Holmes’ mother, Noel Holmes
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Noel Holmes, who was previously a staffer on Capitol Hill, recalled the fateful moment when her daughter called to say she wanted to drop out of Stanford to focus on Theranos full-time.
“I got off the phone to think about it; as our children’s education was of the utmost importance to both Chris and me,” she wrote. “I thought about what we want for our children: that they would be passionate about their work and that they would do something of worth that would be good, and that they could hopefully adequately provide for themselves. So we called Elizabeth back and told her we were completely behind her decision.”
Noel Holmes also wrote about the first time she and her husband met Balwani, which she says was at a restaurant in 2004.
“On meeting us, he immediately called us ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad,’ which we found very strange,” she said. “Many things about him troubled us or made us uncomfortable, not the least of which was the fact that he told us he was in his 20s when he was obviously decades older than our 20-year-old child.”
Holmes’ parents found Balwani to be “a very cold person” and were “concerned” about Holmes in that relationship.
“We noticed that our daughter with whom we had always had a very close relationship and who had always been so open with us quickly became a stranger; our conversations no more open or interesting than those you would have with a neighbor you hardly cared about,” Noel Holmes wrote.
She went on to say she feels like she is “living in a nightmare” amid her daughter’s trial.
“What has happened to our daughter and to our family is unimaginable to me; what Elizabeth faces going forward is devastating for us as her parents,” Noel Holmes said. “What a price she has paid for the failure of her dreams, her own missteps, and the mistakes of experts she brought in and relied on. Elizabeth has suffered enormously and lost everything: all her work, her company, her money that she put into starting and building the company, the stock she bought. She will forever be associated with this failure, though it happened when she was still so young.”
Noel Holmes wrapped up by expressing hope that something good could come of her daughter’s now-defunct company.
“Theranos’ trade secrets and patents are out there in the world, and someone will finish doing it and make Elizabeth’s vision come true,” she wrote. “And so her ultimate dream to do something good in the world will hopefully come to pass.”
