when I had reported these concerns to him he basically said you are a recent graduate from

[00:29:45] UC Berkeley have you ever taken a statistics class do you know anything about statistics you need

[00:29:50] to do the job I pay you to do which is to process patient samples without question and so at that

[00:29:57] point I was just shocked I was really jarred I was like okay this isn't the case that there's some

[00:30:03] discrepancy between what the executive management knows and what's happening at the operational

[00:30:09] for they know exactly what's going on there's just not doing anything about it and so I think that

[00:30:14] really flipped for me what type of situation I had gotten myself into you know before that I think

[00:30:21] I was still operating by the principle that you're in a startup things aren't working that's why

[00:30:26] you're hired you're here to fix the problems but at that point I realized oh no no no there's

[00:30:32] something else going on here and I talked to the board as well I go into the boards house and

[00:30:37] had a conversation and he basically said maybe I should look for another job and I think after

[00:30:45] those experiences of internally reporting kind of going up every level of command basically to

[00:30:54] kind of get the truth out you know I was very disempowered I didn't know what to do I was very concerned

[00:31:00] about the fact that they were testing on patients even though it was pretty well proven that these

[00:31:07] tests weren't working even by your own like internal standards and I tell a lot of people I got lucky

[00:31:15] in the sense that I had gotten contacted by John Kerry Roo who was the main reporter who reported

[00:31:22] on the case and for me it wasn't even a second thought it was like a breath of fresh air of okay there's

[00:31:30] one opportunity to get the truth out like I'm gonna take it I'm gonna take whatever door presents

[00:31:36] itself to me to allow the truth to get out and I didn't really think twice I didn't probably do

[00:31:41] as much due diligence as I should have in terms of that I'm like is this a good journalist or not

[00:31:46] and honestly before his report came out the company was so litigious that they had basically come

[00:31:53] after me threatened to sue me and had private investigators following me when I was living in the

[00:32:00] Bay but that was also a bit lucky in a strange way because it sort of allowed me to understand that

[00:32:07] I could also report to regulators that that was an opportunity for me that the regulators were

[00:32:13] ultimately the governing body that could shut down their ability to process patient samples

[00:32:20] and so once I figured out like oh you can do this and you can do it anonymously it was great

[00:32:26] it was kind of crazy though because when I had first figured this out I had tried to go to San

[00:32:32] Francisco in order to walk into the office to file the report but I was so paranoid about the fact

[00:32:41] that I was being stalked and followed and that they would see me entering into the building that I

[00:32:47] ended up like piecing like a crazy person around the streets of San Francisco like trying to see

[00:32:53] as someone following me as someone not that I like couldn't do it that first day and so then I ended

[00:32:59] up getting a burner phone and calling them through the burner phone and then figuring out oh okay this

[00:33:04] is how you file a report and took me a while to file a report I had a lot of personal issues I was

[00:33:10] taking care of someone who was dying at that time so it took me a while to write out the report

[00:33:16] then these things never happened that I know the opportune times it's been a really crazy summer for

[00:33:22] me but that's kind of what led me to speaking up was a mixture of the desire to just say they need

[00:33:28] to stop testing on patients and also a bit of luck in terms of kind of bumping into the right people

[00:33:36] who sort of helped me build my awareness of what were the opportunities for me to allow the truth

[00:33:42] to get out right like you don't walk around 23 years old like oh I'm gonna knock on the door

[00:33:47] the Wall Street Journal and have them hold this company I used to work for a count of

[00:33:52] me don't walk around at 43 years old doing that

[00:33:59] this is that's something that you think that you're ever going to be presented with especially when

[00:34:04] you started off like like really it's it's crazy I've really thought Theranos was going to

[00:34:09] be the company I was going to work for the next 10 years of my life like I was that body into

[00:34:15] what we were trying to do and then next thing you know you're having to kind of change course

[00:34:20] one thing Sarah and I learned is you don't get to pick and choose how and why you're gonna stand

[00:34:26] for what you're gonna stand for why not walk away at that point for you you know in my case I

[00:34:32] knew what I stood for when I joined the company like I stood for the fact that I wanted to figure

[00:34:37] out how to leverage technology to provide affordable and accessible healthcare to people I knew that

[00:34:44] right like I went in very clear-minded very clear-headed that this is how I wanted to spend my life

[00:34:51] in my career and I think because our actions were so counter that we were lying to patients we

[00:35:00] were telling people they may or may not have had cancer when we didn't even trust these tests

