Tyler Shultz: Theranos Whistleblower on Fraud and Startup Governance in Silicon Valley

Boardroom Governance with Evan Epstein

(0:00) Intro

(1:06) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel.

(1:53) Start of interview.

(2:37) Tyler's "origin story."

(4:50) His beginnings at Theranos.

(7:07) On the culture of the Theranos, "the company was extremely secretive and paranoid."

(9:41) On the lack of equity compensation for Theranos employees.

(10:32) On Theranos' board of directors.

(16:50) Some of the prominent investors in Theranos, and lack of due diligence.

(19:24) On Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani fraud convictions, FOMO, and value of credibility from early backers (e.g. Channing Robertson, Don Lucas, George Shultz, etc).

(23:57) How Tyler became a whisteblower at Theranos. His contact with John Carreyrou, at the time a WSJ reporter.

(26:57) On his legal challenges (and high fees) as a whistleblower. George Shultz (his grandfather) would tell him: "I'm 90 years old. I ended the Cold War. I fought in a world war. I've seen a lot of things in my life. I've seldom been wrong. And I know what I'm looking at. And I know I'm right about this."

(30:24) On the SEC's whisteblower program and his personal experience with this process. *Reference to E130 with Mary Inman (his Whistleblower attorney).

(34:58) On the NDA and confidentiality agreements, "fraud is not a trade secret."

(37:56) Why Elizabeth Holmes wanted Theranos to remain private and never go public.

(39:04) Stanford's problematic connection to frauds. See: "What's the Matter with Stanford?"

(42:14) The role of executive and board compensation in startups.

(46:20) Book that he recommends reading: Salt in My Soul by Mallory Smith (2019).

(48:00) His mentors: George Shultz (his grandfather) and J. Leighton Read.

(50:01) Quotes that he thinks of often or lives his life by: "You Get What You Screen For"

(51:17) An unusual habit or absurd thing that he loves.

(52:53) The living person that he most admires: Dr Anthony Fauci.

"I often think back to a famous quote about character, which is, character is what you do when nobody's watching. And I actually think that the opposite is true. I think character is what you do when everyone's watching. And I experienced that."

(53:57) His current endeavors.

Tyler Shultz is a former Theranos employee who became a key whistleblower, exposing the company's fraudulent practices. As the grandson of former Secretary of State George Shultz, who was on Theranos' board, Tyler's decision to speak out carried significant personal and professional risks.

You can find out more about Tyler at his website: https://www.tyler-shultz.com/

You can follow Evan on social media at:

X: @evanepstein

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/

Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/

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Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License