#10. Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, and Beer
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With nothing worth seeing in theaters, they turn to Alex Gibney's HBO Theranos documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, and nobody has much good to say about the film itself — Sonny calls it at least 30 and possibly 45 minutes too long, groans at the showy Gibney tics (someone calls Elizabeth Holmes the Beethoven of Silicon Valley and we cut to Beethoven with Beethoven music), the endless Edison stock footage, and the dramatic recreations, while JVL says it "just blows" and identifies the real failure as thematic: the first third builds Holmes an alibi about how all great inventors are frauds until they aren't, then the last third declares her a psychopath, and Gibney never explores the tension. JVL's sharpest point is that Theranos wasn't a visionary overreach like miniaturizing a Palm Pilot into an iPhone but a proposed violation of the laws of physics, and nobody in the room could tell the difference. Vic, less bothered, says the story is so strong the documentary survives its own mess, and he's transfixed by the lab tech describing reaching into the blood-spattered Edison machine and by Tyler Shultz's family running up four or five hundred thousand dollars in legal fees. The best stretch is JVL's ranking of the five worst human beings in the movie — five Jim Cramer, four Holmes (a sociopath, and thus less culpable than people who chose), three Sunny Balwani, two Clinton-alum general counsel Heather King, and one David Boies, who "set his entire life on fire" and went straight from Theranos to Weinstein — capped by his verdict that Tyler Shultz has balls the size of church bells. Elsewhere: a fake three-hour Baselworld 2019 special with a $16,000 Citizen quartz watch, Sonny picking a black-on-black Swatch over any watch in the world, Sonny and Vic's ten-beer "work" tasting at Anheuser-Busch's DC rooftop (Goose Island Bourbon County Stout the runaway favorite), Vic Ubering home with hiccups in time for family prayer night, and a slice of ham that may or may not have broken Lent.
From the show notes
The HBO Theranos documentary The Inventor comes in for a thrashing. Sonny and Vic do a beer tasting at Anheu...
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00So how about you? Any kids? Oh, no, I just haven't had time. You know, I was running my own business and all. Your own business? Yeah. I invented post-its. No, really. What do you do? That's what I do. I invented post-its.
Vic00:00:30Hello and welcome to another edition of the Sub-Beacon, sponsored by ExpressVPN. I'm Victor Matus, along with Sonny Bunch and Jonathan V. Last. I'd like to remind you the Sub-Beacon is available on iTunes and Google Play. Just look at our podcast and search for Sub-Beacon. You'll easily find us. Please subscribe, tell your friends, and leave a review. Gentlemen, how are we? You, Victorino, stop.
JVL00:00:57What? You are an amazing voice today.
Vic00:00:59I know. I just...
JVL00:01:00I just noticed it myself. I was going to say, I don't know, maybe it's the coffee.
Vic00:01:03Have you been taking lessons? Have you been holding out on us? That was amazing. It was weird. It might be the fish oil that I've been pumping into my mouth. Maybe it leaves some sort of residue that gives it some sort of mellow voice. I don't know. It's really weird. It's very... I know. Have you been smoking cigarettes? I should, if that works. You've got to do the whole show by yourself. Look at this, some Lucky Strikes. Yes, sponsored by Lucky Strike.
?00:01:26Wow.
Vic00:01:26Yeah, that was weird. I just noticed it myself. I said, I'm just going to keep on going. I noticed you looking at me. It was Sonny, right? Yes.
Sonny00:01:34I agree. No, totally. Totally. I agree.
Vic00:01:36Wow. Okay.
JVL00:01:37You, if we could keep you just like this, I could reach out to my buddy.
Sonny00:01:42Good for 5,000 listeners.
JVL00:01:43My buddy at Calm.com. Oh, I could be a read.
Sonny00:01:46Tamara, and I could ask her if perhaps you could read maybe the Alita sleep story.
Vic00:01:52There's some sleeping, but it comes at the end. JVL, what is going on with you?
JVL00:01:58Well, I am glad that... Everybody's here today for our very special Baselworld 2019 show. It's happening. We are going to do three hours on the new reveals going on right now in Switzerland. For instance, we have the new Zenith Pilot Type 20 Extra Special Silver. Amazing. Actually, I was surprised. There's a new Zodiac Aerospace GMT Limited Edition, which normally I don't like Zodiacs. The Seawolf is sort of interesting, but it's a niche diver. But man alive. The Citizen 001 Hack, the Super Hack, the Super High Accuracy Quartz. Normal quartz watches that you buy at Target are plus or minus 10 seconds per month. High Accuracy Quartz is our plus or minus 10 seconds per year. We have, through the advances in thermocoupling technology, gotten them all the way to plus or minus 5 seconds per year. And then Citizen comes out and drops a bomb with a watch that is accurate to plus or minus 1 second per year. I mean, I have no problem paying $16,000 for a quartz watch. And I cannot wait to get one of these strapped to my wrist. Incredibly exciting. Strapped to something. Sonny, you must have thoughts. So, Super, guys, what is your favorite watch to be debuted at Baselworld this year, Victorino?
Sonny00:03:28What happened? What happens when you change it to a different time zone and you get it off by a second? Oh, no.
JVL00:03:35It doesn't work like that.
Sonny00:03:37When you go to another time zone, does it just change automatically?
JVL00:03:41No. What you do is you take it and it just advances by full hours. It's back.
Vic00:03:49Does this watch require batteries? I believe no.
JVL00:03:53I believe it is EcoDrive technology.
Sonny00:03:55That's the one where you move your wrist. No, that's light. The EcoDrive is the citizen branding for their solar watch.
JVL00:04:02Solar? Sonny, what is your favorite watch so far from Baselworld 2019?
Sonny00:04:08I haven't yet seen the Swatch collections. Do you know why you haven't seen it? Because they're waiting for the last day. It's the big reveal.
JVL00:04:15Why are you trolling me like this? You know as well as I do that this year, for the first time ever, the Swatch group has pulled out of Baselworld and now says they're never coming back.
Sonny00:04:25They don't need Baselworld. Why aren't they going back to Baselworld?
JVL00:04:28I don't know. It's like this total Swiss dick move. I don't get it.
Vic00:04:32I do love the Swatch.
JVL00:04:34There wasn't enough Gruyere cheese at the spread last year, and so the Swatch group was like, we're going away.
Vic00:04:39We're not going to come back here. I do like the Swatch. I think you found it, Sonny, with the tinted face. You could barely see what time it is. It was black on black.
Sonny00:04:48You could barely see anything on it. It was the best watch I've ever seen. Honestly, if I could own any one watch, if you gave me Carte Blanche, you can own any watch in the world. You can choose any watch that you want, any brand, any model, whatever upgrades. I would go with the black on black Swatch.
JVL00:05:07Victorino, Rolex debuted yesterday. I'm sure they're good. The new Grandmaster GMT II, the Batman watch, a totally new version of it that has, in fact, a Jubilee-style bracelet, much like your day. Jubilee. I didn't know that's what it was. It is a Jubilee-style bracelet, and that is unlike your Datejust. Yeah, Datejust. Like your Datejust. Datejust. And replacing the Oyster. Oyster bracelet. Perpetual.
Vic00:05:29Oyster perpetual with.
JVL00:05:29That's the movement. The Oyster bracelet, which had been previously on the GMT Master. And the GMT Master II, as you know, is the Batman. It has the bezel, which is both black and blue. I did not know that. And I assume is one of your. I did not know that, but I. We're not going to get a full three hours out of this bit, are we? No, we're not. Sonny. What's going on?
