Subscribe to Lemonada Premium for Bonus Content

Description

Hoja, Kiki, and Mohanad get into the life and times of infamous CEO/college dropout/professional scammer Elizabeth Holmes in the first part of this two-part special. They look back at the early days of Theranos, unpack Holmes’ iconic deep voice, review Hulu’s new biopic series The Dropout, and give a shout-out to the OG Elizabeth Holmes truther Phyllis Gardner. Plus, Hoja apologizes for being a hater, Kiki complains about rising gas prices, and Mohanad “The Punisher” Elshieky tells us how he really feels about Yelp reviewers on this week’s Sorry Not Sorry.

Please note, I’m Sorry contains mature themes and may not be appropriate for all listeners.

You can find out more about our show @lemonadamedia on all social platforms, or follow us on Instagram @imsorry_podcast.

Need help saying sorry? Got any public apology fodder? Email us at imsorry@lemonadamedia.com or send us a DM on Instagram.

Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today at bit.ly/lemonadapremium.

Click this link for a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this show and all Lemonada shows: https://lemonadamedia.com/sponsors/

For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Hoja Lopez, Mohanad Elshieky, Kiki Monique

Kiki Monique  00:08

I’m Kiki Monique. And this is I’M SORRY, a podcast about apologies. And this week I slept in my bed, not my couch every single day this week.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Oh, wow. And this is Mohanad Elshieky and I’m excited to talk about Elizabeth today. Not Holmes, but the queen. Where is she? Is she dead? Is she alive? I still believe that she’s dead. And all of these videos of her are pre-recorded. So we’ll see.

Hoja Lopez 

And my name is Hoja Lopez. And this week, I was a master of disguise because I breezed my whole house. Just to keep it tight. open all the windows for breeze, everything. And I like the scent of you know, fabric heavy duty to x odor elimination powder. All over my house. I just really like it more than a candle. I can’t help myself.

Hoja Lopez 

Hello, everybody, and welcome to I’m sorry. We are so excited to be here together again. Today we are going to talk about Elizabeth Anne Holmes. But first we do have a quick announcement. So Lemonada Media, which is the company behind our show has a new series that we are so excited to support. It has a podcast called After 1954. And they explore what happened after the historic ruling of Brown versus Board and talk about desegregation. But also, did you know that 38,000 Black educators lost their jobs in the wake of the 1954 ruling and I didn’t until I heard this timely and moving five-part series. So I definitely encourage you to check out after 1954 wherever you get your podcasts. I’m so excited for everybody to listen to it.

Kiki Monique 

Yeah, for sure. I definitely did not learn about this in my public education schooling. So now I have to learn everything through podcasts and TikTok.

Hoja Lopez  02:06

Yeah, I’m very excited. And now to talk about a rich white lady.

Kiki Monique 

Which I did learn a lot about in my public education.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Yeah, learn too much about.

Hoja Lopez

Yeah, we love this archetype. So I mean, I’ve heard so much about Elizabeth Anne Holmes over the course of like the last two to three years. So and there’s so much media about her so. So Elizabeth Anne Holmes is born in 1984 in Washington, DC. So she’s a nice, thick millennial, you know what I mean? She’s like, he’s like, why thick? Well, I don’t mean that she is a person is thick. I mean, she’s born in the thick of it, you know, the thick of it. And, you know, she’s growing up with like Steve Jobs and all these people. And she’s born in Washington DC and her father which wait for this name, Christian Rasmus Holmes the fourth, that’s his name, which, you know, that doesn’t quite, you know, give off the like, blue collar vibes that say a Chrissy Tegan Porky’s backdrop, gives us you know, but he was a VP at Enron, which this is definitely you know, talked about in the TV show in the new biopic, but he’s working for an energy company that later goes bankrupt. I don’t know if you heard of that little accounting fraud. Oh, just a little, a little snafu. And then her mother Noel Anne I worked as a congressional committee staffer. So both of them held pretty executive positions in government agencies like the EPA, the USDA. But again, basically the idea is they’re both like actually very well-connected people. And then her grandparents and her great grandparents are the mayor of Cincinnati from 1900 to 1905, and an entrepreneur, so it’s like she’s coming down from a line of, of rich white ladies and rich white dudes, which I think she sort of acts in a lot of ways. So she goes to high school in St. John’s School in Houston, which guess what, is where I just lived for a decade, and I lived four blocks away from this high school. You know, another person who also went to this high school, Wes Anderson.

