He has started his own company Flux Biosciences in 2017 after learning some important lessons...
"With Theranos I learned that entrepreneurs have to sell their vision," he said. "But you have to have some line between having a vision and seeing something that’s just not there."
"[Flux Biosciences] is developing point-of-care medical tests on blood, urine or saliva. Right now the company is working on a test for testosterone in saliva which could give a consumer health information but wouldn't serve as a diagnostic test that would affect medical care, as Theranos' tests aimed to."
It's probably more accurate to say that, at the time he became a whistleblower, he had reasonable idea to believe that it could wreck his life. From the WSJ article:
> He says he was told by his parents that Ms. Holmes called the elder Mr. Shultz in the summer of 2015 to complain that their son was being unreasonable. Tyler Shultz says he also got a tip that private investigators were watching him.
> In a conversation in his parents’ kitchen, they pleaded with him to agree to whatever Theranos wanted, he says. Even though his heart sank when they discussed selling their house to cover the costs of defending him against a potential Theranos lawsuit, Mr. Shultz didn’t make a deal with the company.
> His parents said in a statement: “Tyler has acted exactly like the man we raised him to be, and we are extraordinarily proud of him.”
"His parents said in a statement" -- I remember when reading this story when it was originally published (2016) thinking how odd it was that his parents didn't agree to be interviewed in person. Or at least were worried about speaking out of turn at that point in time.
If you're involved in a complicated legal case, and you're not 100% sure what you're doing, no speaking to the press at all is your first preference, by a wide margin, and only speaking to the press in carefully considered, short, written statements in your second. Actually speaking to the press is for those with nothing to lose, and plenty to win -- or specialised training.
This is exacerbated by the dynamic that the part of the press you'll feel most eager to speak to, is that which are making upsetting misrepresentations about you or something you care about -- ie., those who have something to gain by manipulating you to say something controversial or incriminating.
You are making a subtle mistake here. Tyler's legal defence came from his parents' finances, not his grandparents.
Also, Tyler opting to become a whistleblower on Theranos caused a strain between his grandfather, who is a Theranos board member, and his own family.
So unless they resolve the impasse, it is unlikely that the grandfather will offer a helping hand (financially) to his son and grandson after outing the fraud in a company associated with him.
> The day he quit Theranos, Shultz says, Holmes contacted George Shultz and told him that if his grandson did anything to threaten the startup he would 'lose.'
I liked the bit where they tried to use the "women in tech are oppressed" narrative to cover her ass:
> Tim Draper, the founding partner of Draper Associates and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, appeared on television on Tuesday—not for the first time—to defend Holmes and Theranos. In an interview on Closing Bell, the world’s most loyal V.C. said Holmes has been “totally attacked,” and that she is “a great example of maybe why the women are so frustrated.”
Same narrative that was invoked in defense of Ellen Pao in her game of thrones with billionaires.
There are people who are fighting for a noble cause, and then there are parasites that use it for their selfish gain.
It's a little unclear to me how this is comparable to the Ellen Pao situation. Admittedly I haven't followed it as closely, but it sounded to me like she had some different ideas about where reddit should go and mishandled a key employee change. One can criticize those choices, but they hardly amount to being terrible at her job or fraud or not deserving the position in the first place.
I think a stronger case could be made that she was mistreated than that Elizabeth Holmes was. I don't know enough to have a position on whether that's right or wrong in Pao's case, but I can see the argument. I think Holmes was pretty clearly being attacked for all the right reasons however, and not for being a powerful woman CEO/founder.
It's not too surprising. As soon as any kind of principle, good or bad, starts to have some kind of power when it's invoked, bad actors will swarm around it to use it for their own ends.
It isn't just bad actors. Its our fawning nature. I think that many people were reluctant to question Theranos precisely because she was a female entrepreneur.
Nowadays, you have many, many successful female tech entrepreneurs: stitch, bumble, ipsy, etc... and hopefully we are past the fawning phase and can apply critical thinking.
Exactly. In an industry as sensitive as ours, criticizing Holmes could easily get you labeled as a sexist. Especially on mediums where nuance is hardly achievable, such as Twitter. People's confirmation bias is a real problem in these scenarios.
He is the main reason we know know what Theranos was doing.
He had his life destroyed, he knew it would happen, what Theranos would do to him, and he did the right thing all the same. Tyler Shultz is a hero.
Never let someone tell you that you don't matter. Try hard to do what is right. We need more people like him, be one of them too.
Be like Tyler Shultz.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/11/explosive-new-detail...
Edit: Pic: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3944392/Theranos-whi...