Sonny00:05:49How are you, Sonny? I am fine. What watch are you wearing today? What's on your wrist? Wrist check. My Apple iPhone. My Apple iPhone.
JVL00:05:58Have you ever watched the watch video logs? Because every watch video log, no matter who the video logger is, like 30 seconds into it, they're like, oh, have my wrist check. And they like pull out and they show the camera what they're wearing.
Sonny00:06:10Why on earth would I ever watch one of those videos? I don't even know what that is. I don't even know what that is.
JVL00:06:15Personal pleasure.
Sonny00:06:16I don't. I don't understand. It helps you get to sleep.
Vic00:06:19For you.
Sonny00:06:21Sonny, what's going on? Not much in my world. I just wanted to give a quick shout out to a friend of the show, Travis Smith, whose book, Superhero Ethics, has hit paperback. It is available now at Amazon.com for the low, low price of $11.09. Very good price. Very fun book. Would make a nice gift for people if you're into, you got a bunch of nerds in your house who like the mix of the highbrow and the lowbrow. I remember last year when we flogged this book, it briefly displaced Jordan Peterson at the top of the like social philosophy charts. Oh, wow. So that was...
JVL00:06:57That's what we do in this show. We move product. We move product. Yeah.
Sonny00:07:01So anyway, that was, that's basically all that's going on in my world. All right.
JVL00:07:05Victorino.
Vic00:07:06Speaking of moving product, Sonny and I last week...
JVL00:07:08That's what I wanted to ask you about.
Vic00:07:10Let's just say I had a minor setback to my diet.
JVL00:07:13Well, you cashed in all of your coupons.
Vic00:07:15I cashed in... Right. Yeah, for the year. 60 coupons a month. For the year.
JVL00:07:1860 drink coupons a month.
Sonny00:07:19Two drink masks. You should explain to people what you're talking about. Okay.
Vic00:07:23So on Friday, Sonny and I... We're invited to go to the Anheuser-Busch D.C. offices. Thanks to... For work. For work. For work. Thanks to Sub-Beacon friend and listener Molly Drankard who works over there. And... Molly Drank? Molly... It's a great name. Drankard. And it's a rooftop bar right there, you know, down on Pennsylvania Avenue. And they have... I mean, it's a full service. There's actually two bars and they have a lot of glassware on the wall, which is you pick your glass depending on what beer you want to drink. If you want to drink, you know, different glasses. Get a chalice. Yeah, that's exactly right. And a lot of different taps and, of course, everything that's not on tap. I mean, they have about, what, 500 brands or something. And so, Sonny and I tried a bunch. It was great. It was really great. I counted... How many coupons did you bring? Well, let's see here. I think we sampled, Sonny, at least eight different beers and ciders, right? Yeah. At least. At least. So, I took a note here of Goose Island Bourbon County Stout. That was the best. That was like chocolate milk.
Sonny00:08:26That was the best one. It was very much like drinking a hearty...
Vic00:08:30Are there any carbs in that? I hope not. Elysian IPA, Wicked Weed, Green Lime. By the way, by the time we got to Green Lime, I thought it was Green Lime. And I said, I don't really taste the lime in this.
Sonny00:08:42You drank it and you were like, this doesn't taste like lime at all. And I looked at you and I was like, how drunk are you already?
Vic00:08:48It was when we were...
Sonny00:08:50Finish the list.
Vic00:08:51Okay. Blue Point Toasted Lager, which I liked. Virtue Cider. Right. And then, of course, Stella Artois. And there was a couple others.
JVL00:09:00Was it just you two unsupervised? Oh, no, no.
Sonny00:09:03Molly was there to make sure you didn't kill yourself. Molly was there walking us through all the drinks. Well, I was treating it like a wine tasting. You know, you go to a wine tasting and you have a sip of everything to get kind of a good sample of what's going on. I was also incredibly full because beforehand we had gone to Central for lunch. For work. Again, for work.
JVL00:09:23Boy, you guys just nose to the grindstone on Fridays.
Sonny00:09:26We were just, we were putting in the hours, putting in the hours. So I was like kind of full anyway, so I didn't really want to, I didn't really want to drink like eight beers. So I was having a sip of one and I put it down and be like, okay, yeah, that's pretty good. That's interesting taste. Have a sip of another. I'm like, oh, that's an interesting cider. And meanwhile, Vic, who is like getting kind of progressively slouch, slouchier. You turn and he's like Barney. He's like, yeah, basically. Yeah, basically. So he is just putting down each glass, each like, each like four ounce pour full. I hadn't had beer in a long time.
Vic00:09:57And I did realize, by the way, by the end, my butt cheek actually hurt from leaning on the stool in one position for a long time. And I caught up. I'm like, why? What is this pain? And I had that lingering pain for a couple of days. I did. And also sitting from sitting from more from slouching, sitting and drinking from slouching, not from getting really drunk and losing time. No, no, no, no. From slouching. I did bang my knee on the bar and I didn't want to make a scene, but that one hurt too. But, you know, it would have hurt. A lot less, a lot more if I didn't have those eight beers. Drink responsibly, by the way. Drink responsibly. So you Ubered home, did you not? Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
JVL00:10:34Yes, yes, yes. JVL. You always said that beer is not good for the leg out.
Vic00:10:42That's right. So far, dormant. Nothing. No twinges.
Sonny00:10:45I think you didn't you have it. Didn't you have wasn't one of the beers a cherry? Oh, there was a cherry. There was a cherry beer.
Vic00:10:53I guess we're now up to 10. But yes, there was. And I drank a bottled water. We had some water there. So that's good to sort of like neutralize with you a little bit.
JVL00:11:07Or was she just a Sherpa? No, going up Everest. She's just there to help you get there safely. She was with us. She was with us. She was drinking.
Sonny00:11:14I'd say I was I was actually I had a really good time and I learned a lot. Strangely, I was not expecting to.
Vic00:11:19Tariffs are killing the beer industry. Aluminum.
Sonny00:11:22Yeah, there was there was definitely some politics talk, but like on top of that, I just had no idea how many craft breweries Anheuser-Busch has picked up over the years. And I was I I just loved hearing the stories about all of the different breweries. It was it was really interesting. I I mean, it's not like it's a thing I can recommend people do because it's not like you have a sub-beacon, but but it is it was it was a lot of fun and I many thanks to Molly for bringing us a question.
Vic00:11:51Yes. Are they hiring? It's a small office. It's two and they all look so cool. They all look so cool up there.
Sonny00:11:58I don't think any of us would fit in there. I don't think I don't think any of us is like you talk about wine
Vic00:12:02tasting like how you that's how you treat this thing. You should see you at a wine tasting.
Sonny00:12:06Well, I have seen you at a wine tasting. I've seen you at the Morton's Locker wine tasting back in the day when they did that and it was very this was this your your performance in both settings is about the same.
Vic00:12:18Yeah, I left I once left my mark on the second floor garage of the office building. Put it to you that way.
JVL00:12:26Yes, you still have your locker at Morton. Yes, they said people have people should I haven't visited Victorino has not only his picture on the wall of the palm of Rob Rosemilla was just there but a locker for a private locker for his own wine and spirits. That was a different time Morton.
Vic00:12:45That was a different time.
JVL00:12:46You were there's one bottle left.
Sonny00:12:48I believe you abandoned Morton's for the palm.
JVL00:12:50I did the quality and your I believe the people next to you were Tony Kornheiser. And Michael Jordan. Oh, you mean on the list? Yeah, this is David Falk. David Falk. Yeah, no, I'm not even kidding. Like the list of there are all these famous insanely rich people.
Vic00:13:03I don't know how and you yeah, that's the doctor's son. They're slipping my way.
