The Daily Stoic - Theranos Whistleblower Tyler Shultz on Doing the Right Thing and Overcoming Fear

Episode Date: December 25, 2022

Ryan speaks with Tyler Shultz about his new audiobook Thicker than Water, the harsh realities of being a whistleblower, how he overcame the fear of backlash from his decision to expose Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes’s motivation, and more.Tyler Shultz is an entrepreneur and author whose work focuses on driving innovation in healthcare. He graduated from Stanford with a Biology degree and entered the national scene when he blew the whistle at Theranos by exposing the company’s dubious blood-testing practices activities to the public health regulators in New York and the Wall Street Journal. He is featured in Alex Gibney’s HBO documentary The Inventor. Tyler is the CEO and Co-Founder of Flux Biosciences, Inc. His efforts were recognized by Forbes when he was named to their “30 under 30” Health Care 2017 list. Tyler can be found on twitter as @TylerShutz_.✉️  Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoke. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes. Something to help you live up to those four Stoke virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have. Here on the weekend when you have a

little bit more space when things have slowed down be sure to take some time to think to go for a walk to sit with your journal and most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hi I'm David Brown the host of Wunderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday.

Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. I know we'd written an email about this a long time ago. And I remembered the subject line. The subject line was doing the right thing, King Hostio, everything. And so I went to find it. I searched that in my Gmail inbox, and I found that we had sent this email on November 29th, 2016. So Daily Stoic was a couple months old, and I'll read you this first paragraph. In early 2014, an employee of the multi-billion dollar medical company Theranos began to worry

that the company may be engaged in fraudulent activities. Despite being a relatively low-level employee in his early 20s, he decided to do something about it, right? And it goes on to talk about him becoming a whistleblower, how this whistle blowing was not well received, not appreciated. He was doubted. He was attacked. He was sued his own grandfather who was on the board of directors turned against him. In fact, his parents, as I say in the email, his parents into having to take a mortgage out on their house to pay their legal bills, which were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so I conclude the email. I said, it's an important

reminder that doing the right thing isn't free. Doing the right thing might cost you everything. And yet the Stokes would remind us that this should have absolutely no bearing on whether we should do it or not. As Marcus really has reminded himself and us just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn't matter cold or warm, tired or well rested, despised or honored. I said this young man did the right thing. It cost him and his family an incredible amount, cost the people that he loved and respected, even though they were doing the wrong thing, an incredible amount. But it was the right thing. And his parents summed it this up in a statement. They said, Tyler has acted exactly like the man we raised him to be. We are extraordinarily proud of him. Well, Tyler is my guest on the podcast today. Tyler Schultz graduated from Stanford with the degree in biology. He was the whistleblower that brought down Theranos.

He and I talked as I was sitting down and writing the courage book. And then I talked a little bit more now that I'm writing with Justice book. He was nice enough to read a chapter in that new book, which you won't be able to see for quite some time, but I appreciated his notes. And I just really enjoyed this conversation. He is currently the CEO and co-founder of Flux Bio Sciences, a Bay Area startup. It aims to bring medical grade diagnostics into the homes of consumers by using cutting edge technology to measure biomarkers related to stress, exercise, and fertility. He was on Forbes's 30 under 30 health care list in 2017. He wrote a fantastic audio book called Ficker Than Water, which I will link to in today's show notes.

You can follow him on Twitter at Tyler Schultz, and then there's an underscore after his name, but I was really excited and honored to bring you this conversation, and I think you're really going to like it. And I just have so much respect for Tyler and so happy to be able to bring you this interview. So I guess the first question I have is,

do you recommend being a whistleblower? How did that experience treat you? Yeah. Man, that is a loaded question. I don't even know how to start answering that one. Being a whistleblower is really, really tough, for sure. And if I were giving advice to, like, let's say a friend who was in the exact same situation that I was in, I couldn't necessarily in good conscience tell them to go ahead and do

exactly what I did. Like, really? Yeah, you're basically, I kind of feel like I'm just pushing them into a trap. The emotional toll, the financial toll, the toll that it took on my relationships was just, it was just really high. And we're now finally getting to the other side of it, but this has been, like I first met Elizabeth Holmes 11 years ago, and so I was 20 years old, and I'm 32 now,

just barely 32, so it's been like, a little more than 11 years. So I mean, it's a saga that completely consumed my 20s. Well, there's this preconception or this notion that, and we often dismiss whistleblowers or accusers or victims, like right out of the gate, sort of being self-interested or interested in attention or they're doing it for X, Y, and Z reasons.

But when you actually talked to whistleblowers or you charted out over a long enough time span, it never seems like, it's not that it doesn't work out for them, but it certainly wasn't to their benefit, like financially or reputationally or personally like it was an enormous enormous undertaking almost across the board whoever you're talking about Yeah I mean, I kind of thought that Elizabeth and Sonny and their trials might try to you know

Make it sound like I was doing this out of my own self-interest. But the data is just so stacked against that. There's very, very little that, relatively little that I've gotten out of it. Sure, I've been in an HBO documentary and someone played me on a Hulu series. But I mean, relative to what I went through, those are very small wins.

I wouldn't even consider those, I mean, there's not even a separate topic. But like, yeah, I would rather the Hulu thing have not happened, but it's like, it's really not a huge perk. Yeah, it's this weird sort of, I think when people say that, it's a way of not having to engage seriously with what is being said and to sort of distance themselves from the obligation

that they might have in their own life to do something that costs them. Right, regardless of how close they are to what's happening when we go, oh, they're just doing it for this reason or oh, they're after this. It's a way of like not having to engage with the idea that someone could have seen something and is now saying something. Yeah, I could see that.

Yeah, that's an interesting way to look at it. Basically, you're finding a way to give them an ulterior motive and you would say, like, oh, well, I don't have that same ulterior motive, therefore, I don't need to do something here. Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. I mean, like, so when I was at American Apparel, I noticed that there was stuff that would happen

and that you probably should say something about. And then when other people would say something, you found it was always convenient to find a reason why that person was a flawed messenger or was benefiting in this way or that way. And then that was a way of maintaining the status quo or blocking oneself from needing to do something similar. Interesting.