Hoja Lopez  04:24

So this is a lot of lives are coming into connection here. But this is also the setting for Rushmore Academy, which is like the Rushmore movie, that Wes Anderson, so he went back to his alma mater, and that’s where that movie was shot. That’s just my small facts here for no reason. And then, you know, during high school, she’s interested in computer programming. She starts kind of her first business selling C++ compilers to Chinese universities. So she’s already like, she’s got it. She kind of knows what she wants to do. And then after that she begins attending, you know, Stanford University. So Stanford, it’s a really interesting place for her in particular, because she’s studying chemical engineering, and she’s working as a student researcher. But Stanford has a kind of like a history of supporting people who have patents and different ideas. And so if you connect with professors, they also have connections in terms of patent applications. And then Stanford School of Engineering ended up one of the professors of Stanford School of Engineering ended up supporting her endeavor, so that she later kind of, you know, created Theranos. But, I mean, at the end of her freshman year, Elizabeth worked at the Genome Institute of Singapore, and basically was working with the SARS COVID virus. So this is or the COV card, it’s kind of like the first iteration of the SARS virus. So that’s just an interesting tidbit for her too. So she filed her first patent application on the wearable drug delivery patch. And that’s a little bit of what we see in the show. So, I mean, I guess when I was that age, I just didn’t have these grand ideas. Like, did you guys have this big idea of what you were gonna do with your life when you were 19?

Kiki Monique  06:16

Well, I think like, so much of like, what I appreciate about like, the series and the podcasts and all the things that go into it is she came from such a storied background, like a legacy, right? Like you talked about, like her family was, you know, the mayor, but like, also, she came from the Fleischmann’s Yeast, you know, became big again during quarantine, cuz everyone was making bread, right? But I remember thinking about yeast Fleischmann was the only yeast I thought existed. Yeah. And of course, I mean, that money didn’t make it to her, because I don’t know if they blew it or whatever happened. But like, that is her heritage. And so I think just in her head, she just knows that she needs to be this great as well. Because I imagine that she’s probably told stories all her life growing up, like, oh, your great grandfather did this. And, you know, your grandpa did, you know, and so, I think that’s probably why she just had these great expectations.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Yeah. And I think it’s also you know, like, seeing your dad lose his job and having to go and ask money from other people, and all of that stuff, I understand that mentality of just being like, I will make something and I will never, like, let my dad let my family like, get to that level, again, I want to be able to provide and all of that stuff. So like, I get that angle, I get like, where she’s like coming from, but like, I feel like sometimes, you know, like, you do something and you have like these great expectations. But then it doesn’t work the way you want it but you just like double down on it. Cuz you’re too embarrassed to fail at that point.

Hoja Lopez 

Yeah. And you have all these expectations of yourself and comparing yourself, I mean, like, I can’t, it’s almost like you’re walking all the way to the peak of a mountain, and you know, you’re gonna have to come back down, you know, you’re gonna have to throw yourself off of it. And the further up you go, the harder you’re gonna fall. And it definitely seems like this is something that her family history sort of Prime’s her for, in a way. She’s very much like, if you can see it, you can be it kind of person, and she doesn’t seen it, like she’s seen people be extremely successful around her. And that inspires her to think really, really big, which is, I think, a great quality and a human being and like, we are in an era of like, what is your vision? Like, how can you change the world? And she keeps kind of focusing on that even at this point in her life? And so it seems like it’s a really good priming situation for what’s to come.

Mohanad Elshieky  08:52

Yeah. I mean, that’s something that’s like, ingrained in a lot of people because you keep hearing all of these like specific stories about like people who no one believed in and they just like, went against the current and they did what they wanted and did not listen to people who are like doubting them, and eventually succeeded. But you know, sometimes like people don’t understand like, sometimes you should listen to feedback and you’re doing something wrong. It’s not like not everyone is a hater, basically, sometimes you’re way, like over your head and you’re not, you don’t know what you’re doing, which is why I always say that we need to, we need more people to have imposter syndrome. I think yeah, I think we need that like people like we should get rid of like, nope, we need more people to imposter syndrome because a lot of the wrong people really believe in themselves and we don’t need that. We need to stop it.