Sonny00:13:07Did you get into Georgetown again?
Vic00:13:09Yeah, tennis sailing. I was on the sailing team. Yeah, that's right. It didn't work out. I'll tell you to go back to the so that night I got home and then I had a ubered home ubered home and I had a serious ubered home
Sonny00:13:22suddenly ubered home after going to. Happy hour at the free beacon had to do. It was a free beacon. Happy hour was a going away. It's a parting employee. It was work. It's work. It was going away.
Vic00:13:32It was still work for morale team. Team is very important. Team is very important.
JVL00:13:35So I had to make it appear to like parting things for.
Vic00:13:39I love my I love my I love our employees. They're wonderful. But I did have. So by the time I got home, I didn't even go to the going away. I know you do. I know. I don't believe me. It was noticed the I had a. Bad case of the hiccups when I got home, and that was kind of a scene when we're trying to gather in for family prayer night, you know, family prayer night, family prayer night. Not well, I mean, every night. But, you know, it's like our father who are in heaven. Why didn't you kick it off to one of the kids? I don't know. I was still Michael. Daddy smell like. I know. Well, believe me, that's happened. And that didn't do well.
JVL00:14:14Daddy smells like Andy Cap in the coming home hiccup because he's drunk.
Vic00:14:19I'm hiding in the bar. And then the wife comes in looking for me. Yeah, it's kind of like that. So that was that was that was a low point. But speaking of prayers, how about a Latin update? Do do do do do do do do do do do do. Lent watch. JVL. Thank you. Kate told me, Sonny, that you actually did add the Gregorian chant music to it. Thank you. I put that at the bottom. That was very nice.
Sonny00:14:44You know, as a producer of many podcasts, as a high class individual, I like to raise the standards.
Vic00:14:49When all this ends, you will have a job. I'm telling you right now.
Sonny00:14:52Yeah, because nobody does any podcasting out there. There's a huge demand for people who can do this very easy.
Vic00:14:58I don't know where she's pushing all these buttons. JVL, how are you holding up? No problems?
JVL00:15:02Great. Last night was tough. Watching this stupid movie at home with the vat of cheese like four feet away from me. I actually, for a little while, brought the vat of cheese out and I sat it because I watched the movie on my laptop, not on my phone. And I sat it next to me just to get like an extra half hour's worth of temptation. Wow. And then I put it back down. Well, that's good.
Vic00:15:25It's like this. It's like flat. Yeah, that's right. It's soft flagellation. I'm an Opie. You have your salise or whatever it is on your leg. Turn the screw there for the spikes. Sonny, remember how you said you didn't eat until like the next day, the next night?
Sonny00:15:39Well, yeah, after the trip to Central, followed by the tour through the land of Budweiser Craft Brews, I did not eat for 24 hours. Yes.
Vic00:15:51And remember I told you I felt the same way?
Sonny00:15:53Oh, yeah. I love it. I died. Oh, no.
Vic00:15:55So that night I was just kind of like looking for stuff to eat, you know?
JVL00:16:00I'm sorry. You went on Friday.
Vic00:16:01Yes.
JVL00:16:02Did you get the fish at Central?
Sonny00:16:04I did.
JVL00:16:05Oh, hey. I had mussels. I had mussels.
Sonny00:16:07I had mussels. You had shellfish. Great for guests.
Vic00:16:10Mussels and beer. Oh, no. Okay. So then I was eating peanuts. I was eating nuts.
Sonny00:16:16He was eating nuts at the bar. We're sitting at the bar. I mean, we're sitting at this Anheuser-Busch office bar, and I'm like having trouble. I'm having trouble getting comfortable because I'm so full from the restaurant and also from the beer we've been drinking. And I'm like kind of moving around. And Vic is just putting fistfuls of peanuts and beer nuts in his mouth. Who doesn't love beer nuts? I mean, it was.
Vic00:16:40Well, they're like salted nuts, and they're perfect for a match with beer. Beer and nuts. What? Deez nuts. Oh, wow. Wow. It's the Boca brand. Yes. Okay. So then I got home, and I started, you know, like whatever's in the fridge. I didn't have a full dinner. But so I was just doing this. And then suddenly, the next thing you know, there's a slice of ham in my mouth on Friday night.
JVL00:17:01Well, it's after sundown.
Vic00:17:02Is that okay? So my question to you is like. There's a Jesuit somewhere who will tell you it's after sundown. I'm getting the absolution. But the question is like, is that, what do you think? I mean, is that really a sin if I didn't realize it until it's in my mouth?
JVL00:17:17Well, can you go to the Easter Vigil Mass on the Saturday before? Oh, I don't.
Vic00:17:24I have a feeling Father Harrison Ayer is going to have a different opinion about this.
Sonny00:17:28This is ridiculous. If you get drunk and murder someone, it's still killing my neighbor. Yet again, Father Ayer is going to agree with Sonny.
JVL00:17:34It's not just him. It turns out we got a whole bunch of priests.
Vic00:17:38Father Sharapa, does he listen?
JVL00:17:39And Father Conrad Murphy, who might have lunch with his. I would say I'm slightly more nervous about working blue.
Vic00:17:47All right, fine.
JVL00:17:48I'm still going to do it. Okay, no, no, no.
Sonny00:17:50You did a whole thing about watch porn, literal watch porn.
JVL00:17:53I know, I know. But you know what?
Sonny00:17:54Last week, and then this week, it's like if people are listening to the episodes one after the other, they will be confused as to where one episode ends and the next begins.
Vic00:18:04I guess when I go to confession, I'll mention it, but I don't think it's a serious thing. No, it's not like I went to. That's not a sin. Breaking Lent is not a mortal sin. It's not like, oh, that's it. Do you only have to confess the mortal sins? No, no, no, no, everything. I think knowingly, if I knowingly, like if I went to the Italian store. You do have to confess venal sins. Yes, you do. You do, venal and cardinal. But, you know, I mean, like it's not like I knowingly said, I know it's Lent, but on Friday, I got to go to the Italian store.
JVL00:18:30How close was it till midnight?
Vic00:18:32Four or five hours. I can't remember. I don't remember. It was Saturday somewhere. It was Saturday somewhere. So anyway, in my mind, I'm just going to say in my mind, it's a slice of ham. It's not like I went to the Italian store and got myself one of those delicious mouthwatering heroes. Speaking of sticking my teeth into a delicious mouthwatering hero.
Sonny00:18:54Vic, not worried about working blue.
Vic00:18:57Over the weekend, Captain Marvel, the most delicious hero of them all. Hero. You see that? Because it's like heroes versus subs and it works because, you know, that's how they say it in New York. Over the weekend, Captain Marvel continued to dominate the box office with $69 million. Nice. It really is. Check out Box Office Mojo. Followed by Wonder Park, which sounds terrible, at $16 million. And in third place, five feet apart. I don't even know what that is, with $13 million. It's one of those YA romance. Oh, five feet, like a dance reference?
Sonny00:19:33No, I think they have like cystic fibrosis or something there or some sort of communicable disease. I don't know. Point is, they have to be like, they're tethered to each other, but also to keep each other. I don't understand. Did you ever see the one? I didn't watch, I didn't even watch a trailer for this. Why would I watch a trailer?
Vic00:19:47Did you ever see the one about the boy? It's not the boy in the bubble, but he was in an isolation unit bubble. Because he couldn't get any of those. So he was separated by the plastic. And then he falls in. I'm sorry, the answer is moops. Moops, very good, very good. So it's not that one, but it was a different one. And he falls in love with Tanya Katane. And then they do this whole, I think. Tani. Tani Katane. Did you ever see that one? Look it up. And it's like she presses herself against the plastic. And then I think they actually do. That's a lovely figure I'm looking at here. You should see this on Facebook Live. That's a pretty good technique. Yeah, you like that? I like that.