Well, I would say that like everybody's flawed. I have flaws. You have flaws, CEOs have flaws, low level employees have flaws, but I think whistleblowers really get attacked for their flaws a lot more than, you know, the normal population. Well, I was reading about this whistleblower in the Pentagon and he was pushing back even on the idea of calling a whistleblower or whistleblower. His argument was that telling the truth is not some sort of like special status that attaches to a person.

This is in fact everyone's obligation as a human being. What do you think of that idea? Yeah, I totally agree. And I read the chapter that you wrote on whistle blowing and you used the word truth tellers instead. And I think that sounds way better than a whistle blower. I think whistle blower does have some negative connotations. And in fact, like I did not genuinely

did not think of myself as a whistleblower. I did not see myself through that lens. And then I saw it written in a newspaper next to my name, like Tyler Schultz, Thernos whistleblower, and my first thought was, oh, wow, the reporter got it wrong. Like they called me a whistleblower and I'm not one. They kind of messed up there. And then upon further reflection, I kind of realized, you know what, I guess I actually am a whistleblower.

I have never thought of myself as that. It's interesting because I think maybe what it does is if whistleblower feels like this thing you do when things are really serious, right? It's like an official legal status. Like when you uncover fraud at a certain level or malfeasance at a certain level, or some sort of criminal behavior beyond a certain level,

then one is obligated to like, you know, press a button and begin whistleblower, you know, procedure number six. When in fact, there is, I think, just this general obligation to speak truth when one sees it, right? To say, like, hey, that's not true. I don't like that. Like, I think it's interesting.

You're watching this happen right now with Elon Musk who's purchased Twitter. There's these employees who are sort of pushing back on certain characterizations or things that he's claiming. Now, these things, I don't think they constitute a level of fraud or like criminal behavior, although this, you know, obviously, you never know, right? This could be sort of outdated, but in the moment, what they're really just saying, what they're really just doing is disputing the characterization from the company's leadership to the public.

And they're getting fired for that. And so people might go, oh, that's not a whistleblower. You're not supposed to contradict your boss in public. But if we, if we, if we say no to the job of each and every person is to say the truth when they see it, right? It removes the sort of gray area of like, when my boss is just spewing nonsense to millions of people and I'm going to defend my reputation or the reputation of the company or the truth as just an objective standard, then it sort of makes what our individual role is in a situation a little bit clearer.

sort of makes what our individual role is in a situation a little bit clearer. Yeah, and I would say that like the term whistleblower kind of has this like a take down kind of mentality to it. And I'm sure the employees at Twitter, they're not trying to take down Elon Musk, they're not trying to take down Twitter, you know, they're just they're trying, they've been there maybe for years. It's something that they believe in. It's a product that they like. They're probably, and I don't know all years. Did something that they believe in, it's a product that they like, they're probably,

and I don't know all the specific instances that you're talking about, but they're probably genuinely trying to help. They genuinely want change to happen to make the product better. Yeah, and there's this sort of code inside companies which is like, don't air our dirty laundry, don't take disputes public. And this is, I think, the first clash between

the whistleblower slash truth teller and the interest of the company. Yeah. And my guess would be that this, their first outlet wasn't to go public and tweet about it. Their first outlet was to try to talk to their managers or someone else inside the company. And this was likely a kind of like a last resort type thing. Isn't that how it went for you? Because that is the characterization, right?

It's this idea of like, oh, this person's just doing it for attention. But when often when you look at the receipts, the person tried like 50 other things first. I know this is sort of how it went for you. And it's again, as you said, it's only as a matter of last resort that any of this becomes public. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I tried so hard to not be public about this. Like I tried so, so hard.

You know, first I talked to my managers. I talked to, you know, my managers. I talked to my co-workers. I talked to the CEO. I talked to a board member. I talked to the government. I talked to, when I first spoke to the government as well, I was completely anonymous. I used a fake email and a fake name to talk to the government.

When I first spoke to the Wall Street Journal reporter, I called him on a burner phone when I bought with cash, thinking, there's no way anyone will ever be able to figure me out, since I bought the burner phone with cash. And then even after the Wall Street Journal started publishing their articles, it wasn't until more than a year later that I finally went on the record with my name.

So I did everything I could to keep my name out of it. Well, the other thing about sort of the idea of a true tone whistleblower is like, you don't always know the full scope of what's happening. So really what you're presenting and what you were presenting was the little bit of truth that you understood, that seemed to contradict the facts that were being presented. But did you have any conception that it was this enormous house of cards

or was it just this small thing that you were taking issue with? I mean, I had a feeling it was a huge house of cards, yeah, I did. But I knew that the small things relatively, I shouldn't say small, but the relatively small things that I was seeing, I knew were just symptoms of a much, much larger problem. And when I first tried to address these problems, I started with the relatively benign symptoms.

And like people, like I did, I went and I confronted Elizabeth in her office and I think when I say that a lot of people envision me walking into her office and you know throwing a finger up in the air and saying you're a fraud this is never going to work. That's not what it was like at all. No, I was very cautious and I just addressed like two very simple things and I basically just said hey there's some experiments that I do that, you know, the calculations that I make don't match up what's in a validation report. It's relatively small thing, but it was a symptom of a much, much, much bigger problem. And I had no idea how big the problems really were until, you know, CMS, the FDA, the SEC, and ultimately the Department of Justice all did their own investigations.

And I was pretty shocked at some of the things that they found. I knew that sometimes the quality controls that failed and employees were pressured to run tests anyway, despite the quality control failures. I was kind of shocked that that was documented. CMS was able to actually find documents that showed, yeah, quality control failed today on, you know, on this day. And a patient sample was also run on this day. I was kind of shocked that that was just like in the reports.

