WHCC TV 2019 Interview with Tyler Shultz, Theranos Whistleblower and Entrepreneur — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:01[Music]
2. 0:08and welcome back I'm Mabel John you're
3. 0:12watching WH CCTV coming to you live from
4. 0:14Washington DC thanks so much for joining
5. 0:17us in our studio we're gonna have a very
6. 0:20special conversation with Tyler Schultz
7. 0:22you may know him as the whistleblower
8. 0:24behind the theros takedown but he's
9. 0:28going to tell you he's much more thank
10. 0:29you so much for joining us thank you is
11. 0:31it weird to always have people refer to
12. 0:34you as Tyler Schultz the whistleblower
13. 0:36yeah it's a little bit weird but I've
14. 0:38pretty much gotten used to it by this
15. 0:40point right and you started your career
16. 0:42as an intern at the company yeah in 2011
17. 0:482011 okay and then how quickly after you
18. 0:52started working there full time that you
19. 0:56started to suspect that something was
20. 0:58awry with the medical device I started
21. 1:00working full-time about four days about
22. 1:04four days four days yes okay and what
23. 1:06happened so that was the first time that
24. 1:08I saw the open readers is what we called
25. 1:11it so they had a device that didn't have
26. 1:13any of the the shell on it so you could
27. 1:14actually see what was happening inside
28. 1:16and the first time that I saw that was
29. 1:18actually the first time that my manager
30. 1:20from a research lab was seeing it and I
31. 1:22remember she looked at the woman who is
32. 1:23giving us the demo and just went do you
33. 1:25think this is very cool and the woman
34. 1:28who gave us the demo just kind of went
35. 1:29I'll let you decide for yourself and
36. 1:31kind of walked away so pretty much right
37. 1:33off the bat I realized that there was
38. 1:34this inside joke in the scientific
39. 1:36community that the technology really
40. 1:37wasn't there okay let's recap a little
41. 1:39bit what was Thoreau knows trying to do
42. 1:42yeah so thoroughness was trying to do
43. 1:43anything you could do in a central
44. 1:45laboratory a Walgreens or maybe even in
45. 1:48a medevac helicopter or on a battlefield
46. 1:50or something like that operating room
47. 1:51okay with just a prick yes with just a
48. 1:55single drop of blood so one drop of
49. 1:57blood they said in the in the time you
50. 2:00would get actionable information in the
51. 2:01time that you need it so you would
52. 2:03quickly be able to get you know any
53. 2:05blood tests done and a point-of-care
54. 2:07sensor in like a Walgreens while you're
55. 2:09shopping or while you're on the
56. 2:11operating table or
57. 2:12wounded in a battlefield so pretty much
58. 2:14anywhere where you could use this
59. 2:15information you could get it okay so
60. 2:18four days in you see something weird and
61. 2:20you decide that this is a what everyone
62. 2:23was saying it was and that it was a
63. 2:26fraud at that time it took me I mean I
64. 2:30was so hopeful for a very long time I
65. 2:31continued working at the company for
66. 2:33about eight months but it was it was a
67. 2:36bunch of things that compounded so it
68. 2:39was it was seeing the technology not
69. 2:40really working it was seeing that we
70. 2:43were giving patients bad results it was
71. 2:46you know it looked like we were hiding
72. 2:49our technology from regulators and
73. 2:52trying to kind of skirt around some
74. 2:53regulations looked like we were maybe
75. 2:55fudging some data so it was a lot of
76. 2:59things that kind of compounded so what
77. 3:02did you do after that you decided that
78. 3:06some things weren't what they yeah well
79. 3:09first I I just I I mean I didn't see
80. 3:11myself as a whistleblower I was just
81. 3:12asking questions and I just asked a
82. 3:14couple of questions to the New York
83. 3:16State Department of Health and what they
84. 3:18said was that this is a form of cheating
85. 3:20the regulator's essentially and they
86. 3:22asked for the name of the company so
87. 3:23that they could work with them to
88. 3:24improve their practices but after I did
89. 3:27that I also brought my concerns to
90. 3:28Elizabeth Holmes who was the CEO and
91. 3:30then to a vice president and my concerns
92. 3:33really weren't being addressed so I
93. 3:35ended up quitting okay and did she
94. 3:38item I assume she didn't take that too
95. 3:41well when you started questioning her no
96. 3:46they were pretty they were pushing me
97. 3:48out the door for sure okay yeah the
98. 3:50president of the company sent me an
99. 3:52email essentially saying that I was
100. 3:53arrogant ignorant patronizing reckless
101. 3:55with no basic understanding of math
102. 3:57science or statistics fight any other
103. 3:59last name I would have already been held
104. 4:01accountable to the strongest extent that
105. 4:03kind of thing
106. 4:03well thanks for bringing that up because
107. 4:05your last name is Schultz you're the
108. 4:06grandson of George Schultz who amongst
109. 4:09other things Secretary of State and
110. 4:12and so forth but was also on the board
111. 4:14of the company yep yeah makes things
112. 4:16complicated it sure does
113. 4:17now if you have to do it over again I'm
114. 4:20assuming that you would still whistle
115. 4:25blow but maybe do other things too yeah
116. 4:28I probably you know looking back I don't
117. 4:30have any regrets which is you know I'm
118. 4:33very happy that I don't have any regrets
119. 4:35but I would definitely do a lot of
120. 4:37things differently like what like I
