Eventually almost everyone gets their redemption tour if they’re rich and/or interesting enough.
I believe Elizabeth Holmes is a narcissist and probably a psychopath (~13% of CEOs are psychopaths). On the one hand, it’s easy to loathe narcissists/psychopaths—their lack of empathy and harm to others is often profound. On the other hand, these types of people can legitimately be pitied, by people with empathy.
Here’s an interesting The Behavior Panel video of 4 body language/interrogation experts analyzing Elizabeth Holmes’s behavior. As noted in the video, narcissism is typically rooted in insecurity, a feeling that their true self is not good enough, so they fabricate a new persona that is good enough, striving to be the very best. Holmes clearly had delusions of grandeur, wanting desperately to be a global visionary, in the same vein as Steve Jobs. She couldn’t pull it off without resorting to fraud.
I’ve known a couple of narcissists/psychopaths in my life. I was married to one. She was a high-level executive for a Fortune 100 company, and she was ruthless, completely devoid of empathy, but an extremely good actress. People who weren’t in her cross-hairs loved and respected her. Although she was unbearable to live with and did great harm to our family (we became targets in her cross-hairs), I did eventually come to pity her. She didn’t ask to be born the way she was. Her life is not a happy one.
So, although I believe Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani received the sentences they deserve, I have some empathy for Homes, but none for Balwani (IMHO, he is just a manipulative bastard). I think Holmes had good intentions at the beginning, but she broke bad along the way and her lies and bad actions spiraled out of her control.
I generally agree with your other points, but I’m curious why you give Holmes the benefit of the doubt and not Bulwani. Why is he solely a bastard, and not someone who also once had good intentions? Why is she a narcissist deserving of empathy, and he’s just manipulative?
Is it possible that at some level you also have been, not exactly conned, but at least influenced by her?
No, I haven’t been mesmerized by Elizabeth Holmes.
Just a gut reaction. I haven’t followed the case, or the players, all that much, so I may be wrong. But, Holmes strikes me as damaged goods, much more so than Balwani. I think Holmes is a born narcissistic and possibly a psychopath. If true, I believe some degree of pity may be deserved (or, maybe not). I don’t get the same vibe from Balwani. He strikes me as just a greed-ridden manipulator who latched onto something with a big potential payday.
But, as I said, I think they both received the sentences they deserve. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime…and all that. Ultimately Holmes had agency over her behavior, despite any psychopathy, if it exists. If she had a mental disorder that was more delusional, like schizophrenia, that would be another story.
Hmmm. I’m struggling to see how you can distinguish between these two.
Given that Holmes is still manipulating people and scheming a return, I don’t think she deserves any benefit of doubt that somewhere inside she has some genuine good intentions. She wasn’t some unwitting puppet in this despite her counsel’s attempt to portray her as a brainwashed victim of domestic abuse; she quite independently gas-lighted, dissimulated, schemed, and actively ignored informed guidance from many people who attempted to advise her, and did so even before Sunny Balwani was around. She actively participated in the decision to intimidate and suppress whistleblowing by Tyler Shultz, Erika Cheung, and Adam Rosendorff, and her actions contributed to the suicide of Theranos Chief Scientist Ian Gibbons, as well as damaging the reputations of hundreds of well-intentioned scientists, engineers, and technicians who were employed by Theranos and have the shadow of that scam over their careers, something for which Holmes has shown zero remorse or any sense of real culpability. Fuck her.
Stranger
You know, sociopaths and psychopaths are not compelled to hurt other people. They know right from wrong, at least on an academic level. They have free will. I don’t see why their conditions should absolve them of their actions.
Knowing right from wrong just allows sociopaths to rationalize their abusive behavior free of any compunction to empathy or ethics. They will lie without any sense of wrongdoing and do everything possible to make you question your own doubts. Because of this, they run roughshod over anyone who does extend them empathy, and prey upon well-meaning people who offer them support, succor, or understanding, which is why they frequently end up in positions of authority where they exercise control over others and refuse to acknowledge much less apologize for the harm they do. Holmes seems to be getting the ‘Pretty White Woman Discount’ while Balwani is being credited with full responsibility plus ‘brainwashing’ Holmes (for which, again, there is zero evidence other than Holmes’ own testimony which given how conniving she is on every other topic, should not carry any credibility), whereas they were both equally knowledgable and culpable for perpetrating the fraud of Theranos. The sentences they are receiving is a fraction of what they ‘deserve’ for damaging many peoples’ careers, intimidating whistleblowers, harming investors including retirement funds of people who were not informed investors, and putting the health of potential and real patients at risk. Fuck both of them.