Hoja Lopez 

I definitely think Elizabeth Holmes is a very clear, is a clear person who maybe should have doubted herself a couple of times. It’s so weird because we’re telling women not to do it. We’re like, go get it you can do it. But yeah, my favorite thing about real equality is Elizabeth Holmes being able to get to that point and even get that level of support and money to then defraud a bunch of people, like go women that we can do anything at all. So yeah, it’s really interesting to me. And as I was reading a couple of quotes from the bad blood book, which is, and forgive me, I have never heard his name spoken out loud. It’s John Carreyrou. Where, you know, he talks a little bit about whether or not she could be considered a sociopath. And, you know, while we’re not going to diagnose her, really, there’s clearly a moral compass that is really, you know, badly off kilter. And, you know, while he’s not gonna sort of, again, diagnose her, he really thinks that she has some sociopathic qualities. And so I wonder if, you know, in Stanford, she’s in this time of her life, where that’s really kind of starting to pop up with for her.

Kiki Monique 

Well, I think that was interesting, because I think he’s the same one that referred to her when he was talking about Bernie Madoff, or maybe it was another guy, but I thought it was him. Yeah. And he said, you know, there were some similarities between the two. They were both smart, charming bullies, which I thought was really interesting, because, you know, again, in her childhood, it talks about how she had been bullied. And so it’s interesting that she became the bully. And it’s so interesting that so many of the things that she did, she became, you know, the female version of Steve Jobs, and all of these things, like, did she just want to become a facsimile of all of these people that affected her in some way? And I don’t know.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s, I mean, that’s what she wanted. And it’s just like, kinda like, forgetting that a lot of these people are no good themselves. Like, these are not people that you want to model yourself after, like, looking at like Mark Zuckerberg, and like, imagine being like, this is who I want to be. Absolutely not. Never.

Hoja Lopez  12:03

You’re totally right. It takes a really special kind of person to look at Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, and be like, that’s what I would love to model myself after, because, in essence, they sort of represent but I will say they represent huge, huge change in terms of like societal advancement. And so I think focusing on that part, and not necessarily whether or not they’re well adjusted, happy people. I was reading kind of like an ink an old IMC, you know, she was on the cover of that kind of when the revamp of Theranos happened. But they were talking a little bit about kind of her day-to-day life. And just the fact that you know, that she was like notoriously secretive that she didn’t have time, like, quote, didn’t have time for novels or friends didn’t date, doesn’t own a television hasn’t taken a vacation in 10 years. It’s like, what capitalism wants us all to be personified, you know?

Mohanad Elshieky

And people like, you know, glorify that, like, you see so many articles about like, how Steve Jobs and like Tim Cook and all these people like, wake up at like 4am, and you do all of the things and like you have to wake up before the stock market is open, or shit like that. What a fucking bunch of psychos. That’s exactly it, like humans are not supposed to live this way.

Hoja Lopez 

That’s exactly it’s like, like a guide for psychos. You know what I mean? For sure. It’s like, if you want to be a psychopath, just live your life in these specific ways. And then, yeah, I guess you can kind of be a billionaire a little bit.

Kiki Monique

But what was interesting, I mean, one thing, that one scene that really stuck out to me was like, you know, as she’s building this company, and then she decides, like, I need to get a new car, and she decides the new car is going to be a Prius. And she says, you know, that’s what everyone’s getting. So it’s interesting. Like, it’s everyone’s getting, so there’s that element, but also you’re getting a Prius, so you’re being very like, responsible. And then as she’s driving, she spills coffee all over herself, and she’s on the phone. And she’s like, oh shoot spilled coffee and her mom’s like, well, don’t you have a cup holder? And then like they never answered like, maybe she didn’t get the lowest model without even a cup holder. But just things like that stood out to me where it was like she was modeling after all of these people, but then she also did seem to have want to keep this humbleness. But was that humbleness again, part of the character development, like, I need to maintain these qualities, you know?