[00:35:06] like people internally the organization would get their blood test results on the Edison

[00:35:11] devices and like freak out because they were just having such like false reports on everything

[00:35:18] and so I think that made it easy even though it was scary and hard to kind of keep pushing through

[00:35:25] because I did have a very clear understanding of why I joined the company what I stood for

[00:35:32] how I wanted to spend my time how I wanted to spend my career why did I study the sciences

[00:35:38] why did I do all of these different things it was it was very black and white in many ways for me

[00:35:45] and made it all the easier I think what makes it complicated was actually the circumstance of like

[00:35:51] are you actually right about this or not you know is this the case that you're actually

[00:35:56] right about the issues that are going on and because of my lack of experience

[00:36:01] and because of the amount of intimidation and gaslighting and just kind of like twilight zone

[00:36:09] environment of a workplace that was where like all of a sudden you know up is right in 20s

[00:36:19] 76 and just all this wild stuff that's what was the complicated part I think for me it was like

[00:36:27] the mission, the principle, the what to stand for very clear very easy it was argue actually

[00:36:34] right about this and I think also I didn't want to be right about this yeah it's so gross right

[00:36:42] like when you really look at it you're like this is so awful that I almost want to be

[00:36:49] delusional about what's happening because of the reality of what we're actually doing is so painful

[00:36:56] I totally agree and so counter what I signed up for that it's just even your personal resistance

[00:37:05] to the truth like there are very few times in life that you want to be wrong about something

[00:37:10] this badly totally yeah we've been there for sure

[00:37:17] For more background on what brought us here check out Sarah's page turning memoir it's called

[00:37:22] story of how I escaped nexium the cult that bound my life it's available on amazon audible and at

[00:37:27] most bookstores if you want to see that story in streaming form watch both seasons of the vow on HBO

[00:37:37] You've heard from our sponsors now let's get back to a little bit culty shall we?

[00:37:42] I totally remember doing interviews at the beginning and even still saying like this is bad right

[00:37:46] I totally remember that feeling well so it's the opposite of what you signed up for

[00:37:50] Yeah, I'm glad you guys say that because that was something I struggled with a lot and I think other

[00:37:56] people struggled with me a lot where I don't think they understand what it's like being in

[00:38:01] that environment so when you come out of it and you talk about it for them as an objective

[00:38:06] sear of the circumstance they're able to say no this is clearly wrong but because you were

[00:38:12] immersed and inundated and there's so many emotions and there's so many

[00:38:16] relationships and experiences and different things that are involved in that process

[00:38:23] it's very challenging to have that objective view even being outside of the case even though

[00:38:31] you know it's 10 years later for me maybe not quite 10 years in terms of the actual act but seven

[00:38:36] years I don't really listen to any of the interviews that I do frankly but I know in terms

[00:38:43] of seeing a younger version of myself that it was hard for me sometimes to grasp with like

[00:38:49] but this is wrong or having to justify my actions or even ask for just some sort of assuredness

[00:38:57] and that's weird like I look back at that and I'm like how do they do that to me?

[00:39:02] Your own character is in question to yourself.

[00:39:05] Mm-hmm.

[00:39:06] Which is part of the strategy.

[00:39:07] It's our thing because I felt my character wasn't in question until I saw something I'm like oh

[00:39:13] whoa I'm actually aligned with something that was almost most perpetrating.

[00:39:18] Yeah I had to reconcile that and that was a gymnastics I had to kind of admit you're a victim

[00:39:22] and you get conned and all that stuff messes with your pride.

[00:39:26] What was it like for you to have all of this like in the public space because there's been

[00:39:30] the documentary there's the Hulu series and there is we haven't watched it to be okay just so

[00:39:35] you know we didn't have time to watch watch it but I did see that there's a character of you right?

[00:39:40] So I haven't watched it either.

[00:39:43] So don't feel bad because technically there is a character of me and I haven't watched it.

[00:39:48] Probably that's not too I feel I don't know.

[00:39:50] Yeah it was a little too soon for me.

[00:39:52] It's been how do I explain this journey?

[00:39:56] It's complicated.

[00:39:57] It's very very complicated.

[00:39:59] My initial intentions were always to be anonymous because I loved my simple life.

[00:40:04] I was totally fine being in the background working on my projects and just having some level

[00:40:11] of animosity and that was valuable to me but what ended up happening is I got subpoenaed for a

[00:40:17] court case the judge ended up releasing my deposition into the public record and then my name got

[00:40:24] out the media picked up on it and they were kind of misclothing some of the things that I had said

[00:40:30] and so at that point people said Erica if you don't control your story other people will

[00:40:35] know.

