Safeway was doing poorly. Burd teased with a ‘wellness play’. He expected the clinics' to recoup the $350m renovation costs. Testing and rewarding employees would reduce Safeway’s health care costs.
Theranos would courier samples to Palo Alto for testing. Theranos used a lancet on the index finger AND the good old hypodermic needle to the arm. The results could take 2 weeks as opposed to near-instantaneous. Theranos’s results tended to be way off, unless they had been outsourced. Burd brushed off these concerns.
The miniLab had no Theranos proprietary device. The personnel were inexperienced. Dupuy, an experienced personnel, raised concerns. She eventually got fired by Sunny for “calling attention to the fact that one vendor had put purchase orders on hold because of unpaid bills”. How could Dupuy go against SV’s premier law firm?
Safeway had no idea of this turmoil. Theranos kept missing deadlines. Execs bonuses were tied to financial targets that had priced in profits from Theranos partnership. Burd had lost vision of Safeway’s main business: selling groceries.
Burd ‘voluntarily’ left the company - and so did the direct line to Elizabeth. Sunny always acted put off by status queries by the execs. Still, Safeway was hesitant to walk away from what might be a game changer.
Burd founded Burd Health to advise companies on reducing health care costs. If only Elizabeth could return his calls.
This part made me irrationally angry. For a person that cared about loyalty to a fault, Elizabeth fell short here. I know, she fell short in multiple occasions prior, but at least she was consistent.
I wonder how America’s big chains came to be - Safeway, Whole Foods, etc. It seems like something that is bound to happen in Kenya where agriculture dominates.