And then I think probably the most shocking thing in the SEC filing was that there was an instance where Elizabeth was telling a prospective investor that their revenue the previous year was $100 million. And in reality, it was $100,000. Like, alive that big, I was pretty shocked to see that. So you start pulling on this thread and more and more unravels. But I've got to imagine you're not the only person

that sees this. You're just the only one that seems to be interested in continuing to pull the thread. There's the the Uptanson Clare line that it's a it's very difficult to get someone to understand something that their salary depends on them not understanding. Do you feel like there was a sort of a willful ignorance or blindness to the things that weren't adding up because it would have either been bad for people's bottom line or it would have if they had fully fleshed out the suspicions they were having, it would have put them in the moral quandary that you were in. Yeah, it kind of depends like what level of employee we're talking about. But I have heard people kind of like speculate that more employees didn't speak up because of, you know, all the stock options that they had at stake. And that really wasn't true. Like,

at my level, like very, very few people actually got stock options. It's like one of those rare tech companies where stock options just really weren't part of standard compensation. So really, the employees kind of at my level had very little to lose. But I think fear was really the biggest motivating factor. And as you go up the ladder, you know, when you're talking about sunny or vice presidents, then probably what you're saying becomes more true where it's like they have a lot at stake and

they need to be willfulfully ignorant, you know, because they have this huge upside. But losing your job is still a thing that people don't want, right? Like I wrote about this in in my courage book, I tell the story when I was in American Apparel. I got asked to, the CEO of the company asked me to leak these photos of these women that were suing him. And I said, look, I'm not gonna do that. That's not like the right thing to do. But I didn't like quit on the spot. I just said, I'm not gonna do that.

And then I hope I wouldn't get fired. In retrospect, as I think about that decision, I go, why did I want to keep a job where you could get fired for not doing a thing that was not just morally wrong, but also fundamentally illegal? And yet I think that is the dilemma that people find themselves in.

They're not choosing between their literal neck and doing the right thing, but it does feel like they're committing career suicide. Oh, absolutely. And like, you know, people had mortgages and Theranos did pay a little bit more than industry standards. So if you have more a mortgage, if you have kids, people had visas that were dependent on working at the company. So there were, you know, no one wants to lose their job.

Um, so yeah, there were certainly other. Did you just not think about that? Or like, did you, was it something you were thinking about yourself? And you said, I don't care, or how do you get over the fear of the consequences? Not just the ones you did experience, but I imagine just any extrapolation of what could happen going up against powerful and trenched interests. Yeah. Well, I mean, I had a similar feeling to the one that you had where you're like, you didn't want to work there anymore because you didn't want to work at a company where you weren't supposed to speak up.

I had that same feeling and it was so hard toward the end, it was so, so hard to go to work. I felt like any day could have been my last day. I was this close to just walking out the door for a long period of time. It just became unbearable. It was an unbearable work environment, so I really didn't care if I lost my job or not. And I figured I was like 23 years old at the time. I'll bounce back. This is my first job. I can go find another entry level position somewhere. So I really did feel like, kind of throughout this whole saga, I felt like I just didn't

have that much to lose compared to what they had to lose. And I felt like there was actually a lot of power in that. Interesting. So not being attached to the things that it's both very human to, but also most people are very attached to, sort of gives you a certain amount of freedom to do the harder braver thing. Yeah, I think so.

And actually it's kind of ironic because, growing up my grandfather, who was on the board of Theranos at this time, so growing up, I remember he would instill little pieces of wisdom on us on his grandchildren and one of the things that he would say is that you should never love your job too much. Otherwise, you'll do things you wouldn't normally do in order to keep it. So you should always be willing to walk away from your job and you should never

allow a job to kind of skew your moral compass. So you would always say you should never love your job too much, should always be able to walk away. And did you think about that as you were thinking about doing something that could cost you that job? I absolutely did. Yeah, I absolutely did, yeah. I absolutely did. And that's the ironic thing. I mean, the other thing that he would say

is that money ruins people. And I think by the end of his life, he became living proof of that. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday's parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting.

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you and I are at of a similar age. There is this sense in a lot of the people that we grew up, the people who instilled a certain set of values in us and who we looked up to as embodying a certain set of values, have struggled when tempted by protecting their retirement accounts or protecting their comfort or their status in society or any number of these things, you know, when push came to shove, they haven't fully lived up to those values. And I think there's a lot of anger and resentment, but also just kind of disillusionment as we as we look at that. Yeah. Yeah, I would agree with that. Just, I mean, I don't know what specific instant you're talking about,

but I can definitely think of a few in my mind where it's like the people who instilled that type of knowledge or lesson have not really lived it themselves. There's a quote I love from Nassim Taleb. He says, if you see fraud and you do not say fraud, you are a fraud. What does that mean to you? Honestly, I think that's a little harsh. Like I'd look at, you know, the people I was working with at Theranos were overwhelmingly, they were really good people. They're really good scientists and really good people

and almost none of them spoke up. And I wouldn't call them a fraud. In some ways, I would just call them smart. Like, they perhaps, yeah, rational. They're rational. To do what I did, it was absolutely irrational. And I do have a lot of people who end up reaching out to me and say, like, oh, I was in a very similar situation and I didn't speak up like you.

And I think about it all the time and I beat myself up about it. And to those people, I just say, like, you know, use it as a learning experience. Recognize what you did right, what you did wrong. But you at least you have the ability to recognize that something was wrong and figure out what you're going to do better next time. Don't be yourself up over it. Just, just grow and do better next time. And there, there will be a next time. No, I think, I do think the quote is harsh. What I like about it, where I feel like it connects to stoicism, is there's this idea in meditations or Marx's realises.

And remember, you can commit an injustice by doing nothing also, which is to say that we are complicit in the things that we don't say things about or that we turn a blind eye towards, right? And so it's not just enough, I guess, to see that something's wrong. If one doesn't say that something's wrong because they're worried about losing their job

or they worried it's gonna be a giant pain in the ass or they're being rational about it as we're talking about, that does mean that, not certainly to the level as the people perpetrating said fraud, but they are complicit in its continuation. Yeah, I yeah, I agree with that. And I would also say that it kind of depends on what power you have. Sure. And you know, most of the people I was working with every day had no power. And we had seen instances where people tried to speak up and they were fired on the spot. And in some cases, they were sued afterwards. And if that's the feedback loop, it's like,

I have no power here. I have a visa that dependant on me being at this company. What am I supposed to do? that are dependent on me being at this company, what am I supposed to do? But I agree more with what you're saying if you're like a vice president, if you're a board member, it's like you have power, you have control over employees or you have control over the CEO or over investors or if you have some kind of power, then I do think that probably more responsibility should be taken by those people. But isn't that how we rationalize it? We tell ourselves that we don't have power. Or I think the other thing we do is we tell ourselves that we're waiting for the right

moment. Or we're doing more research, right? We're keeping an eye on things. It's not that we're never gonna do it. We're never gonna speak up. Never do the hard right thing. It's that we're gonna do it later, right? Yeah.

