Wisdom Of The Week

Brilliant profile of Elizabeth Holmes - CEO of Theranos was a refreshing read; yet another human being deeply influenced by Stoicism via Marcus Aurelius:

Elizabeth and her brother–who is now director of product management at Theranos–had both been intrigued by their father’s work in China. So when Elizabeth was about 9, her parents found them both a tutor to teach them Mandarin on Saturdays. Elizabeth then supplemented those lessons with summer language programs at Stanford and, later, at two universities in Beijing. Captivated by computer programming in high school, she was struck by how the Chinese universities’ information technology facilities lagged behind what she was used to. To rectify that situation, she started her first business while still in high school, selling C++ compilers to Chinese universities.

Whether it grew out of her father’s experiences at Tenneco or family lore–they are descendants of a founder of the Fleischmann’s Yeast company–Elizabeth grew up admiring private industry. “At a relatively early age I began to believe that building a business was perhaps the greatest opportunity for making an impact,” she says, “because it’s a tool for making a change in the world.”

Holmes was admitted by early decision to Stanford. As she headed off to college, her father gave her a copy of Meditations, by the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius. “I wanted it to reinforce the message of a purposeful life,” her father explained to me. “I think it really affected her.”