[00:40:36] What does that mean right?

[00:40:38] And at this point I'm like 25 26 and I'm like oh god here we go and so that opened the door to

[00:40:44] a very complicated process of like well who do I engage with how do I engage with them and also

[00:40:52] your traumatized right so you're like trying to make these decisions and I was so young

[00:40:58] and it's not like it's hard to explain to people this type of fame because it's not like oh I've

[00:41:05] worked the past 20 years to become an astronaut it finally happened and everyone wants to hear about

[00:41:11] it.

[00:41:12] It's like I was in this horrible circumstance that was like semi in my control but largely out of

[00:41:19] my control I made it out kind of okay but I don't feel okay and now everyone wants to talk to me

[00:41:26] about it and it's inspirational on one end and it's sad on the other and like how do you negotiate

[00:41:34] that and I had largely spent my journey in avoidance of like that's that one horrible thing that

[00:41:42] happened you at work at time we're never going to talk about it we're packing our bags we're moving

[00:41:45] in a Hong Kong we've completely changed careers I went from being a scientist to working in venture

[00:41:50] capital right like I'd really distance myself from the whole experience that was like we're not

[00:41:56] going to deal with that and then I had to like confront all that on the public stage and so now like

[00:42:02] I said you're seeing this sort of like healed version of mine but it was it was very complicated

[00:42:06] very challenging has it come with blessings 100% has it come with challenges 100% and so even to

[00:42:13] this day I haven't really been able to kind of sort it all out except with acceptance of like

[00:42:20] that's what happened that this is the way it worked out you just have to sort of accept that and

[00:42:26] of course there's a way in which you can kind of read with all of these cases they die down

[00:42:32] and they go by the wayside like with everything in life but it was quite complicated for me because

[00:42:38] I was so young I didn't know how to negotiate it I am a pretty open and transparent person in

[00:42:43] general but you have that level of being exposed it was just a world I wasn't prepared for or

[00:42:53] you know didn't know how to negotiate I think like other people might have. I wish we'd been friends

[00:42:59] at the time yeah well I mean I was I had went through everything you just said I just wish I

[00:43:06] could have been part of it so you didn't have to go through it. Well what you just said in the

[00:43:11] beginning was the reason I got involved if you don't tell your story someone else will and

[00:43:14] they're not they're gonna butcher it and so it was the only reason I did the vow and any of that

[00:43:20] stuff that wasn't particularly interested in getting attention not based on my merit but

[00:43:25] based on something that happened to me. But truly like Erica her merit and I heard somebody say

[00:43:30] I got goosebumps when I heard the narrator of the dropout podcast I don't know if you listen

[00:43:34] to that summarizing the trial just to say that she had remarkable to describe do you like

[00:43:39] the whole reason that we're having the trials because of characters quote characters like Erica

[00:43:44] Chung who has remarkable integrity and going back to like your desire for data integrity your

[00:43:50] integrity is the reason this has all come to light and also to you nippy you do have merit in

[00:43:55] yeah we all fucked up you know we all fucked up. I'm not seeking to minimize that aspect of

[00:43:59] I'm simply saying when I signed up to do this and when I've gotten attention for something it's

[00:44:04] based on something I've set out to do not something that happened to me you know and I don't mean

[00:44:09] to minimize like you know how we handled it and how we turned it into a positive and how we did

[00:44:13] the right thing yeah and in shape or form but it was uncomfortable to go through that and then

[00:44:18] you know to your point people don't necessarily understand it and you're reconciling to understand

[00:44:21] it while you're having conversations about it that's a weird to weird thing to do. Yeah I think it

[00:44:26] was strange too because there was litigation that was going on like that's the rare when that

[00:44:31] happens where it's like the reporting happened during the downfall right the litigation happened

[00:44:41] while all of this was public versus it wasn't a closed case that people took all the information

[00:44:48] and then decided to do something with it and I think that generated an immense amount of paranoia

[00:44:54] for me an immense amount of feeling as a lack of safety and even you know to this day like I

[00:45:01] haven't signed a lease for the last eight nine years of my life right like I have like floated

[00:45:09] about there all these weird things that I do now that are probably a consequence of the like just

[00:45:17] lack of safety that I felt I had because of just the amount of exposure that was occurring

[00:45:24] I'm simultaneously with all of these like other aspects and so I think that was the uniqueness