Which is both true and not true, right? Like in my experiences at American Apparel where like if I had quit on the spot in that instance, I wouldn't have been there to participate in the, you know, sort of the ultimate resolution of that issue. And maybe somebody worse would have been there. Just like, I don't know, if Mike Pence had resigned at any point in the four years of the Trump administration, he wouldn't have been there on January 6th, right? Yeah. Yeah. And yet, yeah. And yet, part of the reason he was there on January 6th, or that, that we were all there on January 6th is because he didn't do anything about it earlier.

And nobody. Yeah. That is a super interesting take. Um, and I, I would say the same thing, kind of at their nose, but in the, uh but in the biochemistry world, we have this great phrase that I like to use all the time now. And it's pretty simple. It just goes, you get what you screen for. And in the biochemistry world, it usually means, you know, maybe you left your petri dish out in the sun or something. And you know, it wasn't, you weren't trying to do that, but you accidentally screened for something where now it only works if you leave it out in the sun or whatever. It has

what you do by accident has unintended consequences and at Theranos people quit, you know, instead of speaking up and getting fired, they would just say, this isn't the place for me anymore, I'm going to quit. Yeah. And they leave. And that's kind of what you're talking about with Mike Pence, how that decision to leave or to stay. He decided to stay. The. And they leave. And that's kind of what you're talking about with Mike Pence had that decision to leave or to stay. He decided to stay. The problem is that if everyone who sees these problems just leaves, now all of a sudden you kind of end up with this culture where you have a bunch of people who are willing

just to show up and do their jobs and not ask questions. Right. And then you introduce somebody new to that culture and it becomes very easy for them to slip into that exact same mindset. It makes people like me and like Erica feel like we're living in the twilight zone where we're like, does everybody else see the same thing that I'm seeing? And they all say, yeah, I see exactly what you're saying. And they just choose to to not say anything. And they're, you know, they just come in, they do their job and then they leave. So I do think that there is something to, you know, people staying

in these types of situations and maybe waiting for an opportunity to do the right thing. Yeah, it's attention. You're either you're either fooling yourself or you're doing something selfless. And it's very easy for you to be doing a selfish thing for you to be doing it for selfish reasons, but dress it up in the logic of the selfless reasons. Yeah. And that's yeah. And that's that's kind of how they get you. That's how they want it to be, right? Like they don't really care why you're staying or why you're quitting. They just care that you're not blowing it all up for them. Yeah. Yeah, that is a good point. So, so you ultimately decide to do what you do and I was struck by something you were

talking to your book, you're talking to your grandfather and he goes, they're trying to convince me that you're stupid and he says, I know that you're not stupid, but you could be wrong, which is like the definition of gaslighting, right? He's he's not straight up opposing you or rejecting you, but he is getting you to question reality itself, right? Which is another tactic that people do to preserve the status quo. What is it in you that allows you to be sure, right?

As you are being doubted or questioned, as there is every bit of economic reason to stop going down the path that you're going down, what is guiding you along this, to continue to do what you think is right? Yeah, so I'd say one thing that I did really well before I left Theranos was I tried super hard to prove myself wrong.

Like I wanted to believe that this was the greatest thing since sliced bread. I wanted to believe with a single drop of blood, we can do 300 results. And I wanted to believe that those results were accurate and I tried so, so hard to prove myself wrong. I worked directly with the technology. I talked to senior scientists, you know, again, I talked to the government, I talked to the CEO, I talked to a board member, I talked to a vice president, all trying, I was hoping I was wrong.

I genuinely wanted to be wrong so badly. And once I couldn't convince myself wrong, at that point, I always had a hundred percent confidence in myself. And no matter what amount of gaslighting that they tried to do, I always knew that I was right. So it's you, you attacked it. So, so as you, as your thinking was under siege and being questioned and undermined. You had kind of inoculated yourself against this because you did that first. Yes, exactly. Like I had tried to undermine my own like arguments first. Couldn't do it.

Couldn't prove myself wrong. So I basically, yeah, so I knew I was right. I knew there was absolutely nothing that they could do to prove me wrong. And as far as what motivated me to keep going despite, you know, despite, you know, financial and emotional tolls, I was just angry. And it wasn't like there was one time I made a decision, I'm, you know, I'm going to be a whistleblower and then it was over. And then it was really every single day, you have to remake the decision. And that's the hardest part is that there was always a way to give up. It's every single day you could give up.

And every single day, you had to remake the decision to not give up, to continue spending money, to continue destroying your relationships, to continue downward spiraling with your mental health, and to just be angry enough to say, I'm gonna do it. Because they're not trying to change your mind. They're trying to get you to tap out.

Which is a much lower threshold, right? They're not trying to break you as a person. They're just trying to break your will to continue to defy them. Yes, I think that is right. But I think they were trying to break me as a person in the process. But I mean, these are similar things,

but I guess what I'm saying is they're not trying to, it's not like you, you believe that the product was fraudulent or didn't, or, didn't work. And they were, they were pulling out all the stops to convince you that it did in fact work. They were just trying to make it painful enough to get you to shut the fuck up. Yes. That is exactly right. And they made it very painful. And I mean, I even remember, I mean, I remember

sitting down with my parents, and then, you know, basically saying, you know, the best case scenario here is if we go to court is we'll spend $2 million in win. And they said, we will sell our house to pay for your legal fees. But please do not do that, just tap out. And they couldn't understand it. They said, you know, this is not your problem. This is the problem. This is the FDA's problem. This is the SEC's problem. This is the Department of Justice's problem. This is not a Tyler Schultz problem. This

is, I don't like give up. Yeah. You've done more than enough. You don't have any responsibility for this anymore. Just give up. And I basically just said no. What do you think it was in you that wouldn't let go? What is that? It has to be more than just anger. It like what is the sort of North Star that's guiding you through all of that and then all of the potential offerings?

Yeah, I think it was a combination of a lot of things. So and it's actually kind of funny because on my last day in an email, Sunny called me arrogant, ignorant, patronizing, and reckless and looking back, I think he was almost right about all of those except patronizing. But I think being young and naive, I think helped in this situation. I didn't know exactly what I was getting into. And I just felt like, again, I had very little to lose. And I, you know, they were telling me that I would never get a job again. They'd say, once this Wall Street Journal article comes out, you're never going to work again. And I just thought, that's fine. You know, I love playing music.