Mohanad Elshieky  14:32

Well, yeah. I mean, she was talking about like Mark Zuckerberg and how he you know, like, was just coming out with like, in flip flops, and like, you know, these like, just very normal T-shirts and stuff like that. So that’s the thing they also think about themselves about like, not materialistic and they’re doing this to change the world and they have to keep humble while also have ideas that are like, you know, I’m going to change the universe and you can’t have it both ways.

Hoja Lopez 

No, you can’t. And the other part of it is she’s at Stanford at this moment. And as depicted in, you know, the dropout, she goes to the medicine Professor Phyllis Gardner, who is still currently at Stanford. And Gartner basically is saying like, oh, I don’t think your idea is going to work. I think it’s impossible. And so there’s that thing of like, it’s impossible that they then warp into, well, if you think it’s impossible, you’re never gonna make it happen. We’re the people with the dream and we’re able to make it happen. And they’re like, well, no, physics and chemistry are real, tangible things, they have to fit within the universe of reality.

Mohanad Elshieky 

You can’t out dream science.

Hoja Lopez

You can’t out dream science. And this is what I like to call and I think I’ve told you guys about this before, but you just transcend something, you know that there’s a truth. You know, that you should probably be a vegan and that you should probably this is me personally talking, you know, because you believe in the rights of animals. But you just transcended that notion and you just push forward in the direction that you feel like pushing forward.

Kiki Monique  16:04

First, can I say that a you can’t out dream science. You need to trademark that Muhammad. I want a t-shirt. Immediately. Let’s start selling. Second. But can we just talk for a second about Phyllis Gardner and the amazing casting job they did in the shop out with Laurie Metcalf? Like, I have my own like passionate love affair with Laurie Metcalf like ever since like she got sort of like, revitalized and that show getting on there was an HBO show that lasted like I think two or three seasons. But you know, like Roseanne like, I’ve loved her forever. But this casting that they did for Phyllis Gardner, who is just gravelly, just sort of came tanker is like what you would imagine what I would imagine like an Ivy League professor is right, like, but in that way that no bullshit. She cuts to the chase. She I mean, every interview, it’s her. She does not change her beliefs about Elizabeth. In her Wikipedia, I think the first line says one of the first people that was suspicious of Elizabeth Holmes, like literally line one. But yeah, Laurie is doing such a great job of it. I just want to point that out.

Mohanad Elshieky

So funny. And Elizabeth Holmes, […]

Hoja Lopez 

[…] she’s like I knew from the very beginning,

Kiki Monique 

It’ll be on her gravestone.

Hoja Lopez

Honestly, is there a more feminist thing you can do? Because all those dudes that are like investing in Elizabeth to a certain extent, they’re like, falling for the sort of like, they’re almost like, romanticizing her in some way, and putting her on this strange pedestal and wanting her to be like this person or this leader that she is not and does not have the skill set to be. Versus Gardner who literally is like a Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and is like, a crazy expert in this whole, like, microfluidic stuff that they talk about on the drop out? And she’s like, no, I see through you by the woman. There’s bad women, too. I see it, and you’re bad.

Kiki Monique  18:19

Yeah, because like, here’s, you know, Phyllis, who’s like, I’ve done all the things. I never used my sexuality to get ahead. Like, I never tried to flirt my way. I did the work, and you have to do the work. And I think she just felt like Elizabeth like wasn’t even willing to do the work. Like, you know, like, you take a few classes, and then you think you’re gonna start a whole company. And it’s just interesting, because I think that there is so much belief that that can happen because some of that did happen, right? People did start these businesses and you thought anything was possible, but it’s like when it comes to medicine. No, there is just things that are medicine. Like you said, what is it Mohanad, you can’t outdream science?

Kiki Monique

You know, the first time I ever heard Elizabeth Holmes name, I think was in 2015, when she was named the youngest self-made billionaire. And to learn that this company started in 2004. And wasn’t indicted until I think 2017. You’re telling me that for over a decade, this woman was getting people to give her hundreds of millions of dollars and nobody even saw the damn machine like this, I’m sorry, this, if this had been a Black woman, the chapter would have been about two pages long. There’s no way, oh, I need some audited financials, I need your personal net worth by like, there would have been so many things that anyone else would have had to give to get to this point, decades?