JVL00:20:25Father Air can't see that, Tani. You can't see it. I think you've done that before.
Vic00:20:29But in the end, they finally do it. They finally do it in the end. And then he dies, I think. That's the story. I hope it was worth it. I didn't get that far. Okay. Box office thoughts, Captain Marvel? What's happening here? Sonny, what sort of drop was that?
Sonny00:20:4355%, which is about average. It was on the high end of Marvel movies, like probably one of these movies tend to drop between 45% and 60%. I think Black Panther did 44%, something like that. So it's like slightly on the high end, but it's by no means a crash. It does not signal that the movie is soft or has really bad word of mouth. We'll see how it does this week because it will actually have some competition this week. I think Us is going to be the number one movie by a lot. We'll see how it does. I mean, it's still at over $800 million right now. I mean, Thursday morning, I still have the Tuesday totals on Box Office Mojo, but at some point yesterday, it went over $800 million. It will probably be over $900 million by the end of this weekend. It's headed toward that billion-dollar mark. And yet the white male critics couldn't give it a break. I wonder why. I mean, it's definitely the sexism. It is interesting to look at the Rotten Tomatoes scores because it has the, the Rotten Tomatoes number has been tracking, not sharply down, but it's down to 79% fresh amongst all critics. And let me just look at the- How about among white male critics? 62% fresh amongst top critics. So, I mean, if you look at- Asked and answered. If you look at the Rotten Tomatoes numbers, it is in the bottom third of reviewed films. So I would say this is not a movie that has gotten a huge boost from the critical establishment I think Marvel gained the system by having a lot of, shall we say, nerd bloggers get early access to the film to flood the site. This is actually an experiment I would like to do at some point. Perhaps our friend Gabriel Rossman can help work out a little experiment here. But my theory on these films is that Marvel doesn't buy critics, doesn't pay critics to give the movies good reviews. But I do think that these films in particular have a, a lot of reviewers from these kind of nerd sites who they fly out and give interviews and sneak previews and stuff. And I would be willing to bet that the numbers from those critics are sharply higher than the numbers from any other critics. And that those reviews also go up before the reviews that are, say, written by the people in Washington, D.C., New York, etc. to give a kind of an artificially high number and a cushion for when the real reviews come in. But I, I don't know exactly how you would structure that. I don't know what you would compare it to. That would be interesting. I don't know what you would compare it to. N.A. Solid A. Okay. All right.
Vic00:23:33We're actually not talking about any of the movies that are at the box offices. It's certainly not the new movies that are out this weekend. It was one of those weekends. So instead, we decided to talk about a documentary on HBO called The Inventor and JVL. This was, This was your idea. You suggested it. This is called The Inventor Out for Blood in Silicon Valley.
Sonny00:23:59You know how good the title is?
Vic00:24:01The title is so good that Vic literally couldn't remember it. I'm looking for that. What was it called?
Sonny00:24:06That was a terrible. You got a documentary about a crazy woman who pretends to be an inventor, a company that people recognize the name of, Theranos, and they go with this ridiculous The Inventor title. I honestly don't know what the...
JVL00:24:23It is a symbol of... There must be legal conflicts everywhere because there are a bunch of projects in process.
Sonny00:24:28Probably. I mean, they probably couldn't call it Bad Blood. I assume there is a Bad Blood documentary. Because there was a book. And John Kerry, the author, is in this. They should have just called it Bad Blood. But the name of the movie is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the film, qua film, as opposed to the subject matter, which is very interesting. But the film itself... It's terrible, right? Well, this is not great. I wouldn't say it's terrible. It kept my attention for the two hours, but it could have easily been 30 minutes shorter. 45 minutes shorter.
Vic00:24:59It was a two-hour documentary.
Sonny00:25:00It was a two-hour documentary. And so it was made by Alex Gibney, and it had kind of all of these showy documentary quirks. Like, for instance, when they say... Somebody describes her as the Beethoven of... I don't know, Beethoven of Silicon Valley or something. Or says she's like Beethoven or whatever. And then on screen, we see Beethoven. And then Beethoven music starts playing. And then there's like... It's just like...
JVL00:25:24It's like, okay, we don't overly produce all of this. Way, way overproduced. The silent film clips.
Vic00:25:32He loves the silent film clips.
JVL00:25:33The dramatic recreations everywhere of, like, the lab tech who is up in her new office, and then her friends say, hey, there's that guy out there. That is not actual footage. It's all dramatic recreations.
Vic00:25:47Right. The inside of the machine is not the inside of the machine. As compelling as it was.
Sonny00:25:51The inside of the machine stuff, actually, I like to see, because I like to get a sense of what they were actually trying to do with those boxes. But I know it's not his. It's Gibney's creation. Should we say what the movie is about?
Vic00:26:00Yeah, let's talk about it.
Sonny00:26:01Sonny or JVL?
JVL00:26:03Sonny, give us a big boy review.
Sonny00:26:05The inventor. The simple fact of the matter is, the inventor out for blood in Silicon Valley is a documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, the maestro behind Theranos, which, as everyone remembers, was a big scam. They said they could do, what, 200 tests? From a drop of blood? And do it in, like, 30 minutes or something. And it turns out all of this was lies. Lies and deception. Lies. Deception. And the documentary is about how this woman managed to fool all of these people. And it turns out the answer is she's, like, kind of crazy hot. Like, not actually attractive. I don't think she's attractive at all, JVL. I know you disagree on this. No, I was trolling you last night. I can't believe you didn't understand.
JVL00:26:56Oh, no, I thought you were serious, too. I thought you were being serious. I thought you were being serious. She's hideously unattractive. She's not that that is what is tied up in her self-worth.
Sonny00:27:02No, but this is, I think, the point of the... One of the points of the film is that this woman was able to beguile a bunch of kind of older men who didn't really know anything about the industry or the business into giving her tons and tons of money because she has this kind of magnetic appeal. Which, again, I don't understand. She just looks crazy. Which is one of Alex Gibney's favorite things to do is just to have the camera on her and her crazy eyes for large stretches, long stretches of time. So, anyway, the movie's about how she scammed all these people and how the whole thing fell apart. It is at least 30 minutes too long, possibly 45 minutes too long. It is interesting in that the subject matter is interesting. But it is, again, it is really just paced horribly and it has all these... extra little bells and whistles that are unnecessary. But I do find it fascinating as yet another artifact of our current moment's decision to destroy our faith in every single institution that we have. I mean, the most damning part of the documentary to me was Jim Mattis. Jim Mattis, who was on the board of Theranos. And he is interviewed by... Was it the guy from The New Yorker? He's interviewed by... He was interviewed by Ken Oletta. And Ken Oletta says, what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Elizabeth Holmes? And without missing a beat, he says, integrity, integrity, honesty. She, you know, she's a straight shooter. And it's just like, well, that's bad judge character there. And everybody who comes into contact with this woman seems to have a kind of bad read on her. And also it just shows that Silicon Valley, or not Silicon Valley, that the investors behind Silicon, Silicon Valley are all idiots. And none of them know what they're doing. And they're just, they're throwing money around without any real plan or sense of themselves or sense of what the product's going to be. And it's a disaster. It's a giant disaster. It's just another, it's another institution that is crumbling. And we're all, we're all going to die soon.
JVL00:29:14Where's your free market God now, Sonny? You know who wasn't? I knew you were going to love this. I knew you were going to love that aspect of it.
Vic00:29:19You know who wasn't involved in this, interestingly?
