You Can See Everything—but don’t forget the whistleblowers

[00:00:04] Welcome back everybody to this week's episode of A Little Bit Culty. We are witnessing in action the rough draft of our studio space. We move things, you can see the signs over there now. Give them a little. There's the sign. Yeah. It's gonna move behind us. Little big panels here from Wayfair. Thank you Wayfair for helping us out build our new studio.

[00:00:33] Got some seats. So it's a little janky right now. There's gonna be some plants, there's gonna be some panels. It's gonna be sexy. We're in the middle of creating it and that can be stressful. Yeah. Can be, can I say. It could be stressful. But we wanted to make sure we got this episode to you because time is of the essence. And yesterday Nippy and I saw- Homework. It was homework.

[00:01:00] Cleared our schedule and went to a movie theater and saw the most talked about documentary perhaps of all time. The Nate Fielder. No, Nate, Nate Fielder, right? Fielder, Nathan Fielder. Nathan Fielder, yeah. Who we've met. Who we know and I'll tell you that story later. You can see everything. Well actually, we should prompt them with that story. That's the beginning? Yeah, tell them that and then I don't, we don't have to.

[00:01:28] Well, hold on, I'm gonna come back to that. I just want to tell you what this episode is. We thought we would redrop an episode with Erica Chung, which is one of the whistleblowers that's featured in The Adventure, Out for Blood in Silicon Valley. As homework, before or after you see, you can see everything. Do not listen to this and do not listen to what's coming next if you haven't, like you just have to see this documentary. Yes.

[00:01:56] And not so much in this episode, but we will be giving, you know, we don't want to spoil anything for you and it is an experience to be experienced. And I will say, a sign of a good documentary is if it has you asking more questions at the end and Nate did that. Nate's got a particular- Are you calling him Nate now? What, should I call him Nathan? Nathan. I don't know. I'm gonna, you know. However you feel comfortable.

[00:02:19] Um, anyway, um, I think that's a good sign of a good documentary that he was able to do that and we had a lot. So at the end of it, so first off- We watched it yesterday. We watched it yesterday at 11.45. It's three hours and then we went to pick up our kids after. Oh, by the way, three hours like is normally way too long for me for a movie. I did not want this movie to be over. Three urine breaks. I went pee once. I went three.

[00:02:42] Um, and at the end there was like this quietness in the theater and I go, is anyone else have more questions here? And everyone just starts laughing. I offered to like get everyone together into a circle and do a little, like a debrief conversation. Everyone was like totally. I didn't, it was funny. I wanted to talk about it. Um, luckily I had Nippy and my mom was also with us. We recorded that, uh, conversation. Maybe we'll air that at some point cause it was kind of rough and raw in the car. We can do the abridged version. You had some guidelines for this.

[00:03:12] Make sure we don't. Well, we don't want to give any spoilers. Spoilers. We don't want to talk about it too much. We really just want, what we're going to do. We had a plan. We thought we were going to debrief it a little bit and then air the Erica Chung episode. Now we realize that we need a whole episode or two to debrief it. So this is going to be part of your homework. Listen, Erica Chung, watch, you can see everything. Uh, enjoy that.

[00:03:35] And bring questions. Um, you comment in the, if you're watching this on YouTube and again, reminder, this is our temporary YouTube studio. We're building something with panels and lights and cameras and actions can be amazing. Oh yeah. And you know, all the tickers at the bottom and newsflash breaking news. It's going to be great. Uh, but in the interim, we just felt like it was important to re air the Erica Chung episode. We listened, we just re listened to it. It is definitely, she's great.

[00:04:02] She is so smart and she is one of the most, um, She puts good language to it. Really good language to it. Being a whistleblower, what it was like being in Theranos, I highly recommend it. And also I think most people watch or if they did listen to it, um, we'll have more context after seeing you can, see everything, which by the way, Which, what was your impression? I mean, Giving spoilers away and my opinion has changed about. Yeah. Elizabeth. And from what to what? That I'm not going to say. Okay. I'm not going to say that.

[00:04:30] Is it fair to say that you understand her more or understand her less? Both at the same time. Oh shit. I have so many different thoughts about Elizabeth. Elizabeth. I mean, one thing I will say for sure is I don't know about Elizabeth. I do know, however, about Billy, her husband. What do you know? I know how to stir eggs properly now is one thing. Oh. I know that I would like to always shower with a shower curtain and I'm not going to say anything else because I don't want to ruin it for people. This is really a movie to be seen.

[00:05:01] Um, can I give some things for people to maybe look out for? Sure. Yes. I will say, watch the parents. I feel like there was more there that could have been explored. That was a takeaway for me. What's real? Think about what's real. What's real. What is character? I will also say, I think I have an understanding of how Theranos gets herself. Sorry. I call her Theranos. Elizabeth Holmes gets herself into these situations.

[00:05:30] I don't know the level of malevolence of what she's doing. Um. Let's save that for the panel. Okay. There's more that I want. Well, can I say what I said initially after about like the roadblocks for me of what I thought like. I think they saved that for the panel. Really? Yeah, because I don't want to give that. I don't want to give that away. Oh. Yeah. It's just, like, listen. I don't have much to add now. Let's just say, like, just watching a movie where there was so much audience like,

[00:05:59] Oh, what the fuck? Okay. Oh my God. Can I fire some questions then? Yeah. Fire some questions. Do you think she's competent or not competent in being conned? I think that's a fair question. Do you think- Now, what's her competence level? Like- Like, is she autistic? That was one thought I had. I just found myself- I don't even want to say- We're not therapists. No, but- We can't mentally diagnose her, but there's something- Billy. Billy. Billy's analysis of her.