Stranger
Hence may saying in my last post:
Having pity for someone is not absolving them of their responsibility, or consequences of their actions.
Didn’t Theranos deliver incorrect test results to actual patients? No idea if that resulted in sad outcomes or if it’s possible to know.
Yes. But for whatever reason Holmes was found innocent of defrauding patients - her convictions were all for defrauding investors. Likely because she had some remove from the defrauded patients, unlike the investors she very directly bilked.
Without getting into a deep philosophical debate, my point is this: sociopaths are no less rational than anyone else. In fact, one could argue that they are more rational than normative people, as their judgment isn’t clouded by empathy or guilt. Now, if we assume that there are rational bases for morals and ethics - a big assumption, I agree - then there is absolutely no reason why a rational sociopath can’t choose to be moral and ethical. If they choose otherwise, they deserve neither our forgiveness nor our pity.
The fundamental issue with this is (in my opinion) that we don’t follow ethics or morals on a “rational basis”; we do so because we want to see ourselves and want to be seen by others as a ‘good person’, and with appropriate socialization that desire becomes entrenched in personality to the point that people default to reflexive behavior and decisions that are (mostly) consistent with their moral indoctrination (with obvious exceptions, particularly when it comes to obsessive behaviors). Sociopaths don’t really have that kind of introspection toward themselves, and most will engage in whatever manipulation they need to with others to be seen as being moral or ethical while doing whatever pleases them. From a psychosocial development perspective they could be said to lack a “theory of mind” about others that allows them to develop empathy, although many of them learn to ‘fake’ empathy to a degree that fools most people in casual contact.
Sociopaths, while unhindered by social mores except to the extent that they may be held accountable for them, aren’t actually more rational than anyone else, and despite they way they are often portrayed in television and films, most aren’t emotionless geniuses capable of plotting and executing complex plans of manipulation. They just don’t have any concern for how their actions affect anyone else, and will lie without any of the hesitation or expressing behavior cues of uncertainty and anxiety that normal people do, so they seem trustworthy even as they are nakedly lying and convincing you that your own memories are wrong.
How much of any human behavior is actually voluntary or a pure expression of ‘free will’ is subject to debate and interpretation, but there are a lot of neuroscientists who will convincingly opine that virtually none of our behavior is actually the result of ‘free will’ and rationality, but instead we are using our conscious faculties to rationalize what we do, and sociopaths are just more free of behavioral conflicts over moral and ethical precips than other people.
Stranger
I know one of these guys pretty well and have known him for 35 years. He has started and sold three companies and is working on his fourth. The difference between him and Holmes is that he really is a charismatic off the charts genius and his products work. He would never willfully screw someone over. He just repeatedly does what is best for him in the next several minutes which may or may not screw someone over. I’ve worked with him and for him and it’s a wonder to watch him operate.
To me the thing that really seals the deal that Holmes deserves no pity is that post-conviction she’s still doing it. Slow learner much?
She’s creepy as hell. Her father was involved with Enron so I bet this is just an apple not falling too far from the tree.
I feel like I’m reading a different NYT article than everyone else. It shows quite clearly how deluded Holmes still is, no matter how much charisma may still be present. It’s not a hagiography, it’s an exposé.
It’s praising with faint damnation.
If so, it’s present in a particularly virulent form in people who try to connect romantically with accused and convicted sociopathic killers, who are notorious for their skill at manipulating victims.
Assuming Holmes finallly goes to prison, no doubt she’ll get her share of letters from admirers.
I don’t think she’s delusional. She knew her technology didn’t work.
She’s a narcissistic psychopath, and has perfected the art of manipulation. She knew exactly what she was doing.