Former WIRED Editors Reckon With Their Role in the Elizabeth Holmes Hype Cycle
A recent documentary about Elizabeth Holmes aligns with insights from Caitlin Roper, the former WIRED editor who arranged a 2014 Q&A with the founder of Theranos. Holmes first captured national interest in 2013 due to a Wall Street Journal article by Joseph Rago, who compared her to Steve Jobs, as noted by George Shultz. By 2014, she had become the youngest female billionaire. Roper's Q&A, titled "One Drop, Infinite Data," was published in March 2014 after her visit to Theranos' Palo Alto office, where Holmes donned a black turtleneck. While Roper's findings aligned with her panel, Theranos later disclosed a fully operational lab. The fraud was uncovered in John Carreyrou's October 2015 report. Rago passed away in 2019, with sarcoidosis listed as the cause.
Key facts
- Elizabeth Holmes made her national press debut in a 2013 Wall Street Journal opinion piece by editorial board member Joseph Rago
- WIRED's March 2014 Q&A was headlined "One Drop, Infinite Data: How Elizabeth Holmes Built a Better Blood Test"
- Caitlin Roper reported the Q&A and is now executive producer for scripted film and TV at The New York Times
- Holmes became the youngest woman billionaire by 2014
- John Carreyrou's October 2015 Wall Street Journal article reported Theranos had struggled with blood tests
- Walgreens terminated its partnership with Theranos
- Joseph Rago died at 34; the medical examiner cited sarcoidosis
- A new documentary on Holmes follows the weeks before her incarceration
Entities
Artists
- Elizabeth Holmes
- Joseph Rago
- George Shultz
- Steve Jobs
- Bill Gates
- Caitlin Roper
- John Carreyrou
- Dave Karpf
- Sam Altman
- Bill Wasik
- Peter Thiel
Institutions
- Theranos
- The Wall Street Journal
- WIRED
- Fortune
- The New Yorker
- Inc.
- Walgreens
- Harvard Business School
- MIT Sloan School
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- George Washington University
- Y Combinator
- OpenAI
- The New York Times
Locations
- Palo Alto
- United States
- San Francisco
- New York
- Silicon Valley