The lawyers for Elizabeth Holmes submitted evidence at the end of her criminal trial.
4 a.m. The handwritten memo began, " Rise and thank God." She spelled it "bannanna" and followed with exercise, meditation, prayer and breakfast. She was at the office of Theranos by 6:30 a.m., when slackers were still fumbling for the alarm clock.
Ms.Holmes had many rules at Theranos. I don't show any excitement. All about business. I'm not impulsive. I know what happens in every encounter. I will not hesitate. I make decisions and change them often. I don't speak much. I immediately call bullshit.
It worked. The belief that it was possible was instilled right up to the moment on Monday when a jury convicted her of four counts of fraud.
The end of an era was signaled by the verdict. There is a limit to faking it in Silicon Valley, where the line between achievement and talk is often vague.
It is an epic rise and fall that will be chewed over in the coffee shops and juice bars of Palo Alto, Calif., until the tech industry departs for a new life in Musk and Bezos. For a decade, Ms. Holmes fooled investors, hundreds of smart employees, an all-star board, and a media that was eager to anoint a new star even if she had no qualifications.
Silicon Valley is a cartoonish version of American ideals about hard work and getting rich quick.
The New York Times has a story about Elizabeth and Billy Evans leaving the federal courthouse in San Jose, Calif.
She was trying to turn herself into a machine that didn't have time for anything but work, as her self-improvement scheme made clear. This was not for her own benefit, but for humanity. She perfectly encapsulated the Silicon Valley motto that tech was here to serve us, and never mind how it did it, the billions it was making or whether it even worked.
The company cried "trade secrets" whenever anyone wanted to know more about how the machines worked. The real secret was that Theranos didn't have any trade secrets because its machines didn't work. Her answer worked for a long time.
Ms.Holmes actions were based in tradition and she hid fraud behind the imperatives of secrecy. Her self-improvement plan was inspired by Ben Franklin but it was F. Scott Fitzgerald's creation of the mysterious, handsome millionaire who also ran a few swindles that made it indelible.
The New York Times has a story about Ms.Holmes.
Ms.Holmes was close to her brother. He got where he was with a schedule and rules when he was a young person.
5 p.m. to 6 p.m.: Practice elocution and how to get it.
There is a study needed inventions.
The parallels with Ms.Holmes and with Gatsby were similar. He told himself to stop smoking or chewing.
Wall Street was used to cheat by the bootlegger. He sold fake bonds. Silicon Valley is the last and greatest of all human dreams. In the first decade of the century, it promised to change things.
Ms.Holmes was a good salesperson and blood-testing seemed like a breeze. She explained what Theranos was all about in an interview with Tech Nation in 2005.
We focused on creating a tool that could be used in the home by every patient, so that they could get real-time analysis of their blood samples.
Who could not be proud of this invention? Theranos was making a messy and time-Consuming medical process painless. She said that the needle pulled a small amount of blood. The rest would be done by software.
Tech Nation's host has a master's degree in computer science and a doctor of philosophy in mechanical engineering, but she was surprised. She asked how old Elizabeth was.
Ms.Holmes said she was 21.
Her age was brought up to show how impressive her claims were. "I'm going to tell my two children, they better get off their duffs," Ms. Gunn exclaimed.
Ms.Holmes said that the device was in the production phase. She said that they hope to release it to a pharmaceutical partner in the late part of the year. When the company dissolved, it had never released a device.
In 2005, we had expectations of genius, even though the blood-testing at 21 was not enough. Ms.Holmes gave a stock Silicon Valley response when she was asked about her future.
She said that the next generations of the device were already in prototype. To make it even more high-throughput, it was shrunk. You don't have to touch the device with your finger.
In one of the first media interviews Ms.Holmes ever did, she said that Theranos had a device that could analyze your health without touching you. No one called her. She and her boyfriend, the company's chief operating officer who was known as "Sunny," thought they could brazen it out in the Silicon Valley tradition until they had something that worked.
This is a good age. The secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton was a board member of Theranos. Not a fool with regard to Silicon Valley. He told The New Yorker that Ms. Holmes has sometimes been called another Steve Jobs. Steve never had a social consciousness. He was a genius and she was one with a big heart.
Mr. Jobs might have been involved with Theranos. The company was going to be the next Apple, according to Adam Rosendorff. He applied for the job after reading a biography.
The former defense secretary was a board member of Theranos.
He said the excitement around Steve Jobs was very compelling to him. I joined a diagnostics company to make a more global impact on health care.
The start-up was forced to change its board in December of 2016 after Mr. Rosendorff grew tired of it.
Ms.Holmes dream seemed so close that she could hardly fail to comprehend it. A few more late nights from the engineering team, a few more magazine covers declaring her a genius, and it would be done.
Where does this conviction leave the rest of us?
Ripe for the next huckster. We can't get enough of the Silicon Valley promises. There is immortality. There is a cipher called CRYPT. Cars are flying. Mars. Digital harmony. Wealth beyond compare.
We will always be suckers for theastic future that year by year fades before us.
