UPDATE: Elizabeth Holmes STILL Not in Prison
How about another update on subjects previously covered in this newsletter?
Yes? Great! Read on!
1.) Remember Elizabeth Holmes? I wrote about her a couple of times and have been following her long, sordid, criminal story since The Wall Street Journal broke the news in 2015 that the company she founded, Theranos, was as likely to find a better blood testing method as my neighbor’s kid’s lemonade stand. (From a business standpoint, the lemonade stand was a MUCH bigger success. Sure, it lost money, but it was only about $1.62, and it produced lemonade(!), as opposed to Theranos which lost billions and produced criminals.)
Just to remind you: Elizabeth Holmes lied. She cheated. And then she was convicted in federal court.
Yet, somehow, she is STILL not in jail. But a New York Times reporter apparently wants to have a sleepover with her.
In what is no doubt the opening salvo of a PR rehab/sympathy campaign, Holmes was featured in a lengthy, front page, above-the-fold business section article written by Amy Chozick, who somehow managed to get a job at the New York Times yet clearly failed Journalism 101 in her freshman year.
You really have to read it for yourself to believe that this ended up in the New York Times.
(A digression: I still believe that the New York Times is one of the greatest institutions of journalism and truth that this world has ever seen. Having said that, it is not perfect. Not by a long shot. Every now and again, the Times steps in a pile of shit so deep, it shakes your confidence in its ability to report the “…first draft of history.” Search “Jason Blair”, “Judith Miller”, “Caliphate podcast” just to name a few of the Times’ more egregious screw-ups. The Holmes story does not rise (sink) to the level of some of these other journalistic travesties, but it sure is an example of bad reporting.)
If you do NOT want to read it, here is a quick summary:
- The Elizabeth Holmes who defrauded investors to the tune of a billion dollars and who may have put lives at risk with her non-working medical device – THAT Elizbeth Holmes was a character she created and the REAL person is “Liz” Holmes who just wants to love her babies, feed her dog (except that it was eaten by a mountain lion, according to Holmes in the Times story. Seriously.) and just make the world a better place with her ideas and her passion for making the world a better place.
Most of us are all for redemption and second chances. People do bad things. We try them, convict them, they do their time and then we give them another chance (mostly, anyway. I would argue that a few crimes, including but not necessarily limited to murder and rape, should be punishable for life.)
But somehow, some way, Elizabeth Homes has not even STARTED her 11-year stint in prison.
If you are looking for the “money quote” in this NY Times travesty of “journalism” it’s this:
“I still dream about being able to contribute in that space,” Ms. Holmes said. “I still feel the same calling to it as I always did and I still think the need is there.”
Really? What if, instead of a blood testing device, Holmes had said she was building a time machine? Assuming that she could find gullible investors, build a company, fool the press, and get convicted, the simple fact remains: “IT’S A TIME MACHINE! IT’S NEVER GOING TO ACTUALLY WORK!”
Same goes for her idiotic blood testing box, but somehow Holmes still thinks it can happen and Amy Chozick is still willing to give her a hearing.
Can we just send her to prison please and be done with her for a decade or so?
2.) Remember my local Amazon Fresh store that was three years in the making but never managed to actually open for business? Last year, I predicted it would never open and wrote about it in early April. Well, about two weeks after I posted that April newsletter, Amazon took the “Amazon Fresh” sign off the front of the building after being up for about a year.
Does that fact alone mean it will NEVER open? Not necessarily. But it does not exactly scream “GET READY FOR OUR GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION!” either. I stand by my prediction that it will never open.
In a weird coincidence, shortly thereafter, Bed, Bad & Beyond announced that it was going belly up. And it just so happens that Amazon Fresh and Bed, Bath & Beyond were two of four anchor stores in this shopping plaza (along with a furniture store and a CVS.) So half the major tenants are gone. I hope the landlords can figure something out lest this plaza becomes a zombie retail location like so many others around the country.
3.) What’s the Spanish version of “Ahab?” Because that’s me and Chipotle is my white whale.
Remember my ill-fated Chipotle meal from last week? Well, I decided to give the place one more try. My wife is traveling, so I opted for takeout instead of the laborious process of boiling water and cooking pasta for 10 minutes.
I ordered a burrito on the app at 6:25 pm. It told me to pick it up at 6:40. I pulled in at 6:45, drove up to the drive thru window and they informed me that there were five orders ahead of mine and that it would not be ready until 7:10 or later because they were short-staffed.
I could see a look of fatigue/panic/sympathy/fuckthisjob on her face, so I said “OK. Never mind” and just left. I just couldn’t see sitting in my car for another 25 minutes and she looked like she was about to cry, and getting up in her grill seemed inappropriate and disproportionate to the $13.27 (including tip, ironically) that I was driving away from. Hopefully, one of the staff enjoyed it during their break.
But, this is definitely the last time I will ever voluntarily choose to go to Chipotle. If there’s ever a zombie apocalypse (double points for getting two “zombie” references into one newsletter) and my wife, my dog and I are traveling the lonely highways of a devasted United States hellscape, desperately trying to avoid being eaten by the un-dead, or being attacked by marauding gangs, and if we happen to pass the last functioning Chipotle in the western hemisphere, and all we have in our knapsack is half a sleeve of saltines and a can of expired sardines, well then…
…nope. Still going for the saltine/sardine sandwiches. Or the dog if things get truly desperate.
Sorry, Chipotle. Clearly, business is good, as evidenced by your ever-soaring stock price. But your business of serving customers sucks. Good luck with that.
4.) Remember Chris Licht? He was an intern at the radio station where I did the morning show back in the early 90s before he went on to huge success in television and is now the CEO of CNN.
I said it before and I’ll say it again: Chris is crazy-smart and has a real head for broadcasting. But his one-year-tenure at CNN has been less than spectacular. OK, it’s been an unmitigated disaster. Ratings have plummeted, there were significant layoffs, and the new Licht-conceived CNN morning show is a train wreck, with co-host Don Lemon ultimately being fired. The rank-and-file at CNN are, by some reports, in near full rebellion, and after the Trump town hall last week, some are ready to tar and feather Chris.
CNN and linear TV in general is a dying business. Chris walked onto the deck of the Titanic AFTER it hit the iceberg and was told “Cut staff, make sure the champagne flutes are filled, draw me like one of your French girls, and oh-by-the-way, see if you can do something about some kind of leak in the lower decks. Thanks, buddy! 👍”
I’m not sure anyone could fix this sinking ship and based on the tea leaves that I’m seeing and hearing in the media, Chris is not going to be given much longer to do so.
Prediction: Chris Licht will lose the support of his boss, David Zaslav and will be fired by Labor Day, deserved or not.
So, there you have it. A serving of some random updates about the random things and people rattling around my skull.
Thanks for reading and don’t forget to tip your server.