[00:06:28] When he said it, I actually saw what he was talking about. So, he's smart, but he's not like- Or aunties. Oh, Billy. This guy's got something going on with him. Just, please, just- Something off. Something off. Feels off. Watch- I would say watch the movie, listen to this episode with Erica Chung. If you really want to do your homework and get all the gold stars, watch the whole-

[00:06:51] The Inventor, out for Blood in Silicon Valley, and The Dropout with Amanda- I always say her name wrong. Siegfried and Roy. Which we haven't watched. Maybe we should watch that too, but we saw some clips of it. And, I mean, also maybe Google the term meta, because this is the most meta on meta- documentary I've ever seen. And that's the other meta moment for us.

[00:07:18] So, how we know Nathan is through mutual friends, Vancouver Jewish community. We met at Hornby Island a couple years ago when our NXIVM story broke, and he was really interested in that, and we talked. Yeah, he kind of grilled us about that right when we're in our trauma. I guess he likes to be right in there in the trauma. And he was really quiet, but like, ask good questions. I feel like I was Elizabeth Holmes with him. Do you know the whole- So, there's this- Where we go, is this Hornby Island, is this like janky little gym there.

[00:07:48] And there's this old- Joking park. Old Jewish kind of guy in there at the gym. And I get in a conversation with him. He's like, oh yeah, my son's in the industry. And like, yeah. Oh, you're the one that connected us? I thought he connected us through my parents. No. So, so- I remember Nathan's dad. He's nice. And we were in the gym together. And- He's like, his son's in the industry. And I was like, I didn't know. You know, I was like, a lot of people have that conversation. I guess it's kind of before he- No, he was working- I started noticing him after I saw him.

[00:08:17] So, he kind of like- Yeah, he had a career. He had a career. He was definitely living, but it wasn't- Who he is now. But I think he's the kind of guy amongst his peers, they all know that he's talented. And has like, he's going places or he's going to work for a long while. He's smart. And he knows, I mean, it's pretty evident. Right. Um, and I met him. I was like, oh yeah, I was lifting with your dad. In the gym. Really gym bros. And then- So then he came and started asking questions.

[00:08:47] Cause I guess people hadn't really heard about it at the time. Well, I guess the story broke, the CBC documentary. I think it- Had not. No? No. Cause this is- Oh, maybe it had, cause it's August of 17. That's all that. No, that's when you ran into Josh Bloch. Yeah. I don't know when I spoke to Nathan, but we did speak to him again in- In LA. And I have, oh, do you have the video of me leaving him a voice note? No, I don't. As soon as we were in, before we left the theater, I texted Nathan and invited him to come on the

[00:09:17] podcast and of course, congratulated him for breaking the internet. Um, maybe we'll drop that on Instagram. Let's get him on the podcast. Make it an official invite. Nathan- And maybe his questions go to Nathan. Maybe you ask the questions, we get them to the requisite people. We're thinking Dr. Romani. Hopefully Nathan. I've already messaged her. Who else would you like to- If we're going to have a round table panel analyzing this film, who should it be? Let us know in the comments here on YouTube.

[00:09:45] Enjoy the episode with Erica Chung. If you're listening to- This is our merch. Sarah said I'd wear merch on our show. Check out the merch. Uh, check out the play by play as we build our studio and- Rough draft. You're looking at the rough draft. Rough draft. Very basic. Um. Rough draft. Right here. Rough draft. Work of progress. Actually, finished product. Finished product. Oh, thanks babe. That was really sweet. Yeah. All right. Thanks for listening.

[00:10:13] If you're listening and not watching, please do go over to YouTube and just hit subscribe. Even if you're not going to watch, it's just, you know, we're really close to 10,000 views and that would be amazing. Let's hit 10,000 views this week. Oh, I just hate all that. I know. Barf-a-rama. I just hate all that like- Fuck. Hit that like button. Fuck. But hit it. And go see the movie. All right. I can't wait to talk to you guys about it. Enjoy this episode. Bye.

[00:10:42] Erica, welcome to A Little Bit Cult-y. No, Sarah. Thanks for having me. We are so excited. We have re-immersed ourself into the world of Theranos to prep for this interview having- We did a deep dive a year ago. Well, I think whenever the doc came out and I remember watching it thinking I was taking a break from cult content and you were one of the first people in the episode to say drinking the Kool-Aid, which everyone on this podcast knows what that is a reference to. So how- Well, first of all, how are you?

[00:11:11] Welcome to the podcast and how are you in your journey? I'm doing quite well. I'm doing quite well. So you figure for me it, 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. So I have to say at the end of 2023 and beginning into this year of 2024, I feel quite at peace

[00:11:37] and a bit liberated from the case because there's no litigation. There's no having to wait for a federal trial. There's no fear of any type of lingering retaliation in any way, shape or form that that might take. And so you're seeing a very different version of me than you probably would have seen at, you know, very different junctures throughout this process.

[00:12:05] You know, whether that was the cute whistleblowing 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, 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.

[00:12:32] So, 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. Excuse me. It's a timeline we relate to. Yeah. Yeah. 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 over a year ago, you're like, I'd love to, but we got to wait for the trial, which is now all done.