Mohanad Elshieky  20:22

This reminds me of like a tweet that I read, which was about the tinder swindler, which someone like a Black woman tweeted and she was like, this whole Tinder swindler thing would never happen to me, because thanks to systemic racism, there is no bank that will give me this loan.

Kiki Monique 

I was like I kept looking at I was like, yeah, story would have ended here.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Yeah. And it’s insane. And it’s and what is the name of the doctor or the professor does not believe in Elizabeth Holmes. Phyllis Gardner. So Gardner, like, I remember, like one of the one of the things that she was like, yeah, she was charming, these old white men, and they were given her money. And they were videos, like even in Congress, or like people who are in charge of like, pharmaceutical companies and stuff like that. Like they literally telling Elizabeth, you’re just amazing. And I’m like, What is about this? That is just so fascinating to you? Is it the voice? Is it actually working? That is the thing that is like blowing my mind? That fucking voice has worked.

Kiki Monique

I’m gonna start using it, for the rest of this episode.

Mohanad Elshieky 

It’s insane. Because it does not sound real.

Hoja Lopez

No, it doesn’t. And there was a study done that basically, there’s this thing where like, it was a study I read about essentially talking about the fact of like, what we find trustworthy in terms of voices. It is true that men and women find deeper voices more trustworthy than higher pitched voices. That is of like a scientific fact. So I could see how based on that people like wow, deep, dark, gravelly voice that is absolutely worth, I think at the end, she ended up embezzling a total of $700 million from investors. So that’s what that critique gravelly voice is worth.

Mohanad Elshieky  22:18

I’m gonna start doing that. I know, like, I have a deeper voice as a man, but I’m gonna keep making it deeper. You know, every, like, every time we end this podcast, I’m gonna, I’m gonna be like, hey, everyone, if you could, like, tell people to subscribe, and like, we need more listeners, please. This is my Venmo if you want to, if you want to send me money, please listen to I’m sorry. Like it’s the best podcast ever. Like I think we deserve $700 million.

Hoja Lopez 

Oh, I’m swayed. You really? You got me?

Kiki Monique

Going to rate and review now.

Hoja Lopez

Yeah, and so she basically funds and expands the entire company. I think it’s like by the end of 2010. Their nose has $92 million in venture capital at that point. So she raised 6 million to start off just to fund the firm. But then six years later, 92 million in venture capital. And then she meets with former Secretary of State George Shultz, and then he joins the Theranos board of directors. And really, this is when it fully takes off. Because shortly thereafter, they announced their partnership with Walgreens. And so in the show, they do a really good job at explaining kind of the difference between retail and launching and retail versus launching through Pfizer through like the specific kind of like pharmaceuticals, because pharmaceuticals are highly regulated in ways that retail isn’t. And so they launched kind of this in store blood sample collection for their centers. And this is also when she appears in Inc in 2014. And then they recognize her as 110 on the Forbes list of self-made female billionaires. And that’s all based basically on the value of the company. So it’s not like a liquid amount of money that she has.

Kiki Monique  24:11

And like one of the I mean, I will say like, as somebody who doesn’t know a lot about venture cap, or like, I feel like I didn’t know a lot, especially back in 2015, right? And like 2017, I didn’t know a lot I know a little more, but it has been this like sort of secret society thing. And to learn that, you know, these companies that get these private investments don’t have to have the same sort of regulation. As other companies. It was like, oh, wow. Now I understand why this because I have always called this stuff funny money. It’s just funny money to me. You’re telling me this company’s worth 9 billion why? Because they don’t have to prove why, they just have to like get enough people to say I believe in this company. Don’t have to show any records to support it. And then they can just kind of like live that way in a bubble. And then next thing I know the stock market’s dropped, recessions hit, I’ve lost my job gas prices through the roof. That’s all I know.

Kiki Monique

And people believe them people like if you have enough money and you like, you look like you know what you’re doing, they’ll just give you anything and I think we need some diversity in this scammers world. You know, like, you need more people of color more Black people are like can just can get away into doing.

Kiki Monique 

I want to be a billionaire for a few years.

