The debut that started it all

Elizabeth Holmes, founder of blood-test company Theranos, made her national press debut in The Wall Street Journal in two thousand thirteen. The Opinion piece praised her vision and compared her to Steve Jobs.

The hype builds

By two thousand fourteen, Holmes was the youngest woman billionaire ever. WIRED editors saw Theranos as evidence that Silicon Valley innovation could transform medicine, fitting the magazine's vision of disruption.

WIRED decides to cover her

WIRED editor Caitlin Roper pitched a story on Holmes and Theranos. The executive editor told her to go talk to Holmes and see what was what. The result was a long-form Q&A.

Red flags were visible

Roper and colleagues noticed the board was unusual: military figures and government officials, not Silicon Valley types. The company had published no peer-reviewed data. But they decided to pursue the story anyway.

The interview at Theranos

Roper visited Theranos offices in Palo Alto.Holmes wore a black turtleneck and spoke in a strange, low voice.When Roper asked to follow her blood sample, company reps said absolutely not, citing health and safety.

“I'd love to see the box, can I follow my blood sample?”

The Walgreens visit

Holmes took Roper to a Palo Alto Walgreens where Theranos had supposedly set up shop. The booth was not in service. Holmes said the company would open Walgreens labs across the Southwest.

The blood test results

Roper's blood results came back and matched a panel she had recently taken elsewhere. That seemed roughly confirmatory at the time. Later it emerged Theranos maintained a fully equipped lab in its Palo Alto offices.

Why it became a Q&A

Roper struggled to report out how the technology worked.Without hard scientific evidence, she and her editors decided to publish it as an interview instead of a feature.

The gender factor

Roper acknowledges that Holmes being a woman partly motivated her interest. She felt sympathetic to the idea of Holmes passing in a male-dominated environment. WIRED was trying to counter sexism in tech investing.

“If she had not been a woman, I would have been less motivated.”

The context: venture bias

A month after Roper's Q&A ran, Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan researchers published a paper showing investors were far more likely to fund the same pitch from men than women.

Other outlets follow

Fortune put Holmes on the cover.The New Yorker did a profile.In October two thousand fifteen, Inc.called her the next Steve Jobs.Then The Wall Street Journal's John Carreyrou published Theranos Has Struggled with Blood Tests.

The fraud exposed

Carreyrou revealed the speedy and accurate blood tests were fake and the innovative tech did not exist. Walgreens, a major partner, terminated its deal with Theranos. It was a grift.

Silicon Valley's culture of exaggeration

In two thousand nineteen, Sam Altman wrote that venture investors value founders with too much self belief, almost to the point of delusion.

“too much self belief … almost to the point of delusion”

WIRED's new standards

WIRED eventually developed heuristics to encode skepticism. For architecture stories, ground had to be broken. For new drugs or medical devices, the rule became phase three trials or get the fuck out.

“phase 3 trials or get the fuck out”

The responsibility now

Tech journalism must interrogate claims critically, acknowledge both promise and risks, and question the motives of companies building new technologies. The future is too important and the stakes too high for uncritical coverage.

A warning in the same issue

In the same March two thousand fourteen issue as the Holmes Q&A, WIRED colleague Bill Wasik wrote Silicon Valley's Douchebag Problem. He warned that dead-eyed misbehavior in pursuit of profit would kill tech's magical status.

Joseph Rago's untold story

Wall Street Journal reporter Joseph Rago got his finger pricked for Holmes' blood test in two thousand thirteen.Four years later, Rago, thirty four, died alone in his New York apartment.

What an honest test might have revealed

Sarcoidosis is hard to diagnose and rarely fatal.Doctors figure it out by excluding other possibilities.Rago did not know he had it.Among its signs are elevated vitamin D and angiotensin-converting enzyme levels.