[00:13:02] So yay for that. But let's go back to the beginning. I'm not sure how much of your podcast. I'm not sure how much of our podcasts you've you're aware of, but our format is, is pretty standard in terms of like what drew people in and what the red flags were and how they got out. This is not your standard cults, but definitely a lot of cult like behavior, culty tactics. But tell us from like back at the beginning, what did you think you were signing up for and what drew you to Elizabeth Holmes?

[00:13:29] If you don't mind rewinding the clock a little bit. Yeah. The early days, the good days, you know, the days where, where, um, everything looks like it's going to be rainbows and butterflies. Um, I think the early draw for Holmes, I always, I was trying to contextualize for people, the kind of the Silicon Valley at that time too. So I started, uh, Theranos as my first job out of college.

[00:13:57] So I was 22 years old, just graduated from UC Berkeley and was kind of starry eyed around. Um, and the fact that she was this female entrepreneur dropped out of Stanford age 19 to start, uh, at that time, a revolutionary tech company, uh, where she was really trying to provide.

[00:14:24] Less painful, more affordable, more accessible blood diagnostics people, right? 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 hit the entirety of the United States.

[00:14:54] So hard. No one was getting jobs. Uh, no one wanted to be, of course, involved in finance or this industry or that industry, but, um, 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.

[00:15:22] So, um, 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, um, really got me excited and, and kind of bought into wanting to work for Theranos, wanting to be a part of tech.

[00:15:50] Uh, and, and, and wanting to kind of be on this mission to, to be a part of, you know, a revolutionary company. How far in was Theranos at the time into like, how old was the company at that point? Theranos at the time. So the company was fairly young. It was fairly young and fairly old, I suppose you could say. So it had been around for about 10 years and there wasn't much information about the company.

[00:16:19] So they had raised a fair amount of capital. So in the hundreds of millions and they had a stack board, as many people know, you know, they had Henry Kissinger and, and George Schultz and all of these political figures kind of in there.

[00:16:33] Um, but there wasn't a lot of info about what was going on aside the fact that there was this medical device that she had developed in order to convert blood diagnostics from a stick in the vein versus a stick in the finger, right? Like to collect all the blood device. So it was around for about 10 years. The size of it was maybe about a hundred, 200 people at that time.

[00:17:03] Um, so it wasn't, 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, and we don't have, you don't have to tell the whole story because it's really out there in so many formats. Um, but there's clearly a pattern.

[00:17:30] And I was looking at my, my notes from when I watched it the first time, even before we had the podcast of all the similarities between, um, Nexium and Theranos. Um, and you know, the pattern, the patterns there, but for, for you, what, what were some of the first red flags, the potential issues that you saw? Before you left. Yeah. I, I, uh, before I left or when I first joined. Or whenever. Yeah. First from the beginning.

[00:17:58] What was the first, what was the first like feeling in your stomach? 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 of competitors are going to come after us. If we share any trade secrets. Um, the fact that there was so much that was hush hush seemed a bit strange.

[00:18:27] And I had kind of written that off, especially being really young 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 or 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.

[00:18:51] Um, 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, is typically a giant red flag. Um, but I think, uh, another thing like later on, and it was hard to really identify while I was working for the company, cause it was quite cool was how young people were.

[00:19:20] Um, so a lot of people were just like me, recent grads out of college, didn't have a lot of experience in the working world at all. Full stop, not even in diagnostics or healthcare, this sort of really specialized field, but really just didn't have very much work experience at all. And we're being put into situations where we're given responsibility that we shouldn't have probably had ownership over.

[00:19:48] Um, and I think, uh, seeing, uh, there were a lot of us who just. Didn't really know what was going on or had any. Background context into the healthcare field, being the primary people at the front lines, dealing with this technology.

[00:20:11] And dealing with resulting outpatients 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, why we have so many young people. Do you think that was intentional? Do you think that was a strategy on her part or. I think, I mean, yeah, it was definitely. So it was weird. It was like, there are two strategies going on.

[00:20:33] 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 that they're actually investing in. So they can't ask the right. I did notice that.

[00:20:49] And then at the other 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.

[00:21:09] Well, how does this really stack up in comparison to other types of technologies that exist in the world today or other types of healthcare 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. I think it was by design. And even I'll give you an example.

[00:21:34] We have, there's a special position called a clinical lab scientist that essentially approves if the patient sample is acceptable or not. And what they would do is they would stick these CLSs instead of putting them in the laboratory where all these experimental methodologies were kind of happening.

[00:21:56] 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.

[00:22:17] So that was very clear to me when it was like, why 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. So that was a pretty clear sign. Oh, this is deliberate.

[00:22:47] This is deliberate. And again, when you're young, like how I was young, I was 22 at that point. Like, instinctually, you're like, something's not quite right here.

[00:23:01] 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 the critical questions that could get them in trouble. You know, that's not the line of thought. Loving the podcast? Now you can listen to the book, too.

[00:23:29] A Little Bit Culty, Navigating Cult's Control and Coercion is now out on Audible. Yes, it is narrated by us. So you get the stories, the hard-won wisdom, and even a few tangents that didn't make it into the paperback. The book takes what we've learned from our own experience inside NXIVM and from hundreds of conversations with survivors and experts and turns it into a practical, compassionate guide to spotting coercive control, getting out, and healing from it. Because culty shit is everywhere, and it doesn't always look like people wearing matching robes in the desert.