[00:45:31] of this case was it was just so there was so much attention on it while it was still unfolding

[00:45:37] so I think that was what made it strange and I think you know Sarah Navi is the same thing right

[00:45:43] when it happens I think anyone who goes through these traumatic experiences you have to have that

[00:45:48] heart conversation with yourself around like well what now what now and the best you can do is just

[00:45:56] take that process it accept it grapple with it grieve it whatever process you need to go through

[00:46:03] and ideally if you can say how do we transform this and something that can be beneficial

[00:46:09] others how can we transform this and something that can have some sort of rebirth out of the

[00:46:18] circumstance and and Sarah to your to your point you know one of the big helpful things that helped

[00:46:24] me during the trial was actually my friendship with Cynthia Cooper who was a world comm whistle

[00:46:29] blower and I don't think I would have made it out of that trial without her guidance and mentorship

[00:46:36] and just sheer kindness and perspective that's so great of it's hard it's difficult it's not

[00:46:43] going to stop being difficult until it's over so just sit in the discomfort and that's a message

[00:46:52] I needed to hear and I needed an ally of someone of course she has her own unique experience you guys

[00:46:59] of course I've had your own unique experience but there are commonalities right and we're dealing

[00:47:05] with these types of kind of culty organizations or cults themselves or or just groups that

[00:47:12] kind of create these circumstances for people that they feel they're a part of this thing but also

[00:47:19] trying to escape out of it in different ways so that kind of opportunity to share with people and

[00:47:27] also be an ally to other people who will likely be in these circumstances has been immensely powerful

[00:47:34] for me it was powerful for Cynthia as well to help me through that because yeah it's

[00:47:39] unfortunate when you are in these circumstances they're so sad and hard but the best you can do is

[00:47:45] grow out of them absolutely I have to tell you that you know we could do a whole episode on how culty

[00:47:50] Elizabeth Holmes is and like you know analyze her behavior and all that stuff but this episode for

[00:47:54] us is really about the journey of a whistle blower and there's a lot of people who listen to this

[00:47:59] podcast who are in cults or debating leaving cults are of left and debating whether to whistle blow

[00:48:04] and we haven't I wouldn't really done like a dedicated episode on that do you have any advice

[00:48:09] for future whistleblowers on this episode or anything you would done differently that gets

[00:48:14] you can glean there for us yeah I think the biggest thing is build out a support network that's

[00:48:19] the biggest thing think of who are the allies that you're going to need and ideally there are people

[00:48:24] who if you have allies within the group that you're a part of that's great but also external

[00:48:31] you know a lot of lawyers with whistleblowers work on contingency and even if you can't hire them

[00:48:37] maybe have a starter conversation around what's kind of occurring there are lots of these agencies

[00:48:42] and nonprofits that you can an advocacy groups that you can turn to if you have a question you know

[00:48:49] some people don't have strong family support or friend support but at the same time it's

[00:48:54] that we all have at least even if it's a breeze even if it's someone you'd be surprised at the

[00:48:59] kindness of strangers when you tell them I'm really in the bind I need to start somewhere

[00:49:05] to get help like really try and formulate that support network because it's going to be really

[00:49:10] crucial throughout the journey or whatever you decide to do you know I've worked a lot on the

[00:49:16] whistleblower advocacy side now with people like the signals network that deals with media whistleblowers

[00:49:22] and tech whistleblowers there's lots of good nonprofits out there and there are lots of resources

[00:49:27] out there that people can kind of turn to but I think personally for me it's like making sure you have

[00:49:33] a wide range of people that you can kind of turn to for questions and emotional support and just

[00:49:41] perspective on what's happening and it's not always easy to build and I know it's hard but

[00:49:46] that's I think really crucial for these types of cases and circumstance.

[00:49:50] Couldn't agree more we have a portion of wrap up so we talk about the thing that chaps your ass

[00:49:54] the most about the whole experience and it's more the later content like the thing that's I

[00:49:58] really it beats for him is the voice putting you on the spot what's the thing for you

[00:50:03] that gets me bothered yeah that's one way of putting it.

[00:50:05] Oh, it gets me bothered portion of our guess.

[00:50:09] That's optional and it could be both the press could be with the trial it could be about the

[00:50:13] experience itself it could be anything.