I don't need to be a scientist. I can just go pick up my guitar and, you know, be a musician. I could do anything else. I didn't care. It's like, I don't care about my career that much. I, yeah, I don't know. I was reckless, I was angry, and I was right, and I was arrogant, and I knew I was right. And so I was just, there was no way that they were going to convince me to admit that I was wrong about something when I knew with 100% certainty that I was right.

What do you think it was for Elizabeth Holmes then, right? What do you think the North Star was for her? Is it greed? Is it accomplishment? Is it not wanting to back down? What is it for her? Because I'm interested in the contrast of the two sort of figures that inevitably are drawn into

Yeah, I think for her it was fame. I think She wanted to be Steve Jobs Mm-hmm And she was able to create a world where she was Steve Jobs. She did it. She was on the cover of magazines in her, in her black turtle neck. She was being called the next Steve Jobs

that was not an accident. I listened to Henry Kissinger read her a limbic that he wrote for her where he said, you're not the next Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was an earlier you. And it's kind of weird. Like, I think she genuinely just wanted to be famous. She wanted to be this beloved,

you know, Silicon Valley CEO like Steve Jobs. Interesting. Yeah, I guess it comes down to what we're trying to do. Is it this sort of, there's this dichotomy, I heard when I was younger that I really liked it sort of to be or to do. So you're trying to do things or you're trying to like be be the appearance of things, right?

Right? So, if you're like, I want to be like Steve Jobs, or is it that I want to do the kinds of things that Steve Jobs has done? Do you know what? The difference between sort of like appearance and reality, credit and work. And I think when you attach yourself to the wrong one of those things, it doesn't always go terribly. But if you find yourself at the crossroads that life eventually puts you in, it becomes extremely hard to make the right decision there. Yeah, and I would say that she tried more to emulate the appearances of Steve Jobs than she really cared

about creating a revolutionary product. I think creating the revolutionary product was secondary. That would have been great. She would love that as well, no doubt. But it didn't matter if she did or didn't. She just wanted to be on the cover of magazines in her black turtle neck and be called the next Steve Jobs and fly around on private jets and live in her mansion.

And just be the media darling. Yeah, it's funny. I was reading the Ken Aleta profile of Holmes from early before the sort of wheels came off. And she talks about her parents giving her a copy of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. Now this is a book that she reads over and over and over again, and how much it changed her life. And I remember, you know, people writing about this. And I remember thinking, oh, that's very cool. And then obviously when the wheels came off, I remember thinking, oh, it's not so cool anymore. But it is interesting that she sort of latched

on to the appearance of things as opposed to the substance of things. And absolutely. In that same article, I believe it's the same one or a very similar one. I think Kennellata goes to her apartment and he describes it as being, you know, I don't remember exactly what he said, but basically like your typical founder, the Oh mattress on the floor refrigerator with Evyan water bottles and a closet full of black turtle necks, one bedroom, one bath, very austere. I think he said she almost lives like a monk. That apartment was completely staged. Really? In reality, she lived in a mansion in Atherton

with sunny, and I think they recently sold that mansion for $15 million. Wow. So everything was for the appearance. Everything was a manipulation. It drives me crazy how good she is at it as well. What is that? It's like this sort of masterful ability to sense what people want to hear and see and believe. And she delivers it so perfectly. Like, it's, it's really insane. It's just insane. Like, another example that would come to mind is my grandfather had, I guess my grandmother died of pancreatic cancer and my grandfather had like early stage

pancreatic cancer. Luckily they caught it and he was fine. But I was listening to a podcast and they had a recorded interview of Elizabeth and my grandfather on stage And she was talking about how they were working with Johns Hopkins to identify pancreatic cancer before you had symptoms And I just thought that's not a coincidence that she picked pancreatic cancer. She could have picked anything because it wasn't real Sure She chose pancreatic cancer because she knew that my grandfather's wife had died of pancreatic cancer. So it's this sort of socio-pathic ability to sense the vulnerabilities in people, the signals that are important to people, and play them almost like an instrument because you're not tied to actually needing

to believe in them or be constrained by them in any way. It could be one thing to one person and the exact opposite to the next person. Yeah, yeah, exactly what you said. She could identify vulnerabilities and just completely take advantage of them. Is this what happens to the board members like your grandfather and those investors

is that although they were some of the smartest, most successful experienced people in the world, maybe it's ego, maybe it's complacency, maybe it's entitlement, maybe it's just their long track record, but she's able to identify what that is in each of them and play them, or were they willing participants in that fraud? Oh, man. I mean, that is a question I've, you know, I've kind of struggled with myself trying to,

you know, rationalize my own grandfather's involvement in this. And he was certainly manipulated. The investors, the board members, they were all certainly manipulated, but they also played their roles extremely well. Like my grandfather went above and beyond what Elizabeth possibly could have expected out of him. Sure, sure.

So I would say that he and the other board members were willing participants. What is that idea? And I don't mean to imply that they're not. But you can't call him an honest man, right? Like the idea is that they, a a con artist always finds something in you, some desperation, some desire, some bit of greed. And that's what they play. And then once it's been played, even if you wake up to it, you're trapped because you don't want

to accept it about yourself or you don't want to be seen as vulnerable in that way. And so this idea of victim perpetrator, it's kind of impossible to separate. It's a joint thing. Yeah. And I mean, I think for the Theranos board, I would say that those things were probably greed and also just attention.