[00:23:58] These dynamics show up in relationships, workplaces, wellness communities, churches, social media, anywhere someone claims to have all the answers. And we're pretty proud that the book has been endorsed by powerhouses like Leah Remini, Bethany Joy Lenz, Dr. Romani Dervasala, Tia Lovings, Evan Rachel Wood, Jessica Willis Fisher, and so many more. So whether you've been meaning to read the book or you just want to hear us tell it to you ourselves, grab the audiobook on Audible and hit play. And if you love it, leave us a review.

[00:24:25] It helps more people find the book and maybe recognize the red flags before they're in too deep. Enjoy. And that was a word from our sponsors. Let's get back to the show. Particularly, it seems with the cachet and the buy-in that she was able to establish, you know, and I can relate to this and tell me if this is what was going on.

[00:24:55] It 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 instincts and then that got you to ultimately do what you did? Yeah, 100%. It's a long question. It's a long question, but I think it's a very normal one, right? You have that gut feeling. You're like, something's not right here.

[00:25:24] 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. Yes. But not only skeptical of other people, but skeptical of yourself. And I think being in the position of one very little power, being quite young.

[00:25:44] And in addition to that, looking, as you said, at all of these powerful people that have these stacked resumes that are coming from some of the best institutions in the world saying, this works, we bought into this, we've invested tens of millions of dollars into this.

[00:26:04] Because it's, you know, at least in that position, my first expectation is you might, Erica, you might be doing something wrong here. Yeah. Like there might be. You might. It's almost like. Yeah. It's almost like an internal gaslighting. Yeah. It is an internal gaslighting. And now I can identify that that's what was going on.

[00:26:26] Like, oh, Erica, you did an immense amount of gaslighting yourself throughout that experience because 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 like at the end of the day, you can't fight the numbers.

[00:26:52] And so for the type of testing we were doing, you know, if I'm doing a sample test, this is basically just comparing, okay, I know this one sample has, you know, 10 milligrams per mil of vitamin D in it. And I run it through my machine. And if it comes out 500, we've got a problem. Right. Right.

[00:27:17] So it was very straightforward 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 accumulate a lot of that information, it made me a bit more confident to mobilize on, on being able to come forward and speak up.

[00:27:41] And before we get to that key moment, which we obviously want to hear about, in your intake form, you said you wouldn't mind riffing on some of the culty practices. And you mentioned like this is the key point in the doc, right? And the inventor up for blood in Silicon Valley, you said that you'd been drinking the Kool-Aid, which just a little note for our audience is, was actually flavor aid, which is a common misnomer. But we, everyone knows what you're talking about. Drinking the Kool-Aid from Jonestown reference.

[00:28:10] What, how did you get to that reference? Like in other words, what you're, you've clearly seen the correlations. You're on our little bit culty podcast. What were some of the things you'd want to riff about in terms of the other things you saw that were culty? Yeah, I, I think it was the, so initially I have to credit actually one of my colleagues for pointing that out to me.

[00:28:35] It was really in the way she observed me talking about the company that she's like, Hey, don't drink the Kool-Aid too fast. And then that was like a moment of realization. And it was one, the adoration for Elizabeth Holmes of like, wow, look at her. She's so impressive. She started this company. She's brought us all here. You know, we have all these fancy machines and all these people from elite institutions.

[00:29:01] And, uh, how special is it to be a part of this company 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 of how bought in I was and how convinced I was around what we were trying to accomplish that.

[00:29:29] But it was a bit of a moment of reckoning for me of like, Oh, I've like, is this, is this some sort of, uh, magical thinking or just euphoria that I have around being a part of this organization that seems to, um, kind of check the boxes for me of, of what I want out of life. What I want out of my career, what I want to propagate and see happen in society.

[00:29:59] Your idealism was leveraged. My idealism was leveraged. It was leveraged. Transcendental. Exactly. And, and so I think she could, and, and, and so I really credit this colleague for that, that she was the one who made that comment 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 that?

[00:30:28] Of, uh, 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 astute when it's, when you're doing these certain actions and you're looking at your experiments that are failing every day.

[00:30:41] And you're, uh, being asked despite all these failures to up the ante in terms of how many, you know, patients you run or, uh, how many different people you influence or how far you move the needle in terms of. You know, what you think is acceptable in terms of things. This is very nerdy, but like data integrity, right.

[00:31:06] Making sure that are we not manipulating information in a way to make it look pretty versus having it give an accurate, accurate depiction about what's happening. Right. And there were just these tiny little ways in which we were constantly pushing the needle of what, you know, integrity looked like. And, um, I'm sure you guys have seen this too, that it's, it doesn't start off super strong.

[00:31:36] Um, they're not like, Hey, give me, you know, I, 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 these subtle ways that they store sort of get you to slightly modify what you think is acceptable over time. Right.

[00:32:01] So you can't even like, it's like the compass gets turned in a way. Um, and, uh, yeah, that, um, probably made me realize, okay, there's, there's some other cultural dynamics going on here in addition to more, um, puppet mastering, uh, that's occurring than maybe, um, I'm conscious of. So that's a great segue to my question.

[00:32:28] I think a common question we get is, do you think Keith Raniere had a good idea here? It went, it went bad, whatever. I think Keith was bad from the start and he set this organization up for himself or whatever. And there's lots of proof of that. Whatever holes he wanted to fill. Do you think, uh, Elizabeth set Theranos up for her own holes to fill? Like, you know. Oh, you're skipping to the end.

