That photo, the one you most commonly see in conjunction with stories about Elizabeth Holmes, appears to be one shot for a Theranos marketing campaign. From the book “Bad Blood”:
“You’re the leader.” Click.Click.Click. “Strong, powerful.” Click.Click. “Think of your mission.” Click.Click.Click.Click.
“The famous portrait photographer Martin Schoeller was softly whispering directions to Elizabeth in his thick German accent to elicit a range of emotions from her as he snapped her picture.”
There are other photos of Holmes in informal settings that lack a creepy vibe.
I’ve seen plenty of pictures, and video, of Holmes during the Theranos days. I realize that the picture above is a posed picture, taken by a professional photographer, but she always seemed to wear makeup like that. It’s definitely a look she worked on. And that, along with the voice (which some people around her then said was an affection) was just this big weird thing, undoubtedly part of the con.
As I said, she looks pretty ordinary these days, and the change is striking.
ETA: By the “picture above,” I mean the one in post 59.
The documentary I saw said it was an affectation, meaning that was not her normal speaking voice. In short, her image was very carefully calculated. (Did you notice that she emulated Steve Jobs by wearing similar black turtlenecks?)
So is she simply speaking in a low tone? Or is her voice being artificially manipulated using electronics/computer processing? I’m not an expert on these things, but in that interview it sort of sounds like the latter…
To me it sounded like how women often lower their voice when they’re mimicking men, e.g. when they’re quoting someone a man said. The part that stands out is how they tend to speak with a lower larynx, creating this big open throat sound, as that sounds lower inside your head. It’s also rather monotone in a way that suggests she can’t go any lower. I didn’t hear any digital artifacts, either.
The following clip starts a recording of her where her voice sounds a bit hoarse from talking so low, followed by an example of her normal voice. Then several of the women discussing it mimic her voice, clearly not using any digital effects.
I just finished “Bad Blood” by investigative journalist John Carreyrou (about the Theranos affair). It was a bit hard to get into initially because there were so many characters to keep track of and certain aspects of the technology were a bit daunting. But the book really catches fire when describing how disillusioned former Theranos employees are harassed and threatened as the Wall St. Journal investigation gathers steam, and the company Potemkin Village begins crumbling into dust.
The company’s dirty deeds are mind-boggling. If only they’d taken a fraction of the money and effort spent on legal maneuverings, publicity campaigns and fundraising and devoted that to making their technology work reliably, the horrific mess could’ve been avoided.
Money quote from Gen. James Mattis, onetime Theranos board member and fervent supporter (later Trump’s Secretary of Defense):
“She (Elizabeth Holmes) has probably one of the most mature and well-honed sense of ethics - personal ethics, managerial ethics, business ethics, medical ethics that I’ve ever heard articulated.”
The use of artificially low tones, apparently to convey gravitas is covered in “Bad Blood”.
I’ve seen where people keep repeating the claim that she lowers her voice, but never any proof that this is so.
ETA: Even in the clip posted above, her so-called “normal” voice had like 2 or 3 words where the pitch went up, then it went low again. Everybody’s voice does that.
The documentary I saw argued that their technology could never work. They interviewed, I think, a Stanford Medicine professor who said that it’s just not possible to run certain tests on only a pinprick of blood, which was what Theranos promised to do.
The two examples sounded pretty similar to me. I can think of people who have a voice that varies that much at different times. When she has a deeper voice she might just be tired or have some post nasal drip or something.
I’m not trying to defend her, if she could change her voice to aid her scam I’m sure she would.
Is it possible that variations in tone are simply not something you are sensitive to? All my life I’ve been able to “wow” people with my ability to identify individuals based on the sound of their voice; it’s just something I’m acutely aware of. Faces, on the other hand, give me terrible trouble. (We’ve had threads on prosopagnosia, aka “face blindness,” on the Dope; I’m definitely a sufferer).
To me, as a voice-sensitive person, the two clips (incorporated into the one video in post #72) sound like the same person - something about the timbre and pronunciation stays the same - but definitely like she’s deliberately altering her voice in the deeper examples. My own vocal cords practically ache in sympathy when I hear her.
Yes, clearly, even to me, they are how the same person might speak.
I have no reason to disbelieve you. I didn’t pick up on that myself but I don’t think I could distinguish between intentional and unintentional voice fluctuation from such similar samples. It’s not like she sounds like Donald Duck in one and Boris Karloff in the other.
First they show her onstage, in her low voice. Then, cut to an interview, where she says, “well, no one has it,” in a higher expressive pitch, then immediately drops back down to the lower pitch to complete the sentence. The lower pitch is the exact same pitch as the onstage one.
“Like most people, Greg (engineer at Theranos) had been taken aback by Elizabeth’s deep voice when he first met her. He soon began to suspect it was affected. One evening, as they wrapped up a meeting in her office shortly after he joined the company, she lapsed into a more natural-sounding young woman’s voice. “I’m really glad you’re here,” she told him as she got up from her chair, her pitch several octaves higher than usual. In her excitement, she seemed to have momentarily forgotten to turn on the baritone. When Greg thought about it, there was a certain logic to her act: Silicon Valley was overwhelmingly a man’s world…At some point, she must have decided the deep voice was necessary to get people’s attention and be taken seriously.”