Sonny00:29:22Who is in Silicon Valley and loves books? Peter Thiel. Peter Thiel saw that scam. He's like, I know, I know a lot about blood. I know a lot about investing money. I'm staying away from this lady. She's, she's nuts.
Vic00:29:35Yeah. No, no. That's very true. It's like they had, I mean, but the, the, these. I should probably look up to see if he invested. You better check that out, Sonny, then we can edit that out. But it is, I mean, they have enough money, right? And the billions, I think you can just throw on the wall and then whatever sticks, sticks. Hey, I happen to have money in Uber or Pandora or whatever, and that might work out or Lyft. And then the other ones don't. Okay. So big deal. But that's what happened. And she, she took part in that JVL. I was really interested in wanting to know your take on you from your medical background, right? You, you could have worked there. You could have technically worked there with your understanding of science, your background in molecular biology and your, your, your ability to process things and write and everything else.
Sonny00:30:20I will just say there's a vanity fair story here. Quoting that you couldn't find Michael Moritz, John Doerr or Peter Thiel on the Theranos board. Good call. While Mike, Mark Anderson has repeatedly come to her defense. His firm did not invest in. Yeah, Mark Andreessen. Ooh. But he, he did not invest. His firm did not invest. And apparently like they went to all of the big VC companies were like, Hey, give us money. And none of them were into it. So, I mean, like she raised money from people like Rupert Murdoch and from people like George Schultz, like people who don't actually understand, you know, the world of Silicon Valley. People who were just looking to get in and were kind of suckered, were hoodwinked.
JVL00:30:57I mean, do we want to talk about the film or Theranos and the problems with our culture first? No, we have enough time for everything.
Sonny00:31:05Why don't we could, we could talk about both. We got, we got some time here. We do.
JVL00:31:08I mean, JVL. I think the film is a mess. Yeah, agreed. And it is a mess for not just because it's poorly paced, although it is poorly paced, not just because it includes all sorts of extraneous stuff, which it does. Like we don't need, there's tons and tons of like old time footage from Thomas Edison. The old time footage, he's fixated with that.
Vic00:31:27We don't need any of that.
JVL00:31:29And it's a mess in ways that... So please, go ahead.
Sonny00:31:33There's footage of Thomas Edison because the machine is called the Edison. Like it's, it's, it's this tangential, totally unnecessary and uninteresting. It's worse than that.
JVL00:31:44So the first third of the film talks deeply about Edison and fixes on the idea of all great inventors are essentially, are essentially frauds until they're not. Like, and it begins by alibying her or constructing for what, what she would claim as an alibi. And then in the final third of the movie, it turns away from that and basically says, hey, this woman's a psychopath. Right. So if we know she's a psychopath, why are you constructing a false alibi in the first place?
Vic00:32:14It's crazy. I got the sense that they're suggesting had federal authorities and regulators, you know, clamped down on Thomas Edison before he actually developed that, the incandescent light bulb, then he would be looked on as a fraud because he was giving stock away to people and journalists.
JVL00:32:29Yeah, and that's what they're saying. You know, these guys are all piratical. They are all making claims that are fantastical. Everybody says to Steve Jobs, you can't do that. And then eventually Steve Jobs does that. Fake it till you make it.
Vic00:32:40Fake it till you make it.
JVL00:32:41If you don't dream big, then nobody ever accomplishes anything. All of which is, again, is the Holmes alibi. And at the end, they're like, except that this woman's a psychopath. That thematically, these two things, shouldn't be there unless you're going to explore the tension between them. And they don't do that. I heard.
Sonny00:32:59I think that we are supposed to be led to believe that this tension is false to begin with. That, yes, there may be, like, there's a Steve Jobs. But there's a reason everybody says Steve Jobs and not Steve Jobs and these other people.
JVL00:33:15But it isn't even about the person. I mean, it is about what the idea is. So if you were to go to Silicon Valley and say, I want to take the Palm Pilot and further the miniaturization and then attach it to a cellular network, what you are saying is, you are saying, I want to take basically existing technology and adapt it in a new and advanced way to create a new product. That is the iPhone, right? And maybe people think this is a good idea or a bad idea, but it is an idea that is achievable. You are proposing a technological advance. What Theranos proposed was a violation of the laws of physics. That is right. And there is a difference. And the inability of people to pass judgments upon what is a difference between somebody offering a technological advance in vision and somebody who is offering a fraud. This is, what they were doing is no different than saying, hey, guess what? We have a new app and it is going to allow you to create new energy in the universe. Right.
Vic00:34:17Just give us more time.
JVL00:34:18And nobody says, yeah, okay.
Sonny00:34:20Our great problem is that is the first law of thermodynamics and you cannot break it. Our great... Dipshit. We got a great new app. You take your old books, throw them in a fire, wave the app over it, gold. Just get some gold.
JVL00:34:33So that bothered me. And it really bothered me that he had, Gibney had access to, it isn't a problem of access. So he doesn't have access to Holmes or Sonny, but he has access...
Sonny00:34:42Sonny who is the president of...
JVL00:34:44Holmes is...
Sonny00:34:45Sonny with a U. Barwani. Sonny with a U, not Sonny with an O. Don't trust those. Any male Sonny with a U, not to be trusted.
JVL00:34:53She has access to Tyler Schultz, who is the key whistleblower in this entire thing. Fascinating. She has access to Ken Aletta and the guy from Fortune. Forbes. Roger Parloff.
Vic00:35:03Yeah, the guy who wrote the cover story for Fortune.
JVL00:35:05And to John Carreyrou, which is, I think, honestly, very big of John Carreyrou, who I believe has sold the movie rights for Bad Blood to somebody else to do a mainstream version of it. Very, very gracious of him to sit for this. And then doesn't sort of connect any of the dots or tell the story in a... in a deep and interesting way. I mean, it's just... This fails in every way as a documentary. And I wouldn't... I mean, the subject itself is fascinating. We can all talk about it. Right. Because the subject of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos and what it means about us and our culture and capitalism and all this stuff is inherently interesting. But my God, this movie just blows.
Vic00:35:43Yeah, but...
JVL00:35:44And despite...
Vic00:35:45I still found it compelling because I didn't know that much. I mean, and I knew about Theranos, but I didn't know all the details. And so, you know, it's... That big of a story that you can even mess up this, you know, this documentary and still, you know, watch the whole thing for the next two hours because, you know, again, just looking at her, I'm sort of just glued to that. And, of course, and some of the things that you guys already touched on, Sonny, you talked about, you know, the charming of these old men. And it's just not Mattis, right? I mean, it's Kissinger, you know, and it's Schultz. Bill Clinton. Perry, Sheldon.
JVL00:36:18There's tons and tons. Can I ask you guys a journalism question?
Vic00:36:22And Biden, and Biden. Yeah.
JVL00:36:24What are your feelings on Roger Parloff, the fortune guy, versus Ken Oletta? Oh, I love this. This is a real, so both these guys are tasked with writing giant profiles of her. Both of them have incentives. Their incentive is to look the other way on anything they find that doesn't look right. I mean, they are there to write puff pieces about Theranos. And at the time they were writing them, nobody would have published a... The emperor has no clothes.
Sonny00:36:54I don't know that the New Yorker is necessarily there to do that. In his piece...
JVL00:36:59Ken Oletta's bag is being an interlocutor to big, famous Silicon Valley people. And if he cuts somebody's throat, he's going to lose future access. I love Ken Oletta.
Sonny00:37:08Yeah.
JVL00:37:08But the difference between them is...
Sonny00:37:09He's actually one of my favorite New Yorker journalists. I love him. Sure.