[00:32:55] Well, I mean, this is, and like, I guess, was there ever a product? Yeah. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, did you ever feel like, like, I guess like, if she had started to succeed, does it justify everything? Right? Like, does that make sense? Like, was there ever a glimmer of like this happening? Uh, gosh.

[00:33:22] So this is a huge loaded thing. For the trial, right? Yeah. To unpack. Yeah. In 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, what did the litigation say? What did, 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? And that was proven to be the case, right?

[00:33:49] That there was definitely wire fraud that occurred and that there was patient fraud that occurred. Of course, the sentencing between, uh, Sunny and Elizabeth had some disparities between the two of them. Um, but I think back to your earlier question, you know, in the case of Holmes, do I believe that she was from the start trying to fill some sort of personal void? A hundred percent, right? Was it with the malevolent intention?

[00:34:18] I think it's, it, these types of psychologies are so, and personalities are so hard to deconstruct because in comparison to just like almost blatant greed and blatant fraudsters are a little bit easier to deal with, right? It's like, oh, it's the money. They're after the money.

[00:34:40] 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, it gets much more complicated. And I think to a certain degree, was it, is it possible that point of care diagnostics could indeed exist at that time? Yes, a hundred percent.

[00:35:10] 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. 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?

[00:35:38] There was 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. Wow.

[00:35:52] Anything, because of Theranos, it set back people's ability to innovate in that space because people are so scared to touch diagnostics because they don't want to probably lose face for being involved in another failure around diagnostics.

[00:36:12] That really, I think, created more of a risk aversion and almost over excessive risk aversion to that space. That's such a shame. When it, it's such a shame.

[00:36:30] It's, there's so many, and I'm sure you guys had this too, of even though being at the helm of whistleblowing and stopping the case, like there's still so much heartbreak that comes from that, right? Like that idealism that they played on, those ideals didn't disappear for me, right? No, moral injury, yeah. It's the moral injury, it's the grief and the loss and the sadness and the betrayal.

[00:37:00] 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. Yeah. But 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, do you know what I mean? Like how absurd is her idea?

[00:37:27] So her idea, parts of it are not, it's like two truths and a lie. So there are some truths there of things that you can do. But I think in terms of what we were doing at Theranos, 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. And that's pretty much what she did. That's a great metaphor.

[00:37:57] Yeah, that's kind of what we were, what was accomplished. Wow. So it's, 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 that it, 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.

[00:38:25] It's like, yeah, but they don't work, right? Like you can, I can, uh, that, that was one of the things they did in the trial where it was like, oh, okay. If the company wasn't working on building this, look at these stacks of papers of all these experiments that they had run to like show you that this technology, uh, was viable and new and, and existed.

[00:38:49] And it's like, sure, I can print out, I can like write on a piece of paper that, you know, I've did this experiment, but if they all fail, that doesn't mean I have a product that works. Right. Like I can run. Yeah. I can run. Also, it doesn't show it. It doesn't seem to show a track record of progress either. You know, we saw all these red flags. We made the comparisons and just circling back to something you said about like the internal feeling and being overridden by the idealism.

[00:39:19] I think, you know, one of the things we certainly saw watching, watching the doc anyway, is, is also the, the corporate rah-rah, like for lack of a better word, the, um, the, the songs and the gatherings and the, the hype and the, and that aligns with what you were saying. Like it's, you know, feeling special and being part of all that and how great that must've felt. All right, everybody, let's pause there and hear from our sponsors.

[00:39:54] All right, everybody, that little break is over. Let's get back to our story. So I had reported internally several times and was reporting on different specific incidents that happened. But I think the big turning point for me of the fact that, okay, these aren't just issues that we have in the company, that there's something bigger going on here is when I had a conversation with the COO of the company.

[00:40:22] And I had gone into his office and basically told him, I'm concerned about the issues that we're having in terms of the failures of our patient test and frequency of them.

[00:40:35] And the fact that when we make a mistake on the fact that we're having in terms of the fact that we're having in terms of the fact that we're having in terms of the process of the patient test and frequency of the patient test. And so at that point, I was just shocked. I was really jarred.

[00:41:03] I was like, okay, this isn't the case that there's some discrepancy between what the executive management knows and what's happening at the operational floor. They know exactly what's going on. They're just not doing anything about it. And so I think that really flipped for me what type of situation I had gotten myself into. You know, before that, I think I was still operating by the principle that you're in a startup. Things aren't working.

[00:41:33] That's why you're hired. You're here to fix the problems. But at that point, I realized, oh, no, no, no. There's something else going on here. And I talked to the board as well. I got into the board's house and had a conversation. And he basically said, maybe I should look for another job.

[00:41:53] And I think after those experiences of internally reporting, kind of going up every level of command, basically, to kind of get the truth out. You know, I was very disempowered. I didn't know what to do.

[00:42:13] I was very concerned about the fact that they were testing on patients, even though it was pretty well proven that these tests weren't working, even by our own internal standards. And I tell a lot of people I got lucky in the sense that I had gotten contacted by John Carreyrou, who was the main reporter who reported on the case. And for me, it wasn't even a second thought.

[00:42:42] It was like a breath of fresh air of, oh, okay, there's one opportunity to get the truth out. Like, I'm going to take it. I'm going to take whatever door presents itself to me to allow the truth to get out. And I didn't really think twice. I didn't probably do as much due diligence as I should have in terms of vetting, like, is this a good journalist or not?

