👀 What's next for Elizabeth Holmes

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👀 What's next for Elizabeth Holmes

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Tonight: I'm volunteering to ghostwrite Elizabeth Holmes' memoir, and I'm only half kidding. Let's get into it.

By Allison Morrow

⚖️ BAD BLOOD

It's hard not to be fascinated Elizabeth Holmes, the Stanford dropout who went from billionaire CEO and Silicon Valley icon to convicted white-collar criminal in just under a decade. The story is so Hollywood it's already being made into at least two feature films, with black-turtleneck-clad Holmses being played by Jennifer Lawrence in one and Amanda Seyfried in another.

ICYMI: After a four-month trial, Holmes on Monday was found guilty of defrauding investors, promising that her blood-testing startup Theranos would revolutionize blood-testing despite the company being nowhere close to delivering on that lofty ambition.

So what'll the Holmes biopic sequel have in store? Here's what we know about the near future:

Awaiting sentencing: Holmes, now 37, faces the possibility of prison time. She remains free on bond.
She was found guilty on four counts: one count of conspiracy to defraud investors, as well as three wire fraud counts.
Holmes faces up to 20 years in prison for each count, which would likely run concurrently. But it's unlikely she'll face the maximum penalty, legal experts say. Any prison time would likely be on the lower end because of Holmes' lack of criminal history, says Shan Wu, a criminal defense lawyer and a former federal prosecutor.
And when we say prison time, we're not talkin' San Quentin. According to Bloomberg, Holmes would likely land in a fence-less minimum-security "prison camp" in California where inmates have access to crafts and sports.
An appeal seems likely. While the defense has not filed a notice of an appeal, legal experts say it is almost certainly on the horizon, and that could take years.

MY TWO CENTS

Lizzy, put that prison and/or house arrest time to good use and get yourself a book deal. By the time it's published, the world will have already gorged itself on countless podcasts, documentaries and other outsiders' accounts of your wacky antics in the Valley.

Tell us everything. Like, when did you decide to speak in that baritone – did you have to practice at home? And I need at least a whole chapter on your dog Balto, the husky that you told everyone was a wolf (Honestly, of all the lies, that one is the most charming). In fact, girl, DM me when you're ready and I will ghostwrite the hell out of this. Working title idea, and I'm just spitballing: "Blood Suckers: How I Bamboozled Silicon Valley..." We can workshop it.

#️⃣ NUMBER OF THE DAY

807,000

Sometimes economists are wildly off in their forecasts, especially in the unpredictable Covid era, but it's times like these when they're so wrong in the right direction we just let it slide. Rather than adding 400,000 jobs last month, as most economists expected, the private sector added more than twice that number. The closely watched ADP Employment Report landed with a happy surprise Wednesday, showing a whopping 807,000 jobs added. Of course, the ADP report isn't correlated to the government's official jobs tally, which is due this Friday, but it it's widely seen as a bellwether for how the labor market is doing.

✈️ BLAME THE AIRLINES

Holiday travel, as many of you likely know first-hand, didn't go so great this year.

Airlines were quick to blame severe weather and an Omicron surge for the delays and cancellations that left hundreds of thousands passengers stranded. They might want to also try looking in the mirror.

Industry experts (and honestly any armchair observer of the business) saw this coming months ago. We were headed into the busiest travel period of the past two years, and airlines were operating with significantly fewer employees than they had before the pandemic hit.

With staff already stretched thin, airlines' hands were tied when a bunch of employees tested positive for Covid-19, my colleague Chris Isidore writes. The bad weather was just another wrinkle – I mean, who on Earth could anticipate winter storms in late December/early January, apart from, like, literally everyone?

"Granted, [the] Omicron wave was a swift surprise. However, it was made worse by a failure to plan for any hiccups, be it weather or virus," said Dennis Tajer, an American Airlines 737 pilot and spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association. "Bottom line, management sold tickets it couldn't fulfill with any duress. It doesn't seem they stress-tested their ops plan."

No one could have seen Omicron coming, but it's clear that airlines cut staff too deeply in 2020, said Brian Kelly, founder and CEO of The Points Guy, an airline travel site."We're at a breaking point," he said. "They need to hire more, to have more staff to fall back on."

The airlines all say they are hiring, but with certification rules and regulations, it takes much longer to hire new staff than it might for other employers — in some cases a year or more. (And, not to be all cynical here, but anytime an airline tells me "we're doing everything we can," I have a knee-jerk reaction to roll my eyes... and make my way to the nearest airport Chilis for a margarita the size of my carry-on.)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

📉 US stocks ended Wednesday's session sharply lower as investors grappled with Omicron concerns and the Fed's December meeting minutes, which confirmed the central bank has its foot on the stimulus brakes. The Dow, which hit a record high Tuesday, closed down 1.1%, or 393 points.

☕ Six employees at a Buffalo Starbucks that recently voted to join a union walked out Wednesday morning citing health concerns.

🔌 General Motors just unveiled an electric Chevrolet Silverado truck with 400 miles of range — 100 miles farther than the maximum range available in the Ford F-150 Lightning pickup.

📈 Goldman Sachs expects Bitcoin prices to more than double to $100,000 a coin over the next five years.