The Dropout: What Happened To The Theranos Whistleblower, Tyler Shultz
Warning: minor spoilers for The Dropout.
After the massive Theranos scandal, which is depicted in The Dropout, prominent whistleblower Tyler Shultz moved on to greater things by starting his own biomedical company and advocating for more ethical startup business practices. Shultz, portrayed by 13 Reasons Why's Dylan Minnette, worked at Theranos, the biotech blood-testing company founded by Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holmes, for only eight months before quitting over the company's questionable ethical practices. His grandfather was the former public official George Shultz, who was in the cabinets of the Nixon and Reagan administrations and was part of Theranos' board of directors. George Shultz greatly respected Elizabeth Holmes' mission, and Tyler's outspokenness against the company caused tensions between him and his grandfather. The two luckily reconciled before George Shultz's death in February 2021.
Inspired by her idol Steve Jobs, Elizabeth Holmes embraced the Silicon Valley culture to build Theranos' prominence, and she focused on promoting the company's brand to high-profile investors. Because these attempts led to fraudulent practices in the company, from ever-faulty machinery to undisclosed operations, Theranos grew into a scandal so publicized that the story has since been told through multiple formats. Hulu's The Dropout is the first television series about the Theranos scandal, which is based on the ABC podcast of the same name.
While the Theranos scandal came to light thanks to multiple media sources, it is greatly due to one of the scandal's primary whistleblowers Tyler Shultz that Elizabeth Holmes' actions were subjected to severe scrutiny. It is through Shultz's actions that the Theranos story became so widespread that depictions like The Dropout and its star-studded cast of characters are becoming more common. However, the biggest accomplishment for whistleblowers like Shultz is Theranos' eventual dissolution and the criminal charges set on Holmes and other acting participants. Holmes' trial for the scandal ended in January 2022, when she was found guilty on four out of 11 counts and now faces up to 20 years in prison. The trial for her former partner Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani got underway in March 2022. In the meantime, here's what happened to Tyler Shultz after his time with Theranos.
While The Dropout stays relatively true to the real Tyler Shultz, his story is still subject to slight changes for the sake of narrative flow, as is the case for the rest of The Dropout regarding its real story elements. Basic elements about his story remain in The Dropout. Shultz was a biology major at Stanford who was enticed by Theranos' mission. When Holmes visited his grandfather, Shultz asked her about offering him a job opportunity, which she accepted. Almost immediately after graduating, Shultz started interning at Theranos and soon after became a full-time employee. After noticing that standard Theranos practices included removing outliers from data and running blood samples in a secretive lab, Shultz communicated the issues to Holmes and, after receiving scrutiny from his superiors, quit the position. At the end of The Dropout episode 6, "Iron Sisters," John Carreyrou (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) receives a call from Shultz after reaching out to him to be a source for Carreyrou's now-famous WSJ Theranos exposé.
The Dropout, however, neglects to show that Shultz contacted other officials before Carreyrou. Somewhat similar to The Dropout's Yoda plot hole, major elements of the story skip or ignore other elements for the sake of conciseness. In real life, after bringing his issues up to Holmes in person, Shultz was directed to Theranos' biostatistics vice president Daniel Young. After being given questionable information, Shultz privately contacted New York officials responsible for administering proficiency testing for Theranos. Only after these events did Shultz send Holmes the email that eventually led to his resignation. Another minor element left out in the story is Shultz's parents, who communicated with him throughout his ordeal.
As mentioned already, Tyler Shultz contacted John Carreyrou and became an instrumental primary source for the Theranos piece. Carreyrou continued using Shultz's information for more Theranos articles, including a book titled Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies In A Silicon Valley Startup. In addition to Carreyrou's publications, Shultz spoke with other news outlets. He contributed to Alex Gibney's HBO documentary The Inventor in 2019 and spoke about the Holmes verdict upon her trial's conclusion, stating to outlets that he would have testified had prosecutors needed him. Instead, his Theranos coworker, friend, and fellow whistleblower Erika Cheung testified at Holmes' trial. While there were other important whistleblowers involved in the case, Shultz's position as the grandson of one of Theranos' most influential board members gave his words against the company great power.
In addition to being outspoken against Theranos, he has advocated for better ethical practices in business and science. He is one of the advisors for Cheung's nonprofit organization Ethics in Entrepreneurship, whose mission according to their website is to "provide investors, entrepreneurs and workers with resources to better recognize, and manage ethical issues in emerging companies." Scientists give great importance to ethics in their work, to the point that Theranos' dishonest practices tragically contributed to respected chemist Ian Gibbons' death as depicted in The Dropout. So it's highly admirable, but not necessarily surprising, that Shultz continues to go beyond Theranos' story by not only speaking out about the company's fraud but preventing further fraud elsewhere.
After Tyler Shultz left Theranos, he worked at Stanford's Wang Lab for a period of time, where he learned more about giant magnetoresistive (GMR) technology. Using this knowledge, he founded the biotech company Flux Biosciences in 2017. The company's mission is similar to that of Theranos, in which it creates technology that patients can utilize in their own homes to test for potential health ailments. Instead of using a drop of blood, however, Flux Biosciences uses chips that read biomarkers detected using the aforementioned GMR technology. It's an ironic connection to his mission at Theranos in The Dropout. However, Flux's mission is approached with significantly better ethics and business practices using actually effective equipment.
The Dropout releases new episodes on Thursdays on Hulu.