[00:43:04] And honestly, before his report came out, the company was so litigious that they had basically come after me, threatened assuming, and had private investigators following me. And I was living in the Bay.

[00:43:22] But that was also a bit lucky in a strange way because it sort of allowed me to understand that I could also report to regulators, that that was an opportunity for me. That the regulators were ultimately the governing body that could shut down their ability to process patient samples. And so once I figured out, like, oh, you can do this and you can do it anonymously, it was great.

[00:43:51] It was kind of crazy, though, because when I had first figured this out, I had tried to go to San Francisco in order to walk into the office to file the report.

[00:44:03] But I was so paranoid about the fact that I was being stalked and followed and that they would see me entering into the building that I ended up, like, pacing, like, a crazy person around the streets of San Francisco, like, trying to see is someone following me is someone not that I, like, couldn't do it that first day. And so then I ended up getting a burner phone and calling them through the burner phone and then figuring out, okay, this is how you file a report.

[00:44:34] And it took me a while to file a report. I had a lot of personal issues. I was taking care of someone who was dying at that time. So it took me a while to write out the report. These things never happen at an opportune time. This is like a really crazy summer for me.

[00:44:54] But that's kind of what led me to sort of kind of speaking up was a mixture of the desire to just say they need to stop testing on patients. And also a bit of luck in terms of kind of bumping into the right people who sort of helped me build my awareness of what were the opportunities for me to allow the truth to get out, right?

[00:45:22] Like, you don't walk around 23 years old like, oh, I'm going to knock on the door of the Wall Street Journal and have them hold this company I used to work for accountable. You don't walk around at 43 years old. And especially around. That's something that you think that you're ever going to be presented with.

[00:45:45] And especially, yeah, especially when you started off like, like really, it's crazy. I really thought Theranos was going to be the company I was going to work for the next 10 years of my life. Like, like I was that bought into what we were trying to do. And then next thing you know, you're having to kind of change course. One thing Sarah and I learned is you don't get to pick and choose how and why you're going to stand for what you're going to stand for.

[00:46:15] Why not walk away at that point for you? I think, you know, in my case, I knew what I stood for when I joined the company. Like I stood for the fact that I wanted to figure out how to leverage technology to provide affordable and accessible health care to people. I knew that, right? Like I went in very clear minded, very clear headed that this is how I wanted to spend my life and my career.

[00:46:43] And I think because our actions were so counter that we were lying to patients, we were telling people they may or may not have had cancer when we we didn't even trust these tests. Like people internally in the organization would get their blood test results on Edison devices and like freak out because they were just having such like false reports on everything.

[00:47:10] And so I think that made it easy, even though it was scary and hard to kind of keep pushing through because I did have a very clear understanding of why I joined the company, what I stood for, how I wanted to spend my time, how I wanted to spend my career. Why did I study the sciences? Why did I do all of these different things? It was very black and white in many ways for me.

[00:47:38] It made it all the easier. I think what makes it complicated is like, is that it was actually the circumstance of like, are you actually right about this or not? You know, is this the case that you're actually right about the issues that are going on?

[00:47:59] And because of my lack of experience and because of the amount of intimidation and gaslighting and just kind of like twilight zone environment of a workplace that was where like all of a sudden, you know, up is right in 20s, 76 and, and just all this wild stuff.

[00:48:25] So that, that's what was the complicated part. I think for me, it was like the mission, the principle, the what to stand for, very clear, very easy. It was, are you actually right about this? And, and I think also like, you don't, I didn't want to be right about this. Like, that's not a reality. You want to really, it's so gross, right?

[00:48:50] Like when you really look at it, you're like, this is so awful that I almost want to be delusional about what's happening because the reality of what we're actually doing is so painful. I totally agree. And so counter what I signed up for that it's just even your personal resistance to the, the truth.

[00:49:17] Like there are very few times in life that you want to be wrong without something this badly. Totally. You know, we've been there. I totally remember doing, doing interviews at the beginning and even still saying like that, this is bad, right? Like somebody doing that, like this is for sure. But like I said, I totally remember that feeling. Like, am I, cause that's your, you've been, you've been doubting, you've been trained to. So it's the opposite of what you signed up for. The opposite. Yeah. Opposite. That's the thing. It's like.

[00:49:45] I'm, I'm glad you guys say that because that was something I struggled with a lot. And I think other people struggled with me a lot where I, I don't think they understand what it's like being in that environment. So when you come out of it and you talk about it for them as a objective seer of the circumstance, they're able to say, no, this is clearly wrong.

[00:50:05] But because you were immersed and inundated and there's so many emotions that, and there's so many relationships and experiences and different things that are involved in that process. It's very challenging to have that objective view, even being outside of the case, even though, you know, it's 10 years later for me, maybe not quite 10 years in terms of the actual act, but seven years.

[00:50:36] It, I, I, I don't really listen to any of the interviews that I do, frankly, but, but I know in terms of seeing a younger version of myself that it was hard for me sometimes to grasp with like, but this is wrong. Or having to justify my actions or, uh, even ask for just, uh, uh, some sort of assuredness. And, and that's weird.