Hoja Lopez

I don’t want them to this little mom and pop scams. I want systemic level scamming on behalf of POC people. And I want them to get away with it.

Kiki Monique

That’s what’s crazy. You know, like, if you were to ask like a bunch of like, you know, wildly racist white people, right? Like, who commits the most crime, they would probably blame you know, black people, Mexican people, whatever. It’s like, okay, but do we like go into the healthcare system and like completely try to defraud like them? They’re giving blood tests where they think they have cancer and then don’t the next day like that’s way more harmful than I don’t know.

Mohanad Elshieky  26:12

Even worse seeing that you don’t have cancer and then you have it and then only learning after it’s like too late when it’s like stage four or something and you’re literally kill the person now because if you’re dumb shit, because you think you believe in yourself.

Kiki Monique 

Yeah, that’s true crime if you ask me.

Mohanad Elshieky

No, it truly is like you put these people lives in jeopardy. You killed people. That’s not I mean, sorry, like fuck your dreams at that point, it’s about people.

Hoja Lopez

Trademark that one too.

Mohanad Elshieky

Yeah, exactly. And it just sucks. Because like, this is like, you know, tech industry, startup industry, like, the whole Silicon Valley thing. And me like, this is like present in other industries too like, if you’re in the entertainment industry, and you’re like, as a person of color, or like Black person, or something, you want to like pitch a show or do something, you have to just literally put your soul into it. And just put so much and then you see a show like, I don’t know, Emily in Paris. Yeah. Like, I can never pitch a show like that. And just like, yeah, woman in Paris, oh, just like fucking I don’t know, what she was doing. They’d be like, fuck yourself.

Hoja Lopez

Oh my God. And tying this particular thing back to kind of like the downfall in particulars, like, she’s primed to, in some ways, like almost like just the full 10 years to go by and for her to get her technology. Like, it’s almost like she just had to make it far enough, but couldn’t like the technology was too far away for her work for them her actual actions, and for the meet to catch up with all the talk that she had put into it.

Kiki Monique

Was the technology far away? Or was she just living in sci-fi the whole time? And it was never going to be possible? I mean, that’s what’s even more insane to me.

Hoja Lopez

Yeah. And, and we’re going to talk about it more in, you know, as we break down the court case, but as I understand the court case, they really make a case for that distinction, like that is what, that distinction is what the court case is really all about is how much did she know what she doing it intentionally? Or was she really a person who was, you know, on her way to this thing that she was promising, and then sort of lost it along the way. But this particular moment, she’s kind of at her height. And then this is when the John Carreyrou and the Wall Street Journal initiate the investigation of Theranos. And he received a tip from a medical expert specifically, who thought that the Edison blood testing device, which shows up in the show was suspicious. And then Carreyrou ends up speaking to all the ex-employee whistleblowers, and obtains company documents. And this is when she’s being at her most secretive, really. So she really is trying to avoid this from coming out. And, you know, reveals that they had been using like commercially available machines to do the job that they were saying that the Edison machine was doing, and then use just a huge amount of kind of strong-arm tactics and legal, you know, threats in order to try to stop the article from coming out. But this is when we really get into Holmes’ denying all the claims she is, you know, she goes on Mad Money, the day that the article from the Wall Street Journal is published, and is just basically like, goes through her regular spiel. When everybody doubts her she’s like, well, this is what the status quo wants to do when you’re trying to disrupt, you know, a billion-dollar industry or whatever. And then in her quote was, and then she goes first they think you’re crazy. Then they fight you and then all of a sudden, you change the world. And in that all of a sudden, I just laughed so hard at that quote, because just the words all of a sudden, it really reminded me back to Phyllis Gardner Where she’s like do the work. It doesn’t happen all of a sudden, yeah, cannot happen. And but she’s still at the height of it is using that language to describe it.

Kiki Monique  30:11

Well, even her line in the article that was being written about her where she was referred to, he said it was comically vague when he was describing, you know, walking through and seeing the lab. And that’s what set off the investigation by Kerry rue. I believe it’s like reading that like comically vague, everything about her is very vague.

