In April, I read " Bad Blood: Serets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup " by Elisabeth Holmes, the legendary Silicon Valley scam company and its founder Elisabeth Holmes. This documentary. The documentary deletes some of the details in the book, making the film more complete and focused, but basically summarizes most of the content of the book, and visualizes Elisabeth's interview and the psychological motivations of other related characters, which makes it more intuitive to feel.
Of course, judging from the results, this is a scam. But like many people's comments, I don't think she is a total neuropathy or a "fanatic" as described in the film. Although the dialogue between her and the employees shown in the film is really like a cult or pyramid scheme. But from my personal point of view, she really brainwashed herself and fully believes that she can realize this idea. As many people have commented, if this is done, it will be Tesla. Tesla was originally an electric battery. At a time when it was about to fail, the US subprime mortgage crisis in 2008 forced the government to rescue some companies and revitalize the national economy. Tesla happened to be in it because of the edge of new energy, and obtained regulatory approval in one fell swoop, which brought back to life and expanded its business. Although Tesla's technology looked very forward-looking at the time, it is achievable in the foreseeable future. In contrast to Theranos, the entire company was built on a very basic idea, taking a few drops of blood samples and detecting diseases at home. If this technology appears in science fiction, I believe no one will question its feasibility. Unfortunately, in reality, it cannot be realized from the current scientific research perspectives of physics and biomedicine. However, they all used the same set of paths—storytelling to raise financing, building up an image of a fanatical entrepreneur, and behavioral characteristics that are inconsistent with traditional upper-class white successful people. Secondly, Elisabeth Holmes is really a business wizard. I believe that if she has not been brainwashed by herself, she will be able to succeed in doing other business, because she has done very thoroughly, even perfect, the principles that can contribute to the success of start-ups.
First of all, in external communication, whether in financing or public speaking, her storytelling level is top-notch. When we conduct any type of business pitch (business pitch), we have been emphasizing, telling stories, telling stories, telling stories! No matter what your thoughts and logic are, you must use stories to package them. Therefore, we sometimes spend the most time on how to structure the entire story. The story here does not only refer to an event included in the Where, When, and Who elements, but how to use a set of logic that can convince others to tell others what you think, to help the audience follow your thinking, and then understand what you are talking about. After this, persuade the other party invisibly. Among them, our usual technique is to make others empathize with us and empathize with us. If Steve Jobs is a great god, then Elisabeth Holmes is his excellent disciple (Jia Yueting is really going to be thrown out a lot of streets).
Elisabeth Holmes has two stories constantly appearing in her interviews, speeches and employee speeches. This is simply an excellent case of elevator pitch.
"I was always absolutely terrified of giving blood. It's the only thing in my life I've ever been scared of. If we were to sit here and dream up torture experiments, psychologically, the concept of sticking large needles over and over into someone and draining out so much blood, while they're watching his blood being sucked out of them, that you've basically completely debilitated them, that qualifies as a pretty good torture experiment in my book. I find it quite disturbing."
She used her experience of not having injections and fear of needles, first of all, we brought it into her thinking logic, and then she used the feeling of powerlessness on her body that she felt by "watching blood a tube and a tube drawn from her body" Resonate with us. Human nature naturally likes to control and conquer, especially one's own body. What she wants to metaphorically is that if we can't control our bodies, it will be terrible! Pay careful attention that every sentence she says is expressing an emotion rather than a specific thing. Compared with the cold facts, it is easier for people to establish emotional connections. After establishing this point, please feel that even if you have not been persuaded, you are at least interested in continuing to listen and see what medicine this person buys in the gourd. Therefore, she later introduced what Theranos is and the business advice behind it, that is, a small cost can make us painless and easily control ourselves.
The second story is about the feelings between her and her uncle. This documentary does not describe it, but the book reveals that she and her uncle are indifferent and indifferent at all. But she is super good at telling stories.
"I grew and spent the summer with my uncle. I remember how much he loved the beach. I remembered how much I loved him. He was diagnosed one day with skin cancer, which all of sudden was brain cancer, then in his bones. He did not live to see his son grow up, and I never got to say goodbye. The right to protect the health and well-being of every person, of those we love, is a basic human right. Over the past 11 years, we've made it possible to run comprehensive laboratory tests from a few drops of blood that could be taken from a finger (Attention, she paused here and stared at the audience and emphasized "a finger" to concretize this The vision conveyed by a technology). And we've made it possible to eliminate the tubes and tubes of blood that traditionally have to be drawn from an arm, and replaced it with the nanotainer."
This passage is simply wonderful. The strategy used is similar to the first one, but a more universal example (after all, not everyone is afraid of injections), and then compared to rendering the change from needle to finger blood, the focus is on explaining this The benefits that this technology can bring to humans (including those you love). Once you get to this level, you see, even if you don’t need to kidnap you morally, you still think "this is really an interesting technology!" Although smart people will ask about the feasibility of the technology, her subsequent explanation is really simple and easy. Understand, most people (including good investors) who do not specialize in biological sciences have difficulty finding loopholes.