[00:51:05] Like I look back at that and I'm like, how did they do that? Your own character is in question to yourself, which is, which is part of the strategy. It's a bizarre thing because you, I felt my character wasn't in question until I saw something. I'm like, Oh, Whoa, I'm actually aligned with something that was almost most perpetrating. Am I a perpetrator? Like I had to reconcile that. And that was the gymnastics.

[00:51:33] I had to kind of, and then admit you're a victim and you get conned and all that stuff messes with your pride. And what was it like for you to have all of this, like in the public space? Cause there's been a documentary, there's the Hulu series and there is, we haven't watched it yet to be, okay. Just so you know, we didn't have time to watch, watch it there. But I did see that there's a character of you, right? How was that? So I, I haven't watched it either. Um, so don't feel bad.

[00:52:03] Cause technically there is a character of me and I haven't watched it either. Probably best not to. I feel, I don't know. Yeah, it was a little too soon for me. It's been, how do I explain this journey? It's, it's complicated. It's very, very complicated. Um, I think it, I wanted my initial intentions were always to be anonymous because I loved my simple life.

[00:52:29] I was totally fine being in the background, working on my projects and just having some level of anonymity. And that was valuable to me. But, um, what ended up happening is I got subpoenaed for a court case. The judge ended up releasing my deposition into the public record. And then my name got out, the media picked up on it and they were kind of misquoting some of the things that I had said.

[00:52:59] And so at that point, people said, Erica, if you don't control your story, other people will. And I was like, what, what does that mean? Right. 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 a very complicated process of like, well, who do I engage with? How do I engage with them? And, and also you're traumatized, right? So you're like trying to make these decisions.

[00:53:28] And I was so young. And it's not like, it's hard to explain to people this type of thing because it's not like, oh, I've worked the past 20 years to become an astronaut. It finally happened. And everyone wants to hear about it. It's like, I was in this horrible circumstance that was like semi in my control, but largely out of my control. I made it out kind of okay, but I don't feel okay.

[00:53:56] And now everyone wants to talk to me about it. And it's inspirational on one end and it's sad on the other. And like, how do you negotiate that? And I, you know, and I had largely spent my journey in avoidance of like, that's that one horrible thing that happened to you at work at time. We're never going to talk about it. We're packing our bags. We're moving to Hong Kong. We've completely changed careers. I went from being a scientist to working in venture capital, right?

[00:54:26] Like I had really distanced myself from the whole experience. I was like, we're not going to deal with that. And then I had to like confront all that on the public stage. And, and so now, like I said, you're seeing this sort of like healed version of mine, but it was, it was very complicated, very challenging. Has it come with blessings? A hundred percent. Has it come with challenges? A hundred percent.

[00:54:49] And so even to this day, I haven't really been able to kind of sort it all out, except with acceptance of like, that's what happened. That this is the way it worked out. You just have to sort of accept that. And of course, there's a way in which you can kind of read with all of these cases, they die down and they go by the wayside, like with everything in life. And so, you know, I'm not going to be able to do it.

[00:55:16] But, but, but, it, it was quite complicated for me because I was so young. I didn't know how to negotiate it. I am a pretty, you know, open and transparent person in general. But when you're that, you have that level of being exposed, it, it was just a world I, I wasn't prepared for or, you know, didn't know how to negotiate. I think like other people might have.

[00:55:44] I wish we'd been friends at the time. Cause I. Yeah. You're reasoning for wanting. Well, I mean, I, I was, I had went through everything you just said. I just wish I could have imparted it so you didn't have to go through it. Well, what you just said in the beginning was the reason I got involved. If you don't tell your story, someone else will, they're not, they're going to butcher it. And so I was the only reason I did the vow and any of that stuff.

[00:56:10] I wasn't particularly interested in getting attention, not based on my merit, but based on something that happened to me. And, and, but truly like Erica, her merit. And I heard somebody say, I got goosebumps when I, when I heard the, the narrator of the dropout podcast. I don't know if you listened to that summarizing the trial. Yeah, I did. Um, I'm sorry. Yeah. To Erica. Um, who's, who's just to say that she had, you know, remarkable.

[00:56:34] To describe to you, like the, the, the whole reason that we're having the trials because of characters, quote, characters like Erica Chung, who, who has remarkable integrity. And going back to like your desire for data integrity, your integrity is the reason. And this has all come to light and she's behind bars. I believe. I didn't set out to. No, no, I know that. I was just making the segue like, and also to you, Nippy, you're, you're like, you do have merit in, in, yeah, we all fucked up. You know, we all fucked up.

[00:57:13] I'm not seeking to minimize that aspect of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:57:42] Like there was litigation that was going on. Like that's rare when that happens, where it's like the reporting happened during the downfall, right? The litigation happened while all of this was public versus it wasn't a closed case that people took all the information and then decided to do something with it.

[00:58:07] And I think that generated an immense amount of paranoia for me, an immense amount of feelings of lack of safety. And even, you know, to this day, like I haven't signed a lease for the last eight, nine years of my life, right?

[00:58:23] Like I have like floated about, there are all these weird things that I do now that are probably a consequence of the, like, just the lack of safety that I felt I had because of just the amount of exposure that was occurring simultaneously with all of these like other aspects.

[00:58:49] And so I think that was the uniqueness of this case was it was just so, there was so much attention on it while it was still unfolding. So I think that was what made it, made it strange. And I think, you know, serenity is the same thing, right? You, when you, when it happens, I think anyone who goes through these traumatic experiences, you have to have that hard conversation with yourself around like, well, what now?