JVL00:37:12Ken Oletta seems to not have been suckered. He seems to have known that something wasn't right. And Parloff seems to have been genuinely had the wool pulled over his eyes.
Sonny00:37:20100%.
JVL00:37:21What did you think of their reactions?
Sonny00:37:23Because they're very different. First off, I thought Ken Oletta looked exactly like I imagined Ken Oletta would look. Yes, totally. With kind of a shawl collar. I love that sweater. I love that. I love that sweater.
JVL00:37:33He's got the shawl collar sweater and he's like in his own library, I assume.
Sonny00:37:36So refined. He looks like an old school, like, mainline wasp. It's fantastic. So Ken Oletta met all of my expectations just right off the bat. Just through his appearance. But what was interesting was if you go back and read that New Yorker piece which I kind of flipped through after watching it he makes it very clear that the thing that they are doing is not explained to him in any detail or any way. And it's interesting to listen to the interviews as he's conducting them because he has all the tapes and we hear all of these on-the-record conversations and the points where they go off the record where, you know, he says where she says something like oh, I can't talk about that on the record we're dealing with the FDA, whatever. And he seemed to he struck me as somebody who was what's interesting is the difference between his reaction which was kind of like
JVL00:38:35yeah, okay, I can see this being BS
Sonny00:38:37I can see this being BS and the other guys Parloff's reaction who is angry who's like angry and like almost near tears at one point because I think he understands that his career could be seriously damaged by this.
JVL00:38:53He believes he fell down on the job and he is angry about it and he goes out and tries to correct the record where Aletta who seems to have basically known better just kind of shrugs and is like, yeah, the world's weird.
Sonny00:39:06But there's a difference between the two stories that they're doing. Like I if you go back and read that piece again it is not a it is not a triumphal piece.
JVL00:39:17No, but I mean it's pretty clear to me that when you read I mean the almost what does he say? He says her description of the science is almost comically vague. Which is as close as you can come to saying
Sonny00:39:30this is a bunch of BS.
JVL00:39:33Yeah. But he wasn't willing to to like really pull the trigger on it. And after the fact doesn't seem to feel any real responsibility for not having pulled the trigger on it. I mean this is but this is
Sonny00:39:45I don't know it's a difference between The New Yorker and Fortune, right? Is it I feel like The New Yorker Forbes.
JVL00:39:51Is it Forbes? I believe it was Fortune. It was Fortune.
Sonny00:39:54It was The New Yorker is telling stories. And this is an interesting story. And Fortune is supposed to be chronicling great investments and great advances. And here are the heroes of capitalism. And when it turns out that these people are frauds they look bad. Fortune looks bad. I don't think anybody thinks do you think less of The New Yorker or Ken Auletta after reading it and seeing him? I don't.
JVL00:40:19I think a tiny bit less of Ken Auletta for not being angry about being had.
Sonny00:40:23Yeah. But I love Ken Auletta. Don't get me wrong. Again, he's one of my favorite New Yorkers. He's not my favorite New Yorker. My favorite New Yorker writer is David Grand. But Ken Auletta is high on the list. Speaking of I mean, like I said Ken Auletta looks like kind of an old school wasp. Do you think that he is the sort of person who would show on film that he is furious? I've been had.
JVL00:40:44I would expect him to write about it.
Sonny00:40:45I mean, so here
JVL00:40:46can I give you a David Grand parallel? So David Grand ten years ago started out doing a story about this guy who had created a new process for the verification of lost pieces of art. So you bring in this painting and we think it might be a Monet and he had a new process of verifying how it was. And so the story began as a profile of this guy and over the course of like a year and a half midway 18 months into reporting it he thinks to himself I think this guy is a fraud. And so the piece in stead becomes a true crime piece and by the end of it but by the time David Grand files the piece the guy has been arrested by Interpol. And so it becomes an art theft an art forgery piece. That is sort of what I expect. And if you don't do that if you're the guy like what Canaletta did and it is one thing to be had at which point shame on you for not being tough enough and for being snowed. But to have an inkling of it and then be like eh that is makes me think like 3% less of Canaletta.
Vic00:41:56Victorino did you know? I was fascinated by three different journalists and how they approached Theranos and so I mean the one is Parlov and he does the the cover story and then she claims that she didn't know it was a cover story but it's obvious I mean they did a huge photo shoot of that. That is one of the most amazing things. And that kind of it's easy to do the piece. They will provide you all the information. They'll tell you everything you want to hear. It'll make you look great. I mean it's it's an easy thing to do. We know this. We've done this before. We know this. And then Ken Oletta's piece which was a little bit more probing obviously and then and then Kari Rue or Kari Yu? Kari Yu. Kari Yu. You know he's the one who I guess he sees the red flag. But Kari Yu also starts with whistleblowers.
Sonny00:42:36Yeah. Kari Yu's entree into the story is I have worked for Theranos. They are lying to everyone. Here is what they're lying about. And I think having that as your starting point gives you an edge.
Vic00:42:48Makes it a I mean It's very different. But what was fascinating in the documentary is to after it comes out that this whole thing is fraud and you know Kari Yu's piece comes out in the journal going back revisiting the journalist and their reactions and that's what and I agree with Sonny and you about Parloff was he was genuinely mortified I think
JVL00:43:09and it's something that we as journalists
Vic00:43:12you know you don't want to have that happen where you're you know like you were used and then what and how do you react to that?
JVL00:43:18There's a
Vic00:43:18I just find it it's a scary thing.
JVL00:43:20There's a fourth journalist in this movie. Is it Alex Gibney?