[00:50:15] You know the thing that I think bothers me about the voice is everyone and this is when you know

[00:50:22] you have a cult of personality everyone fixated on the voice for so long that it was almost like

[00:50:30] people ignored all the other egregious things that she had done and were so hyper fixated

[00:50:36] on the voice and I was like what is going why are people just paying attention to this like

[00:50:41] quality that she has versus the fact of all the actions that she had done and it was really

[00:50:47] it was really strange to me to kind of kind of see that it was like oh yeah people are more

[00:50:52] concerned with this sort of like image-based stuff than they are about like what are the actual

[00:50:58] actions of what's occurring and that was a big shock for me.

[00:51:01] Yeah, I mean I certainly one of the first things I noticed is just something that was weird

[00:51:04] it was like it was incongruous like he's volleyball.

[00:51:07] Yeah, Keith did a lot of things that were like a persona especially that was one correlation

[00:51:12] they made also both had this faux humbleness like this pretend humanitarian thing.

[00:51:16] Yeah, I think that would have been another thing that really bothered me was the kind of like

[00:51:21] the line around the patient experience and her uncle.

[00:51:26] Like to create more empathy and it was like oh this is when you know you're dealing with a

[00:51:31] particular type of dark triad individual is when you are basically lying about personal stories

[00:51:40] in order to garner more attention from others and that was that was a bit drawing and surprising for me.

[00:51:48] Yeah, highly highly manipulative. Well we loved having you on this podcast it's been

[00:51:52] in the works for so long and it's really come full circle for us and such an honor to meet you

[00:51:58] I really think what you do is so brave and you know we want only the best for you next.

[00:52:04] Thanks Sarah thanks Nippy.

[00:52:05] Thank you.

[00:52:06] You like what you hear?

[00:52:08] Please do give us a rating a review and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you listen.

[00:52:13] Every little bit helps us get this cult awareness content out there.

[00:52:16] Smash that subscribe button.

[00:52:18] You know what to do.

[00:52:21] Hope you liked our chat with Erica.

[00:52:23] I think we could have kept her on the line for another hour for sure.

[00:52:26] First of all it was midnight for her associate to go but I think it was nice to do that

[00:52:29] is really nice. We're gonna have to try to get her back on for our patron subscribers

[00:52:33] and get into the weeds of the story.

[00:52:34] And the thing about the Elizabeth home stories we got to ask are there more

[00:52:38] Elizabeth homes being nurtured right now at some startup somewhere?

[00:52:42] Great question.

[00:52:42] And what are the effects of like people are like so many startups do start that way with a vision

[00:52:47] of something that's like has never been done before and people are going to be like

[00:52:51] this is another Theranos.

[00:52:53] And also think of the people she had like why would you think that Henry Kissley?

[00:52:57] You know what I mean?

[00:52:58] Like all the credibility that was leveraged in like it should shine a light on people

[00:53:02] to ask different questions and what we put our trust in at the very least.

[00:53:06] This time we live in is just ripe for brilliance and it's ripe for bad actors

[00:53:10] to take advantage of the cult of personality fame and the need for being the next Steve Jobs

[00:53:15] which is clearly something she was aspiring to do.

[00:53:17] And speaking of Steve Jobs we want you to be the next Steve Jobs of our Patreon.

[00:53:21] Come find us over there at patreon.com slash a little bit culty starting at just

[00:53:26] $5 a month you get ad-free listening and free bonus episode and the perks just add up from there.

[00:53:33] All the way up to Will send you care package full of some culty goodies.

[00:53:37] Until next time don't take a job at a place where someone at the top is a mysterious genius

[00:53:41] who wears the same black turl like every day that's just a big red flag.

[00:53:44] Huge.

[00:53:45] See you next time.

[00:54:03] Thanks for listening everyone we're heading over to patreon.com slash a little bit culty now

[00:54:10] to discuss this episode in the meantime dear listener please remember this podcast is solely

[00:54:15] for general informational educational and entertainment purposes it's not intended as a substitute

[00:54:21] for real medical legal or therapeutic advice for cult recovery resources and to learn more

[00:54:26] about seeking safely in this culty world check out alubiculti.com slash culty resources and don't

[00:54:32] miss Sarah's TED Talk called How Cult Literate Are You Great Stuff.

[00:54:36] A little bit culty is a trace 120 production executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony

[00:54:41] Nippie Ames in collaboration with producer Will Rutherford at Citizens of Sound and our co-creator

[00:54:46] and show chaplain slash bodyguard Jess Temple Tarty our show writer is Holly Zedra and our theme song

[00:54:51] Cultivated is by John Bryant.