[Mick]

Once a con artist, always a con artist.

I'm willing to assume Holmes cheated her way into Stanford. She is a psychopath.

Supposedly, Holmes' mother was a social climber who exhibited similar moral/psychopathic tendencies.  Both her parents were very political with high aspirations for using their Washington connections (they were based in Virginia).  Holmes' father was an employee at (of course) Enron. Holmes' mother pushed Elizabeth to be like her, claimed their neighbor, a psychiatrist who owned patents and knew multiple languages. Full disclosure, Holmes sued this neighbor over a patent that cost him $5 million to defend.  But when Enron when bust, a decade earlier, Holmes' father was broke and the neighbor, Dr. Richard Fuisz (MD) allowed the Holmes to stay in their house in McLean rent-free.  

Dr. Fuisz also said that Holmes was not naturally emotive as a child. He also said that Holmes was a fair student with low grades.  While in high school, Holmes' parents enrolled her in a Mandarin summer school class in China sponsored by Stanford in an effort to get her admitted. Mr. Holmes apparently had a contact at the IMF introduce him and Elizabeth to Don Lucas, who helped get Larry Ellison involved.  Wouldn't be surprised if she had recommendations from both Ellison and Lucas. Seems to have worked.

Fuisz basically considered her to be a con artist for all the reasons that everyone understands.  And it's widely known that Professor Gardner didn't trust her, and said Holmes didn't have a low voice, it was a typical female voice.  But there may be some strong underpinnings to Holmes' argument that Balwani groomed and controlled her.  When she was 18 and Balwani was in his mid-30s, he invited and took her to Paris.  He flew her family to Aspen and then to Paris in his private jet and paid for their bills at an expensive hotel for a week in Paris.

As for the con artist part...just read the section in which Holmes used patent writers (who don't have a fiduciary duty) to essentially steal prior art, then had a respected firm (McDermott, Will & Emery) file the actual patents, implying that MWE actually wrote the patents.

Story in Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/...ef0c3a366b

Her ethic "Fake it till you make it" is baked into Silicon Valley.  Her product was called "the Edison" which is interesting because Edison was part con artist as well:

https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2019/3/14/1...ia-podcast

[Mick]

Once a con artist, always a con artist.

I'm willing to assume Holmes cheated her way into Stanford. She is a psychopath.

Supposedly, Holmes' mother was a social climber who exhibited similar moral/psychopathic tendencies.  Both her parents were very political with high aspirations for using their Washington connections (they were based in Virginia).  Holmes' father was an employee at (of course) Enron. Holmes' mother pushed Elizabeth to be like her, claimed their neighbor, a psychiatrist who owned patents and knew multiple languages. Full disclosure, Holmes sued this neighbor over a patent that cost him $5 million to defend.  But when Enron when bust, a decade earlier, Holmes' father was broke and the neighbor, Dr. Richard Fuisz (MD) allowed the Holmes to stay in their house in McLean rent-free.  

Dr. Fuisz also said that Holmes was not naturally emotive as a child. He also said that Holmes was a fair student with low grades.  While in high school, Holmes' parents enrolled her in a Mandarin summer school class in China sponsored by Stanford in an effort to get her admitted. Mr. Holmes apparently had a contact at the IMF introduce him and Elizabeth to Don Lucas, who helped get Larry Ellison involved.  Wouldn't be surprised if she had recommendations from both Ellison and Lucas. Seems to have worked.

Fuisz basically considered her to be a con artist for all the reasons that everyone understands.  And it's widely known that Professor Gardner didn't trust her, and said Holmes didn't have a low voice, it was a typical female voice.  But there may be some strong underpinnings to Holmes' argument that Balwani groomed and controlled her.  When she was 18 and Balwani was in his mid-30s, he invited and took her to Paris.  He flew her family to Aspen and then to Paris in his private jet and paid for their bills at an expensive hotel for a week in Paris.

As for the con artist part...just read the section in which Holmes used patent writers (who don't have a fiduciary duty) to essentially steal prior art, then had a respected firm (McDermott, Will & Emery) file the actual patents, implying that MWE actually wrote the patents.

Story in Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/...ef0c3a366b

Her ethic "Fake it till you make it" is baked into Silicon Valley.  Her product was called "the Edison" which is interesting because Edison was part con artist as well:

https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2019/3/14/1...ia-podcast