Like they, I mean, the average age was like well over 80 and they were all men and they were clearly just vying for her attention. It was weird to see them interact in like private settings. How is like, I remember thinking like, is this how Elon musks board treats Elon? No way. No way. It is interesting. We have this sense that like the sort of the most powerful, most successful people in the world are geniuses invulnerable to the things that the rest of us humans are vulnerable to. But I remember I saw this at American probably even after all of the problems, after all

of the dysfunctions, you know, if you could get a billionaire in the room with them, whether it's Ron Berkall or George Soros or, you know, there's a, an endless parade of them. But in the room with them, his skill was that he could seduce and capture that person. He could convince them that everyone in the world was wrong, that they were the lone genius, that they could reform him, that they, whatever they needed to hear, he could convince them of. And that is, I think, a special skill that is unique. When we look at these massive frauds or these evil regimes, it could be government, it could

be political, it could be business. What that person's special ability is is to get up and close to other important powerful people and get them to turn off their moral compass, right, or get them to make an exception or to draw them into their world and then they have them. And the outside world has no idea that this is happening. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it is amazing. You see all these really smart people who have made incredible impacts in the world

in all kinds of ways when people like Jim Mattis and my grandfather and, you know, they're whole board. You could you could list all of them have made huge contributions to society. Our extremely smart. And I think a lot of them you would also say are extremely tough, you know, like these men negotiated with the Russians during the Cold War and have been to war and are forced are generals. And somehow their weaknesses can still be kind of exploited by this individual person. And that's what kind of, I don't know, that's what kind of just like it sounds me about this whole situation is.

this whole situation is. No, you realize that everybody's vulnerable, right? Everybody's vulnerable to greed and temptation. And then I also think there is, I think it's a positive thing, but I think there was a part of these people and certainly part of the media culture that really wanted a female CEO to be everything that Elizabeth Holmes was, right?

Like, oh, yeah. There's a useful thinking there, not that women aren't, but as we, as, as a society has a certain amount of collective guilt for a lack of representation or success of different groups, it is, there's a part of it that wants to overcompensate for its problems. You know what I mean? Definitely. She was the youngest self-made female billionaire for a little while. And she had a story.

We all wanted to believe. I wanted to believe it. You wanted to believe it. It's just such a good story. She drops out of Stanford when she's 19 years old again, very similar to like a Steve Jobs. Um, starts this multi-billion dollar company. She's a woman. Who doesn't want to believe that story?

Right. There's some sirens going by. Are you an SF? Yeah, I'm in the city. There you go. Yeah. Surprise that we lasted this long. I know.

And the interesting is is your parents back you in all of this, right? Like, even though it cost them, what do you think? First off, I think it's beautiful and inspiring. Clearly, they raised you right, but also in this moment where they were tested financially, but also morally, also are in conflict with their parents, right? They back you. Walk me through how you think they were able to do that, because I think there's some real lessons in there for parents.

Yeah, I mean, my hats off to my parents, for sure. I was not easy on them. My parents joke that I was their easiest kid until I was an adult. And then I became their toughest kid. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. You might have to talk to them.

And some way, we tell our kids to do the right thing, but that usually cost them, not us, right? And your parents told you to do the right thing, and then they had to pick up that tab. them, not us, right? And your parents told you to do the right thing. And then they had to pick up that tab. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I definitely made it tough on them. At pretty much every major decision point in my story, they told me to do the exact opposite

thing of what I did. So like when I quit, they just said, you know, tell Elizabeth you want to do a PhD and leave quietly. I obviously did not leave quietly. When the Wall Street Journal reporter reached out to me they said, you should definitely ignore him, you know, how scary they are, you know, powerful they are, they are going to try to destroy you. I ignored them. Then I went on, eventually I went, well then they want, you know, Theranos was trying to get me to give up and I would never give up and my parents begged me to basically just give them whatever they wanted and I didn't.

Then when I decided I wanted to go on the record, my parents actually talked me out of it the first time and then I went off and eventually just did it on my own, maybe a month or two later. So at every decision point, they told me to do the exact opposite thing of what I did. And it created a lot of tension, but to their credit, they always, after I had made the decision, they always supported me, they always, you know, they did whatever they could possibly do to try to make it

they could possibly do to try to make it turn out good for me or as best as it possibly it could. And then it's funny because after each decision eventually they would come back and say, you know what, you did the right thing. We're super proud of you for not listening to us. You know, we trust you. Isn't that the tension is you want your kids to do the right thing always But you also don't want anything to happen to your children and so there's this tension for them between The same tension that's in you which is you know, there's there's what's right and there's what's in your self interest and what's in your you know You're what's probably best for your well-being. And so their advice on you, you know, don't do it, it's not worth it. But they also taught you at some point in your life to do precisely that.

To do it. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, that's exactly right. And Yeah, that's exactly right. And then they were willing, but they were also willing, I think this is probably, this is what I think is extraordinary about it, is they were willing to back you when you did, when you made those hard, great decisions, which not. Yeah, they were always willing to back me and they were always willing to say, you know, what, you did the right thing, good job. Don't listen to us anymore until the next impasse would come. But I also think to your point, like, I think when you have kids,

I don't have kids, but I feel like when you're in that decision, like, do I do, you know, the quote unquote, right thing, or do I act in my own self interest? That decision is way harder when it's your kid, when it's your child, not you. It's like you always wanna work or do whatever is in the best interest of your child. More than you, more so than you would wanna do what's in your own best interest. So in some ways, I feel like my parents actually had it tougher than I did, especially since they felt

like they had no control over the situation, where at least I had control over the decisions I made. They had no control over me. They had no control over my grandfather. They were just, you know, painfully stuck in the middle. There's a beautiful F Scott Fitzgerald short story called The Four Fists. And there's this moment where this guy sent to California or somewhere to do this business deal. He's just started to succeed in his career as sensitive as business deal. Basically, it's like sort of tricking these farmers

out of their land for some rich New York City business man's project. And he sort of realizes that's what's happening. One of them realizes what that's what's happening. And he has this moment, do I screw these people over or do I do the right thing? And he goes, well, of course I would do the right thing, but then he stops and he goes,

but the right thing is gonna cost me my job, it's gonna cost my family, it's gonna cost, and he talks about how these moments of perfect integrity seem so obvious, but there's also, it's also a form of selfishness, right? And when I interviewed Alexander Vindman, I asked him a similar thing, which is like, you know, he decides to go to war with the most powerful man in the world,

but like his daughter's college savings are what's actually in jeopardy there. Do you know what I mean? And I think that that's the tension as we do, as we think about what's actually in jeopardy there. Do you know what I mean? And I think that that's the tension as we do as we think about what's right and you're I think it's what your parents were struggling with, which is doing the right thing doesn't feel so clear when innocent people suffer the consequences of that. And I think that's probably what they were they were struggling with with you. that's probably what they were struggling with with you. Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

Yeah. And I think they had felt like I had done enough as well. Like I wasn't really adding more value. You're not obligated to see this all the way through at the cost of everything to yourself personally. Right. And in some ways, you know, they have a point. Like, if I had tapped out at that point, I don't know, probably not much would have changed. Well, the story might have ended the same way, but it would be easier for you. Yeah. So why did you continue that?