Secondly, in internal communication, she succeeded in bringing a vague vision to the ground. At this point, she has deeply practiced two major strategies. First, Elisabeth Holmes is convinced of his own ideas, and he has taken the trouble and spared no effort to change various ways to describe an idea he believes in. The reason I don't want to call the whole thing MLM is because I think she really believes in her vision. On this basis, when a person can tell you an unknown, unpredictable, and very risky thing with a very convincing and determined attitude, you are embarrassed to refute it. Of course, this is not something everyone can do. On the practical level, her voice is sonorous and powerful, and her eyes never evade when communicating, and her employees say that she rarely blinks. This really makes people believe that she knows what she is doing, has a clear mind, and is explaining to you very sincerely. Moreover, this can be felt from her naming the detection machine "edison". She hopes to change the human course and does it all the time. Second, I believe it is not enough, so she and her employees always emphasize a sense of mission, a sense of mission for the company's products, a sense of conviction for the company's vision, and a sense of responsibility for life and human society. Facing the bottleneck of product research and development, she will propose the mission of the product and help build confidence to overcome technical difficulties.
In addition, if there are problems internally or externally, she will cut off the external barriers and build up antagonism. When a technician found a fatal flaw in the product and pointed out the feasibility of the technology, she chose to sue. With the help of a powerful team of lawyers, she makes everyone who threaten her feel terrified, leaving employees in an isolated island. At the same time, in the face of FDA's restrictions and obstacles, she and her 19-year-old boyfriend and second-in-command of the company led employees to shout "Fuck them" to convey that the FDA is fighting against all mankind, and we are a kind of lone hero. Psychological hints. Even when negative reports from The Wall Street Journal came out, they fully exposed the fundamental lies of Theranos products and business. She also said at the staff meeting that we want to treat these as a war. We have to resist. Establishing isolated islands, creating imaginary enemies, and igniting the emotion of inciting war is really a classic strategy for building groups, consolidating groups, and thoroughly brainwashing.
Achieving the above three points can only support the successful establishment of the company, smooth operation, and a good public image. To help the company further expand and realize the ultimate vision, the intervention of a huge amount of capital is necessary. Therefore, Elisabeth Holmes succeeded in bewitching the "old men" and breaking into the mainstream investment circle, pure high society. In this, she did three more things.
First of all, she portrayed her personal image as a "smart Kochi girl with dreams and caring for human society". Rich grandpas like this kind of motivated, intelligent and mission-conscious young people. At the age of 19, Stanford dropped out of school, an ideal female entrepreneur. These labels add up not to mention that they can win the attention of commercial investors, but for the general public, especially the media that can influence the public, they are simply ready-made golden formulas. Thus, another story of a successful entrepreneur in Silicon Valley was born.
Then, she succeeded in drawing inferences from one another, successfully using the circle effect, and after obtaining the endorsement of a very authoritative person, she became a fish in the water in the circle that gathered 5% of the world's wealth. Open one person and get the whole circle. Which of the sources of funds for her angel round and subsequent rounds of financing is not a VC who has successfully invested in countless times, a powerful businessman who has made decisions on important events that affect the course of history, or a successful businessman worth at least US$500 million. Yes, they are all extremely smart people. Because of this, once one person’s test is passed, other bigwigs with the same financial and intellectual level will naturally follow suit, because they naturally think that “XX’s approval is enough”. This is the same reason that some of us want to go to a big company first. Moreover, companies, in the final analysis, are still human beings, and human nature will succumb to group effects. Just like we Chinese elderly buy health care products. Lao Zhang Tou and Lao Li Tou bought them all next door, so that's right. Moreover, she made the grandfathers believe in her, and even ignored the persuasion of family members. Kissinger’s grandson said "Elisabeth is like a special family member for my gradfather". Isn’t this just the same as the routine of calling the old man "Mom and Dad" to give your old man foot washing a few years ago? The difference may be that our grandparents used 20,000 to buy a 1,000-sized mattress. They used 100 million to buy a worthless idea. We will say, forget it, grandpa buys it, anyway, it won't hurt your health if you spend more money. Maybe people also think that 100 million means just buy it. Anyway, even being cheated won't hurt your body.
What’s interesting is that most of the people who questioned her business proposal were business women of the same intellectual level. They were not only direct but also hit the nail on the head, and they fully understood this idea, as if they and the investors who supported her were evaluating two things. thing.
In the end, she has always maintained her own behavioral style of being neither humble nor arrogant, even rude, dispelling the psychological line of defense that the grandpa thinks she has something to do. I haven't really come into contact with real rich people, but those who can accumulate wealth and prestige should have a very clear mind. Even if you really think that this idea is gold, you will still retain a certain degree of skepticism in the early stages of getting along: How big is the risk? But this suspicion was completely destroyed by Elisabeth's natural (perhaps deliberately) rudeness. Elisabeth expressed himself in a casual, natural, and even rude sitting posture in public on more than one occasion. This kind of complete relaxation makes people believe that this person doesn't care about other people's judgments, and she doesn't put capital in her eyes at all. Viewers will admire her more and believe in the purity of her motives. And there is one more thing, when you start to doubt a person and then find that you may have misunderstood her, that kind of shallow level of guilt and guilt will further deepen this belief.
Looking back at her story again, one more thing worth mentioning is Elisabeth's almost fake masculine voice. Although I was shot from the narration and other interviewers' narratives, I was surprised when I first heard it. What I feel is a fatal attraction. That unquestionable sense of certainty made her voice very convincing and easily penetrated into my mind, as if what she said was right. She will unconsciously give others a feeling: this person is so attractive. There are many discussions about this on the Internet, you can find them.
I also checked the current situation of Elisabeth. She has already appeared in court several times during her bail period. Because of the epidemic, her trial will be held in August 2020, and she may face 20 years in prison. Interestingly, she is married and her husband is the heir to a hotel, a trust-fund baby.
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