121. 4:39probably would have gone directly to the
122. 4:42SEC with some of my concerns and
123. 4:45eventually I ended up going to the Wall
124. 4:46Street Journal with a lot of my concerns
125. 4:48because the reporter reached out to me
126. 4:49and was asking questions and I just
127. 4:50thought yeah I'll help this guy ask the
128. 4:52right questions but why the SEC well the
129. 4:57SEC has a lot of protections for
130. 4:59whistleblowers so essentially anything
131. 5:01you tell the SEC you know fairness
132. 5:04wouldn't be able to sue me for things
133. 5:06that I was just giving to the government
134. 5:08so you're essentially protected
135. 5:11essentially protected but at the time I
136. 5:13really didn't see myself as a
137. 5:15whistleblower I didn't even think to
138. 5:17Google what should a whistleblower do
139. 5:19just responding to the situation and
140. 5:22doing the best I could with the
141. 5:24information I had and the resources that
142. 5:26I knew were available to me and now I
143. 5:29obviously know a whole lot more about
144. 5:30the whistleblowing process and I would
145. 5:32have done it in a different way but the
146. 5:33laws that protect you but you also were
147. 5:37slapped with with a lawsuit right well
148. 5:41we never actually went to court but
149. 5:43there were lots of threats to go to
150. 5:44court so there were times when I had a
151. 5:46notice to appear in court that the
152. 5:47following morning that was called off
153. 5:49like 11:00 p.m. so oh we're talking like
154. 5:52nine hours before I'm supposed to appear
155. 5:54in court
156. 5:54it's called off but I'm the yeah but we
157. 5:57never went to court did you ever have to
158. 5:59pay lawyers or were you slapped with
159. 6:01with attorneys fees had huge attorneys
160. 6:05fees about a four hundred thousand
161. 6:06dollars okay maybe even more and would
162. 6:09that have been different if you had gone
163. 6:12to the SEC first that's a good question
164. 6:15probably
165. 6:17I mean really I was I was paying my
166. 6:19lawyers to keep me out of the courtroom
167. 6:21which they did so they did a really good
168. 6:23job but that would have been a lot
169. 6:24easier if I had gone to the SEC with all
170. 6:27my information right off the bat what is
171. 6:31your guidance or advice if you will to
172. 6:33other people who might suspect that it
173. 6:37isn't all what it seems to be at
174. 6:40companies that they work at yeah I would
175. 6:42say trust your gut that's one thing that
176. 6:45I had a lot of faith in was I just knew
177. 6:47I was a hundred percent right and part
178. 6:49of that was because I had spent a lot of
179. 6:50time trying to convince myself that I
180. 6:52was wrong
181. 6:53so I talked to senior scientists you
182. 6:55know I ran experiments I read laws
183. 6:57I read amendments I talked to the CEO I
184. 7:01talked to the vice president I talked to
185. 7:03you a board member none of them could
186. 7:05convince me that what I was seeing
187. 7:07but that none of them could convince me
188. 7:08that I wasn't seeing what I was seeing
189. 7:11so go through the steps to try to prove
190. 7:15yourself wrong and then once you've done
191. 7:16that then just be confident in yourself
192. 7:18and you're also involved talking to your
193. 7:21grandfather yeah and what was his
194. 7:23reaction he essentially didn't really
195. 7:26believe me he believed Elizabeth far
196. 7:29more than me right they have you been
197. 7:31watching the proceedings and what's been
198. 7:33going on with Elizabeth Hall and since a
199. 7:35little bit company went down yeah a
200. 7:38little bit not super closely but and do
201. 7:41you agree with with what she's trying to
202. 7:45do now she's trying to start another
203. 7:46company and she's trying to yeah first
204. 7:49she's trying to start another company I
205. 7:50would be surprised if that happens but
206. 7:53yeah who knows yeah and you've started a
207. 7:56company yeah yeah talk about that yeah
208. 7:59so after I left there no sigh joined a
209. 8:00lab at Stanford where we had essentially
210. 8:02repurposed computer hard drive
211. 8:04technology to do molecular diagnostics
212. 8:06so I worked in that lab for about three
213. 8:08years and then spun a company out with
214. 8:10my professor working on point-of-care
215. 8:12medical diagnostics okay what does that
216. 8:13mean so initially we are measuring
217. 8:16hormones for fertility purposes so
218. 8:19helping women get pregnant faster
219. 8:21whether that's at home
220. 8:22or in like a fertility IVF a fertility
221. 8:26clinic or IVF type setting okay and what
222. 8:29did you learn from your experience at
223. 8:31the other company that will help you do
224. 8:33what you want to do in the future I
225. 8:35learned way too much sometimes I wish I
226. 8:39could just give it back but probably the
227. 8:42biggest thing is trust the people you
228. 8:44hire so that's one thing I thought their
229. 8:46nose did really well was hiring but it
230. 8:48seemed like they didn't the management
231. 8:50didn't listen to the brilliant
232. 8:51scientists that they actually hired so
233. 8:53if you have a good hiring process and
234. 8:54you trust the people you hire then you
235. 8:55should listen to them alright Todd
236. 8:58Schultz thank you so much for your time
237. 9:00it actually was 2012 that I interned
238. 9:02there oh thanks for sharing that with us
239. 9:06thanks so much and I'm Mabel John thanks
240. 9:08for joining us
241. 9:13you
242. 9:14[Music]