Well, I think I'm just now kind of realizing that, but I think I just, I don't know again, I was just, you know, angry, stubborn. I knew I was right, and I always felt like, you know, if we actually went to court, then I would say if this works in a Medevac helicopter, then it should work in a courtroom. Just come in, prick the judges finger, let's watch the thing run, if we get 300 accurate results

in less than four hours. Sure, I'll just say I was wrong. But I knew there was no way that was ever going to happen. Right. Right. Yeah, that's the gamble, as I guess it could blow up in your face, but why would they be fighting this hard if they were right? Yeah, if they were right, they could have just proven me wrong. Instead of bullying me into silence or whatever, they could have just proved me wrong. If they had the ability to prove me wrong, it would have been a lot easier just to do that. Right. Yeah. So in a sense, like, I do think that's an important lesson.

Like all the pushback that you get, all the people who try to discourage you, you know, all of that is in some regards, evidence that you actually are on the right path, right? Because that's not what someone in the, with the moral high ground would actually do. Yeah. Like it's coming from a place of weakness, not of strength, but it feels like strength. Yeah. Like if you're a $9 billion company and you're genuinely afraid that

a single 23 or 24 year old kid can destroy the whole thing by just speaking. Yeah. Then you're not in a position of power. You are in a position of weakness. Or just like if you're the kind of person who feels like you need to destroy this 23 year old, even if they are wrong, it says something about what's going on inside the company also, right? So like even if it's morally, or sorry, even if there's a lot of gray, like you're not totally right, not totally wrong, but also the vindictiveness and the mercilessness and all of the things that followed are like, like that was something I ultimately ended up telling, Doug, we obviously fell out and I said,

you know, look, I happen to think that you're wrong. I happen to think that what you did was not okay and that you deserved to be fired for it and that's why I don't feel bad about what happened. But your behavior after you got fired proved me right a thousand times over, right? Like if I had any doubt, what you then did when you were under siege or desperate or, you know, felt threatens, you know, that was to me all the confirmation that I needed that however gray the situation

that I think is pretty black and white was, you have demonstrated to me that you were not the person that I thought you were when I was under your sway. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Yeah, and definitely the same holds true at Theranos, even if they had the greatest technology in the world, the way that they treated Erica and I was just atrocious. And even if they were right, they should not have gone about it in this way. Right. It's not what a person who actually was trying to do all those things would do. Yeah, definitely not.

Yeah, someone who's trying to know how a billionaire would treat a person. It's not how a truly wealthy, secure person would act either. It's what a cornered animal would do. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, they're just a cornered animal with a lot of money. So, so just a couple more questions. It's interesting to see how your parents acted towards you. And then there is this, that's sort of like what you hope a parent would do if their kid was ever, you know, them against the world. But then your grandfather having that is your father, right? He was or is your mother? No, I see. I'm

a dad's dad. So, so now your grandfather has that exact same dynamic with your father and thus with you and makes makes the wrong call. What do you think is there for him that people can learn from? Because I, you know what I mean? Like you would think that, hey, if my grandson ever identified fraud in a company that I had a large stake in, you, I think we'd like to think,

well of course I would back my grandson to the Hill, no money, you know, especially at that point in my life or career, nothing would get between me and family to go to the title of your book, like, blood is, blood should be thicker than water, right? And, and he, in this moment of truth, he makes the wrong call. Yeah, I mean, I'm still trying to understand that decision. It doesn't make sense. Like a lot of it seems like it was driven by greed.

So I mean, one thing that I've learned is that greed is an absolute sickness. And I think, you know, he was like 96 years old. And you know, he lived another four years. and I think he wanted to die a billionaire. But why? Yeah, you don't get it. They don't throw you a parade. You can't take the money with you when you die. Yeah, it was just something I just didn't understand.

It was like, and I didn't know how much money he had invested at the time. And I still don't know the exact amount, but his shares at the peak were worth like an astronomical amount of money, not a billion dollars, but like hundred, like maybe like, this is probably wrong, but I think it was possibly like $200 million. And that's a lot of money. Yes. But I hope that when I'm 96 years old and I can choose between my grandson or $200 million. And that's a lot of money. Yes. But I hope that when I'm 96 years old and I can choose between my grandson or $200 million, like, who cares about the money? You're going to live another year or two. Who cares? You think you can choose family in that moment. Yeah, I would certainly

certainly hope so. And, you know, I actually went to his house and I basically asked him these exact questions. While he was still in the board of fairness and I was deciding whether or not I wanted to go on the record, I thought, I'm going to give him one last opportunity. And I went to his house and I just said, I just want an explanation at this point because the board had just released a statement saying, you know, the board gives Elizabeth our 100% support. And I went over to his house and I just said, you can be the board member who says that statement does not speak to me. You can be the board member that says we need to hold her accountable. It's not too late to do the right thing. And I said, the only reasons I can see for you continuing to

defend her are that one, you're just really greedy and you can't bear to see that money disappear. Two, you're in love with her and so you will actually choose Elizabeth over your actual family. Or three, you're just too old and you don't really understand what's happening around you. And if you're not understanding this situation right now, please tell someone in our family and we will find a way to get you out. So I give them three bad options,

but those are the only three that I could think of. And, you know, unsurprisingly, he didn't choose A, B, or C. He basically option D was you're wrong. And to Elizabeth is going to unveil this amazing technology in two weeks and, you know, prove the world wrong. So I don't know what I still don't understand. I mean, it's a scene out of a Shakespeare play, right? And it's tragic and cautionary.