Sonny00:43:25No. Jim Cramer. Oh yeah. Oh. And so after the Kari Yu piece He's a TV host. I'm sorry
JVL00:43:32he has a host on a news show in which he interviews newsmakers there is no way in which he is not he's a broadcast journalist and after the Wall Street Journal piece comes out he has Elizabeth Holmes on mad money and he prefaces the interview by saying there are two sides to every story Elizabeth Holmes That's right. And she comes on and she trashes the journal and she says this is all lies and we're going to fight it and Jim Cramer accepts it all with total just
Sonny00:44:03okay more fascinating okay more fascinating was her appearance at a Wall Street Journal event yes
JVL00:44:10I remember in real time when that happened
Sonny00:44:12where she just starts she says you're you're reporters are liars this is all wrong he's saying things that didn't we're not doing this we're doing that and I was okay that's the way that's the strategy she's a straight up I mean she's she's a crazed sociopath she's a psychopath yeah
Vic00:44:28the legal aspects of this are also compelling and terrifying I mean when Carrie Yu has questions and they're of course all paranoid then you know not only I guess does she show up to the journal offices but she's armed with you know a bunch of lawyers including David Boies Heather King and listen to yeah and listen and listening to the interview and because it's all recorded they take out the recorders so he takes out the recorders and threatening the Wall Street Journal and you know I mean this is David Boies that scumbag
JVL00:45:01David Boies and Heather King are straight up whores yeah and David Boies is always gonna be David Boies Heather King ought to never get another job for the rest of her life she was Hillary Clinton's she was a Clinton person who this is the one thing I would say that is striking about all of this is that at no point David Boies did anybody associated with Theranos ever actually believe that what the company said they were doing was even theoretically possible it isn't the case of well we were all everything was compartmentalized everything was secret the entire thing top to bottom was fraud
Vic00:45:42just out and out fraud it's like the Iraqi nuclear scientists who are kept from talking to the other scientists about how far are we developing things they don't know and so they kept on talking about the upstairs and the down stairs basically of Theranos
JVL00:45:55it's really bad this is the Silicon Valley Fire Festival
Vic00:45:59yeah that's right there are comparisons there are parallels if you could fire
JVL00:46:04only one of them into the sun would it be Elizabeth Holmes or Billy McFarland oh
Sonny00:46:11I think Billy McFarland you have a catapult Billy McFarland
JVL00:46:15it's a one time use only catapult yeah now let me prejudice you have you been reading the Nick Bilton Vanity Fair post Theranos breakup of
Vic00:46:25Sonny and Elizabeth
JVL00:46:27because Elizabeth now walks around as if nothing Theranos is still a going concern and nothing has happened she was also embezzling is too strong a word she was also using company money to fund a lavish lifestyle while she was there this idea
Sonny00:46:42wasn't that the whole point of founding a Silicon Valley well no but she
JVL00:46:44says to the journalist that's why we started the free beacon
Sonny00:46:47I am here for
JVL00:46:4822 hours a day I sleep in my office actually she had a giant mansion that Theranos was paying for you notice one of the things you notice is that she never opens a door in every single shot there is somebody always opening the doors for her and she has this team of security no in the morning
Sonny00:47:08somebody is waiting to open the door
JVL00:47:10for them none of this team of an advanced team she's 30
Sonny00:47:13but none of this strikes me as terrible as when Billy McFarlane after destroying the fire festival and you know bilking all those people out of money then starts trying to sell people tickets to events that don't exist the Met Gala
JVL00:47:26she has a dog which she brings everywhere with her which she insists is a wolf
Sonny00:47:32it's not a wolf it's not a wolf
JVL00:47:37are we sure it's not a wolf we are sure it's not a wolf it's a dire wolf from Game of Thrones right so you have a catapult that can only work once and can only fit one human being on it I still think Billy McFarlane
Vic00:47:46yeah I'm with Sonny on this really yeah but but I mean that said I mean it's horrifying I think one of the things that Billy McFarlane didn't actually kill anybody
JVL00:47:56that's true
Sonny00:47:57Elizabeth Holmes did if I had to listen one of her scientists committed suicide
JVL00:48:00because of the pressure he was under legally
Sonny00:48:04because she was trying to muzzle him if I had to listen to Elizabeth Holmes what are you talking about for any she sounds like Romy from Romy and Michelle's high school reunion it's just I don't ever want anybody to have to say goodbye to their uncle ever again what greater mission is this
Vic00:48:20the way I do
Sonny00:48:21we are changing the world you sound like you sound like Benicio Del Toro in Sin City
Vic00:48:27it's actually like that but her voice is actually lower than that there are two horrifying things that stand out to me from the story here one is the lab tech guy talking about having to reach into the machine the Edison to fix something there's blood spatter of everybody's blood inside and needles and you're gonna get you're gonna get pricked and you're gonna get so to speak and then the other thing was Tyler Schultz's you know talking about you know how these his family had to lawyer up they were gonna take what a second mortgage on the house it was like four or five hundred thousand dollars in legal fees even though they're in the right against these lawyers who show up to his grandfather's house
JVL00:49:09so did you read so Carrie you wrote a long piece just about Tyler Schultz in the end and this kid is just what time is it Sonny this kid is a f***ing bad a** and he deserves some sort of medal so here he is and you think okay this is the child of privilege his grandfather is George Schultz his parents are super wealthy etc he meets Elizabeth Holmes he goes to work there and he sees that things are really really bad and he knows that he signed an NDA but he decides to go and talk to a reporter anyway because he he thinks that somebody has to know about this Holmes turns his own grandfather against him and his grandfather this very powerful man who the kid reveres he starts you know he lures him to his house where there are lawyers waiting for him he applies all sorts of pressure tactics to get him to disclaim whatever he's told carry you and insist that they were all lies in order to avoid being sued his parents go in the hall for four hundred or five hundred thousand dollars in legal fees and then in the end he is eager to forgive and reconcile with his grandfather yeah what a great great guy good kid do they make millennials like that no I'm not I think it's just him
Vic00:50:27is he a zoomer no no he's
JVL00:50:29that kid he's either at the end of the millennials
Sonny00:50:32he's probably at the end of the millennials
JVL00:50:33you know what those are balls the size of church bells I'm sorry if a family member did that to me they'd be dead to me for the rest of my life you really
Sonny00:50:42I find it hard to believe you would hold a grudge like that JVL come on
JVL00:50:47this kid is so I mean just what a great human being
Sonny00:50:50yeah totally agree he seems very approachable and very
JVL00:50:54if we were going to rank the five worst human beings in this movie
Vic00:50:58this is a JVL fixation I can't think that quick oh okay well there's certainly
Sonny00:51:03number one is Elizabeth Holmes number two is Sonny I don't know who's after that
JVL00:51:08I actually went in a different direction with my ranking okay number five Jim Cramer
Sonny00:51:13okay
JVL00:51:14number four
Sonny00:51:16Elizabeth Holmes
JVL00:51:17because I don't think there's three people
Vic00:51:18ahead of Elizabeth Holmes
JVL00:51:19I don't think Elizabeth Holmes has any choice in all of this I think she is a sociopath oh she is no more that doesn't make her a better person no but it makes her like an animal that doesn't reduce
Sonny00:51:31her culpability number three Charles Manson
JVL00:51:34I would say if somebody who is a pure sociopath is less morally reprehensible than somebody who knows better and makes those choices volitionally
Vic00:51:44and I believe our priests who listen to the show
JVL00:51:47will back me up on that number three Sonny Sonny knows better and Sonny is a bully Sonny was the legal enforcer who was always hiring security and looking Sonny knew what they were doing as a fraud and thought that they would be able to skate by bullying people and just get away with it forever number two Heather King the Clinton team lawyer who went on staff as a general at least boys was just like an outside council she was on staff as general counsel she was I'm sure taking all sorts of ownership stakes and stock options she knows a lot you see her in the videos from the Theranos town hall cheerleading and dancing while they're playing what's the don't touch me don't touch me I can't touch this she can't touch this don't touch me her 45 year old white lady dance and and then she goes and tries to bully John Carreau and tell him that he doesn't know what's what so she is either the biggest fool or the biggest liar and she should never work again and number one the most despicable person is is David Boyce because he's the worst he has an actual outside reputation independent of all of this he doesn't need the money he didn't need any of this crap he was you know he's a respected lawyer who has argued in front of the Supreme has argued in front of the Supreme Court and it turns out he is a shyster that's bad I mean
Sonny00:53:13he set his entire life on fire by being involved with this he went from Theranos to Weinstein right yes to Harvey yes he did
Vic00:53:20it was also wholly unsatisfying in the end when it's just a throwaway line about oh and even David Boyce resigned from the board and I'm like can we get him on camera saying so what's your reaction to all this do you still stand by this and the threatening of these people is he going to say well you know with the information I had I had no idea or what that's what I I want more of that
