![]() They do sound more likely to be someone who’s in a position of power.” This belief, of course, is rooted in sexism, and the idea that men (and especially hyper-masculine men) are more fit to lead than women, and certainly not feminine ones. O’Connor says the research backs the effort behind Holmes’s baritone, too: “Some of the research we’ve worked on shows that when men and women deliberately lower their voices, it’s actually successful,” she says. Given the many millions of dollars invested in Holmes’ non-functioning blood box, her effort was … worth it, at least for a time. “This whole situation, the image manipulation, dressing like Steve Jobs, trying to sound a particular way - it sounds like an awful lot went into facade,” she says. Namely: she thought it would achieve the desired effect of making her seem like a Silicon Valley visionary, says O’Connor. In other words: Holmes (and my co-worker, supposedly) had her reasons, even if they don’t make sense to the rest of us. Perhaps the most important thing to remember, O’Connor tells me, is that people generally do the things they do because they believe the benefits greatly outweigh the costs. So in order to better understand people like them (voice-fakers), I talked to Jillian O’Connor, an assistant professor of psychology at Concordia University who studies voices’ influence on others’ perceptions. ![]() I still wonder about that co-worker, and I expect I will for the rest of my life. Nobody knew what to do, except gossip profusely. Personally, the episode has brought me back to an equally thrilling (if smaller) faked-voice scandal, in which a former co-worker of mine, after speaking in a straightforward East Coast accent for more than a year, suddenly developed an accent she labeled British, but which sounded more Australian. ![]() Plus, now she’ll have to do this voice for the rest of her life (?), and it’s all I can think about. The internet’s reaction to the podcast, and to Bad Blood, John Carreyrou’s book about Theranos, suggests I’m not alone. Holmes is obviously guilty of many more serious crimes, but faking one’s voice is just weird, and embarrassing, in much the same way that bad toupees are: they place one’s bodily insecurities center stage. This, of course, only makes me more interested. If you hunt around online, you can sometimes find YouTube videos in which Holmes can be heard using that real voice before catching herself and deepening it, but these videos have a tendency to be taken down after a day or two. She pauses, and then, in the same deep mumble, recites: “Do or do not, there is no try.” ![]() The cameraman then asks her to do Yoda’s voice, and for a moment, I held my breath. There is a moment in which the camera person filming Holmes for an earlier interview segment asks her what her favorite Star Wars sound is (?), and she says Yoda. In the new Theranos HBO documentary, “The Inventor,” Holmes’ baritone is on full, strange display. (Holmes’s family recently denied these claims to TMZ, insisting her voice is naturally low, just like her grandmother’s.) Former co-workers of Holmes told The Dropout, a new podcast about Theranos’s downfall, that Holmes occasionally “fell out of character” and exposed her real, higher voice - particularly after drinking. Holmes, the ousted Theranos founder who was indicted last year on federal fraud charges for hawking an essentially imaginary product to multi-millionaire investors, pharmacies, and hospitals, speaks in a deep baritone that, as it turns out, is allegedly fake. There are many fascinating, upsetting details in the story of Elizabeth Holmes, but my favorite is her voice. ![]()
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