And yet I would like to think none of us could do that, but I suspect it's, we all share something with your grandfather and could find ourselves in that position. That's the tragic, that's what Shakespeare was trying to say, I feel like. Yeah. And in some ways, it's almost hard to pull a lesson from because lessons like, don't be greedy and don't get old. Don't fall in love. It's like, how are these, these lessons aren't like, how do you really apply those? Yeah. yeah. I mean, I guess that's why we try to have principles or rules that, you know, a different play

but we're thinking about Odysseus. This is why you put the wax in your ears when you approach the sirens, so you're not tempted. This is why we try to steer clear of entanglements or tricky situations like that all together. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that would be a great, a great way out of it. The problem is that you don't know the sirens are coming. No. It's like, that's a real tricky part is that the siren before you know it's a siren is the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. Now a friend of mine was sort of had this falling out with his parents and you know he's basically saying to them look like here's my here's what I care about this is what matters like

either agree with this or we can't have a relationship anymore and his you know parents chose some weird political thing over that. And he said, what I took from this is I wrote myself a note that I said, when my son is my age, you know, whatever he asks me to continue having to a relationship with that person, like just fucking say yes. Yeah.

Like that basically that nothing should gum between you and the people that you care about. And so maybe there's some way that sort of preemptive rules or learning from these things can prevent us from, you know, getting sucked into these moral quagmires. But I imagine that once you're in them, it's very, very difficult to get out. Because yeah, you're choosing between

lighting $200 million on fire and your grandson, but you're also choosing between emitting an unthinkable thing about yourself, which I think is probably the hardest thing to do that you were wrong, that you were suckered, that you're not the person that you thought you were all of that Is what I think prevents people from doing what you did Yeah, yeah, I think there's a lot to that is that it would take that acknowledgement that I was wrong and you know

I was wrong and I'm sorry. we're not in my grandfather's vocabulary. Not even close. I mean, you look at some of the major foreign policy decisions of the people on that board and it's a similar moral quandary, right? Like, you know, once you get sucked into it, it's hard to say, wow, all of that was for nothing. I was wrong for the following reasons.

And therefore, this blood is on my hands, right? That's the hardest thing for a human being to possibly do. In fact, he said, almost the exact, like the exact opposite. He said, you know, I'm over 90 years old, I've fought in a world war. I've negotiated the end of the Cold War. I've seen a lot of things in my lifetime and I know what I'm looking at and I know I'm right about this. And it's like, I don't know how to argue with that.

Like, no, you're not making arguments based on the situation. You're making arguments based on your own history of being right about a bunch of stuff. No, ego is a hell of a drug, right? It's a cloud between you and reality. You get really used to being right about stuff and it's hard to admit just how badly you got something wrong.

Yeah, definitely. So the one lesson I've taken from this is that I'm always right. I tell my wife that all the time. Well, you can, you can see though, right? Like, so you were in a situation where everyone thought you were wrong and challenged you and threatened you and charged you money, you know, uh, to, to, to, to contradict that. And you stuck to your guns, right?

And so what can come out of the other side of that is probably the exact force that you went up against with your grandfather and Elizabeth and all of those people, right? Which is, and actually I saw this in America about, you know, he had a crazy idea that entrepreneurs do this all the time, you have a crazy idea, it doesn't make any about, you know, he had a crazy idea that every entrepreneur is doing this all the time. You have a crazy idea.

It doesn't make any sense. It can't possibly work. And then it does work or people celebrate you for it. Well, you internalize that. And then the next time that people tell you that you're wrong, that you shouldn't do what you're about to do or what. Why would you listen to them? You have billions of dollars of proof otherwise

or 40 years of experience otherwise or whatever it is. Yeah, yeah. That's, I hope that's not an unintended consequence of this, but I don't think it will be. I'm pretty, I mean, I'm, again, I like to prove myself wrong about something before other people have the opportunity.

So I'm hoping to get ahead of that and keep that with me. But the antidote to ego is exactly that sort of intellectual humility that we're talking about, right? You're not saying it's right because I think it's right. You're saying, I have a hypothesis and I'm going to relentlessly and ruthlessly test

that hypothesis, let the outcome be the outcome, which is different. This is why I think there should be more scientists running companies because I think scientists really kind of embody what you just said. But the best ones, yeah, the best ones do And I think that is a good trait to take into, you know, running companies, but really we see people similar to the example that you gave where, you know, the crazy idea and it worked out. And now they think the next crazy idea is going to work too.

When in COVID, you know, the scientific leaders did pretty well. And the emotional and charismatic leaders did pretty fucking terrible. Yes, I think we should draw on that lesson. I think so. I think so. But can you keep and you stick to the system that got you there as opposed to what ego does, which is take credit for why you're there. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.

Signed is probably vulnerable to that as well, but I think we all are. Everyone is. This happens right when a domain, well, I say, for instance, this happens with Contrarians, right? Contrarians are right about something big that everyone said they were wrong about. And then they also, like all the intellectual dark web people are now believers in almost complete nonsense, right? Like they started with some interesting heterodox views and now they're anti-vaxxers and, you know, like anti-tra, you know, they have all these like sort of abhorrent, weird views about stuff

because maybe it turns out that their heterodox views were based in the kind of scientific method that you were talking about, but actually a place of sort of instinctive emotional rejection of, you know, something they didn't want to be true, and they were right, but that's a clock that's wrong more often than it's right. Yeah.

It can become, yeah, can become a dangerous situation, for sure. Yeah. Well, dude, I become a dangerous situation for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, dude, I'm so fascinated by your story. And I think it's really interesting. And I'm glad to hear that you are as clear of it as one can be, although I have to imagine you're going to be getting interview requests about it for the rest of your life. We'll see.

I don't know. I think that with Elizabeth sentencing that, you know, hopefully this is all kind of coming to an end finally. So as I came out of it, they did all these documentaries and podcasts and things about American Apparel after and at certain point I decided I had to tell myself like, this isn't like a part-time job that I'm obligated to have for the rest of my life where I have to say yes to every one of these things. Do you know what I mean? Definitely. Yeah. It's been really hard to say no to people. For sure, like saying no has become a really challenging thing that I have to work with because so many people who want to talk with me are just like really passionate, especially when I'm

getting invites to go speak to classrooms at universities or wherever. It's so hard to say no to that enthusiastic professor who says you're going to make a huge impact in these students' lives. How can you say no to that? But at the same time, if you say yes to all of them, it's a full-time job. Yeah. So, yeah, it's a challenge. Well, I appreciate you saying yes to me and I hope we can stay in touch. Absolutely. Yeah, this is a fun conversation.

Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it, and this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to the Daily Stoic Early and Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.