Elizabeth met Sunny in Stanford’s Mandarin program. She was 18, he was 19 years older and married. Elizabeth had struggled and gotten bullied and Sunny helped her out.
Sunny was arrogant and demeaning to employees. Sunny was a sucker for #hours clocked in. 8 hours a day showed a lack of dedication. But Elizabeth had utmost confidence in him.
He made $40m+ from Commerce One’s $232m sale during the dotcom boom - but attributed it to acumen than to luck. He had been charged with tax evasion on the $40m. He was flamboyant too.
Elizabeth’s pitch now had Theranos predicting drug reactions in patients. The tests were unreliable - the chemistry team knew this. How could the predictions be valuable? But Sunny always blamed connectivity issues.
I can sort of see why Elizabeth would be loyal to Sunny. He was there for him, had won in the valley, and shared in Theranos’s grand ambitions. I wonder whether they’re still together.
That Sunny (COO) and Elizabeth (CEO) were dating wasn’t disclosed to the board.