Fortune Global Forum 2015 on Flickr — https://flic.kr/p/zFR4QH
Fake it till you make it… to jail (Sorry, I had to.)
*In 2007*Me: “Have you heard of Elizabeth Holmes?”
Person: “Of course, she’s an inspiration! They call her the next Steve Jobs. I just saw her on the cover of Forbes.”
- In 2023*
Me: “Have you heard of Elizabeth Holmes?”
Person: “Yup, didn’t she scam the world of millions and go to jail? I just saw her trial on CNN.”
It’s ironic how a few years could transform a person’s image from “an inspiration” to “a criminal.”
But that’s the job of the media. Do you know who doesn’t care about any image whatsoever? A pitch deck.
A pitch deck tells a story at a particular time. Whether that turns out to be a false lying story or not doesn’t matter to the deck.
I think I’m growing some sort of weird love for pitch decks. But I’m sure other people love things that are weirder.
So I took my time to look at the pitch deck, the story Holmes was telling during her time at Theranos. Then I briefly analyzed it. So here it is!
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The Theranos Seed Funding Pitch Deck (Analysis)
It’s not as long as the pitch deck of WeWork, for example (49 slides.) But it’s not as short as the Airbnb pitch deck (10 slides.) Additionally, I’ll skip through analyzing some slides that I believe are mostly repetitive.
Before we begin, take a deep breath. Imagine yourself in the year 2006, when the iPod Nano was just released, and Holmes was treated as the next Steve Jobs.
That’s how you’ll be able to get the full pitch deck experience (I’m telling you, my pitch deck relationships are getting out of hand.)