[00:59:19] What now? And the best you can do is just take that, process it, accept it, grapple with it, grieve it, whatever process you need to go through. And ideally, if you can say, how do we transform this in something that can be beneficial to others?

[00:59:37] How can we transform this in something that can have some sort of rebirth out of the, the, the circumstance? And, and Sarah, to your, to your point, you know, one of the big helpful things that helped me during the trial was actually my friendship with Cynthia Cooper, who was the world calm whistleblower.

[01:00:02] And I don't think I would have made it out of that trial without her guidance and mentorship and just sheer kindness and perspective of it's hard. It's difficult. It's not going to stop being difficult until it's over. So just sit in the discomfort. And, and, and that's, um, a message I needed to hear.

[01:00:30] And I needed an ally of someone. Of course, she has her own unique experience. You guys, of course, have had your own unique experience, but there are commonalities, right?

[01:00:42] And we're dealing with these types of kind of culty organizations or cults themselves or, or just groups that kind of create these, uh, circumstances for people that they feel, um, they're a part of this thing, but also, you know, that trying to, uh, uh, escape out of it. In, in different ways.

[01:01:07] So, um, yeah, that, that kind of opportunity to, uh, share with people and also be an ally to other people who will likely be in these circumstances has been immensely powerful for me. It was powerful for Cynthia as well to help me through that. Um, because, uh, yeah, it's, it's unfortunate when you are in these circumstances that are so sad.

[01:01:36] And hard, um, but the best you can do is grow out of them. Absolutely. I have to tell you that, you know, we could do a whole episode on how culty Elizabeth Holmes is and like, you know, analyze her behavior and all that stuff. But this episode for us is really about the journey of a whistleblower. And, um, there's a lot of people who listen to this podcast who are in cults or debating leaving cults or have left and debating whether to whistleblow. So, and we haven't, I haven't really done like a dedicated episode on that.

[01:02:03] Do you have any advice for future whistleblowers on this, on this episode or anything you would done differently that you, any lyrics, like nuggets you can glean there for us? Yeah. Um, I think, I think the biggest thing is build out a support network. That's the biggest thing. Think of who are the allies that you're going to need. And ideally there are people who, if you have allies within the group that you're a part of, that's great, but also external.

[01:02:33] You know, a lot of lawyers with whistleblowers work on contingency. And even if you can't hire them, maybe have a starter conversation around what's kind of occurring. There are lots of these agencies and nonprofits that you can, and advocacy groups that you can turn to. If you have a question, really think if, you know, some people don't have strong family support or friends support, you know, but at the same time, it's that we all have at least, even if it's a barista,

[01:03:02] even if it's someone you would be surprised at the kindness of strangers, when you tell them I'm really in a bind, I need to start somewhere to get help. Like really try and formulate that support network because it's going to be really crucial throughout the journey of whatever you decide to do. Um, you know, I've worked a lot on the whistleblower advocacy, um, side now with people like the signals network that deals with media whistleblowers.

[01:03:32] And tech whistleblowers, there's lots of good nonprofits out there. And there are lots of resources out there that people can kind of turn to. But I think personally, for me, it's like making sure you have a wide range of people that you can kind of turn to for questions and emotional support and, uh, just perspective on what's happening.

[01:03:56] Um, and it's not always easy to build and I know it's hard, but, uh, that's, I think really crucial for these types of, of cases and circumstances. We have a portion of our episode. We talk about the thing that chaps your ass the most about the whole experience and it's more the later, the later content. Like the thing that's eye rolly. Nippy says for his, for him, it's the voice. What are you putting you on the spot? What's the thing for you? Uh, that gets me bothered. Yeah. That's one way of putting it. I'm alone.

[01:04:25] He calls it chaps my ass. It gets me bothered portion of our, I guess. It could be. It's optional. And it could be about the press. It could be about the trial. It could be about the experience itself. It could be anything. You know, you know, the thing that I think bothers me about the voice is everyone. And this is when, you know, you have a cult personality.

[01:04:46] Everyone fixated on the voice for so long that it was like the cornerstone of what it was almost like people ignored all the other egregious things that she had done. And we're so hyper fixated on the voice. And I was like, what is going, why are people just paying attention to this like quality that she has versus the fact of all the actions that she had done?

[01:05:13] And it was really, it was really strange to me to kind of, kind of see that, that it was like, oh yeah, people are more concerned with this sort of like image based stuff than they are about like, what are the actual actions of what's occurring? And that was a big shock. Yeah. I mean, it's certainly one of the first things I noticed. It was just something that was weird. It was like, it was incongruous. Keith's volleyball. Yeah. Keith did a lot of things that were like a persona, especially, oh, that was one correlation they made also.

[01:05:41] Both had this faux humbleness, like this pretend humanitarian thing. Anyway, you have to go. I know. Yeah. I think that would have been another thing that really bothered me was the kind of like the lying around the patient experience and her uncle, like to create more empathy.

[01:06:02] And it was like, oh, this is when you know you're dealing with a particular type of dark triad individual is when you are basically lying about personal stories in order to garner more. Like attention from others. And that was, that was a bit jarring and surprising for me. Yeah. Highly, highly manipulative. Yeah. Well, we loved having you on this podcast.

[01:06:33] It's been in the works for so long and it's really come full circle for us and such an honor to meet you. I really think what you did was so brave and, you know, we want all only the best for you next. Yeah. Thanks, Sarah. Thanks, Nippy.