Sonny00:53:40I'm sure there's privilege there it's that's attorney client stuff yeah
Vic00:53:44I was also fascinated by the the pep talks and you see this in
JVL00:53:50it's a very Silicon Valley very Silicon Valley
Vic00:53:52also Wolf of Wall Street and it's something that we only see here at the Beacon during the holiday party with Aaron Harrison yeah but it's it's really gotta delete all those videos yes
JVL00:54:01the the
Sonny00:54:02it's real can I can I my one big Silicon Valley takeaway from all this is that when Silicon Valley tries to do things outside of its purview if it when it tries to do things outside of software engineering and like phones and computers when it tries to build something it invariably screws it up so you have this Edison thing but also self-driving cars other other you know kind of tech tech Tesla Tesla's doing great Tesla's a disaster oh
JVL00:54:33oh Tesla's a disaster
Sonny00:54:35no I don't I mean I don't actually think it's a disaster I'm just saying what JVL thinks it can't be a disaster they're all over Arlington is this is this a is this a do you think this is a a correct takeaway or am I overreaching here am I am I leaving out the noted successes
JVL00:54:49this is a Peter Thiel obsession which is that Silicon Valley is much better at bits than they are at atoms and that ultimately the bits are of very little value this is I mean we talked about very very early in the show we talked about how they just throw a bunch of money at the wall and they see what sticks and every once in a while you get a Facebook yeah what does Facebook actually give you I mean what what is the value you add to the economy of Facebook and the answer is there isn't really if Facebook were to like if we had a magic wand and we made Facebook disappear today nothing would change in the economy tomorrow all the all the advertising dollars would just shift back to something other platform to TV broadcast or something like this right nobody everybody would move to some other platform to communicate there's no thing there that people use there's no hole in the economy that there would be if you say waved a wand and made UPS disappear right I mean these are companies which do actual real things in the real world and this is the the original sin of Silicon Valley this is the this is decadent decline capitalism where we have moved away from capital allocation for useful industry into a casino that is run by finance creating goods that are of use absolutely no value except to a decadent late stage democracy
Vic00:56:12bam mic drop
JVL00:56:13what
Vic00:56:14welcome to Chapo Trap House that was that was very manifesto-ish okay yeah two final thoughts Bernie 2020 I'm pretty sure by the way my blood test results were run through in Edison I think that's what happened so really everything's fine yeah no it's really they switched the blood samples with Joey Chestnut the guy from the hot dog eating king I think that's what happened also our friend Dan Halper was telling us me the other day a friend of his was you know Elizabeth Holmes grew up in the area and a friend of his was in DuPont Circle in spotted a woman that looks like Elizabeth Holmes and she's walking towards him so he actually stops and stares at her like is that really her because he had seen the documentary and as soon as she walks by she passes she looks at him they make eye contact and she just goes yup and just keeps on walking yup yeah that's what she said yup okay do we have oh who plays who plays her in the movie
JVL00:57:09I'll effort that I give you two
Vic00:57:12oh I was gonna say I'll give you two options Jennifer Lawrence or Naomi Watts there you go you're just looking with her house with bugging eyes you're just looking
JVL00:57:21at the hair
Sonny00:57:21I mean the voice Mira Sorbino
JVL00:57:23that's who it needs to be Romy she has a oh that's right that was Romy Romy's whole rant about Adam McKay
Vic00:57:31and Jennifer Lawrence is playing her oh so it was Jennifer Adam McKay is directing alright alright that's gonna be terrible do you have any other Theranos thoughts no we're good okay the only thing I thought of was that you know when Tyler Schultz had to get the burner phone the other thing he could have emailed them if he had his own virtual private network that's right admit it you think that cyber crime is something that happens to other people people who work at Theranos you may think that no one wants your data or that hackers can't grab your passwords or credit card details but you'd be wrong stealing data from unsuspecting people on public wifi is one of the simplest and cheapest ways for hackers to make money when you leave your internet connection unencrypted you might as well be writing your passwords and credit card numbers on a huge billboard for the rest of the world to see that's why I decided to take action to protect myself from cyber criminals I use ExpressVPN ExpressVPN secures and anonymizes your internet browsing by encrypting your data and hiding your public IP address ExpressVPN has easy to use apps that run seamlessly in the background of your computer phone and tablet turning on ExpressVPN protection only takes one click using ExpressVPN I can safely surf on public wifi without being snooped on or having my personal data stolen for less than $7 a month you can get the same ExpressVPN protection that I have ExpressVPN is rated the number one VPN service by TechRadar and comes with a 30 day money back guarantee protect your online activity today and find out how you can get three months free at ExpressVPN.com slash WFB that's E-X-P-R-E-S-S VPN.com slash WFB for three months free with a one year package visit ExpressVPN.com slash WFB to learn more do we have any other corrections and additions?
Sonny00:59:23shout outs I have a shout out
Vic00:59:25yeah yes so a special shout out to Sub-Beacon listener Kevin Nichols who spotted me at the Knights of Columbus St. Patrick's Day breakfast buffet
Sonny00:59:35I was on my way to either my it's part of the RG diet the St. Patrick's Day breakfast buffet
Vic00:59:45he actually asked me about that and I was either on my second or seventh plate I can't remember and he just I hear somebody call my name I turn around and this really friendly guy comes up to me and he says I'm sure it's fine and I said what? and then he told me he's just a big fan of the show loves you guys he was there with his adorable kids he did ask me about the RG diet and I said yes because they had a fried chicken and waffle station and I just had fried chicken with the maple syrup see? that's good nice it's reduced it's reduced gluttony it's reduced gluttony because you didn't have the waffle yes that's right Sonny by the way if you hear of where if you find out where I left my pancreas I'd appreciate that okay that is all the time we are giving to this episode questions, comments, complaints compliments tweet us at Victorino Matus at SonnyBunch again be sure to subscribe to us on iTunes or Google Play just type in SubBeacon under podcasts we're there leave a review tell your friends until next time
Sonny01:00:44running a little bit long here
Vic01:00:51that's a long one we talked for a long time that was unexpected
JVL01:00:53about a documentary that we all hated
Vic01:00:55that's a compelling story
Sonny01:00:57I wouldn't say hate it I just didn't really enjoy it yeah okay
JVL01:01:00I have one Theranos story please which is that very early on in the Theranos media blitz Richard Starr came to me and was like what do you think of this and I said huh it's kind of interesting and he said and so I reached out to a couple doctor friends of mine and said what's the deal they had not heard of Theranos and they said well look into it and like a week later they came back and they said yeah this is all bull and it's a scam it can't work and I said what do you mean and they said you just can't so if you can run like a bunch of tests right every time you do that you need to mix some of the sampled blood with some reagent and to do that you destroy the sampled blood and you actually need a reasonably large sample to get a reaction that's measurable there simply isn't enough blood you need more blood and this is capillary blood not venous blood like this is this is ridiculous and so I was like huh interesting and then I went and like re-read one of I think it was the Fortune article and when I did I was struck by how all of the people connected to it were not science people
Sonny01:02:05it's like George and I thought to myself
JVL01:02:07what the hell is Jim Mattis doing why is George Shultz and Sam Nunn wrapped up in this this doesn't make any sense and so I was I would say reasonably early convinced that this thing was going to flame out like this but what I never expected was that it would be such fraud top to bottom where again as I said nobody connected with it even believed theoretically that what they were said they were doing is possible right
Sonny01:02:33well I mean I I would disagree with that insofar as I would be shocked if like Kissinger and Murdoch and Mattis and the rest thought that what they were doing what they were being pitched was nonsense
JVL01:02:46right I'm sorry I meant the people working at the company I got you science people working at the company and the only people who thought it was possible were people who are so out of their depth that they have no they're just illiterate
Sonny01:02:58it's the thing I would sign up for and be like yeah here's some money that sounds amazing that's amazing
Vic01:03:03think about the Stanford professor who gave up his tenure to work for her but the best character if you want to do the reverse wait Tyler Schultz they were at the top in terms of Tyler Schultz and the number two is the doctor in the medical school Phyllis Dr. Phyllis oh I forget her last name Gardner
JVL01:03:18fantastic there's a great moment where the the best found footage is one where Elizabeth Holmes is explaining how you know I mean part of the what you have to do is you have to explain to people that yes a 19 year old does know what she's talking about just this is synecdoche for the entire problem with your garbage generation
Sonny01:03:38I'm sure it'll be fine
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