Mohanad Elshieky

Like, I think that she really believed that this is gonna work eventually. Yeah, I think so. Like, I don’t think that she was like, I want to defraud people and hurt people. But at the same time, she was just like, I am willing to do anything for this to work. And that is the problem is that you think it’s work. And if you know, if you sacrifice few people in the way that is for the greater good. And I think that’s the problem that people think about is that they, like, if you hurt few people in the way to the greater good, whatever that is, because they believe that you can do that, then that’s fine. You know, it’s kinda like the trolley problem, you know, like one person or five people, like, I sacrifice four or five people to these experiments, but I’ll save hundreds of lives.

Kiki Monique

But I also feel like that is the reason she kept Sunny around. I mean, you know, her and Sunny hid their relationship for what, like 12-13 years or something like that. And there was an interesting, you know, in the inventor, which was the HBO, you know, original sort of documentary before, any, you know, any of the cases had started. Yeah, they were talking about this, like lie detector tests that they were doing with dice, this behavioral analysis guy, and saying how, you know, when people roll the dice, and you don’t ask them what they picked, and then you there to reveal it afterwards. You know, they always end up, you know, getting it right. But of course, the lie detector picks up that they’re lying. But if you change the dynamics, where it’s like, okay, if you roll this dice, a charity that you want to get money gets money, even if they’re lying, it doesn’t show up in the lie detector test, because they believe if they’re doing something good, it’s not a lie anymore. And I feel like that’s part of the reason she kept Sunny around too long. Because he fawned over her, right? She wanted people always who were fawning over her. Yeah. And because he was never going to doubt her. And he was just going to be like this echo chamber back. She started being able to just convince herself more and more because she’s like, as long as this guy is telling me it’s okay. Then it’s okay. I’m not doing anything wrong. And I think she probably could pass a lie detector test because she legitimately thought she was still doing good.

Hoja Lopez  32:44

Yeah, she incepted herself.

Mohanad Elshieky

Yeah. And if there’s anyone I should trust the judgment off is the man who’s dating a woman 20 years younger than him.

Kiki Monique 

He met when they were 18. And he was just the only adult in this.

Mohanad Elshieky 

This is the man that I think has a very good judgment. Let’s go for it.

Hoja Lopez

Agreed. Well, I’m excited to cover her relationship with Balwani. How it shows up in the court case, and some of the more like explosive things that happened while she was on the stand. This is a really interesting court case, and it kind of spans relationships, health care, drama, there’s babies, there’s marriage. I mean, I swear to God, I feel like the court case is really exciting. So I can’t wait to talk about that next week.

Mohanad Elshieky

Okay, now it’s time for my favorite segment of every week, which is sorry, not sorry, where we either apologize to someone or have someone apologize to us. And I’m gonna start with Hoja, what’s happening this week?

Hoja Lopez  34:08

Well, I would like to apologize for being a hater. I was a hater in this one particular occasion. I’m a hater many points of my life. Big judgmental person, even though I don’t say anything. I have many judgments inside of my head. I’m so sorry. I’m working on that. But I have a couple of friends and they were very good friends of mine. And they got together maybe like four years ago, and they got married over the weekend. You know, they had a very small wedding very far away, so I couldn’t go but when they first started a relationship I just had flashbacks of me actively be like, that’s never gonna work out. Like I was such a hater about their relationship, because I thought he was much more interested in her than she seemed interested in him. And I gave him so much bad advice. As I said, so many thing that’s probably just absolutely not true, but I’m just very happy for them that they made it through my hatred push through the doubt of all their friends and family and have like an awesome relationship. So, yeah, just shoot the messenger sometimes, I was a bad messenger and just do your thing. Don’t listen to me. You know?

Mohanad Elshieky

I will never listen to your advice, that helps. I never did in the past, too.

Hoja Lopez

It’s a beautiful thing to have friends that you don’t listen to.

Mohanad Elshieky

Well, I’m glad they made it. You know, there was there. I don’t know.

Hoja Lopez 

Honestly, the odds are against them and for me.

Mohanad Elshieky 

You’re still going? You still want to win.

Hoja Lopez 

No, no. Bless you guys. You guys are you’re gonna be amazing, you’re going to be together forever.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Okay. Okay. Kiki, do you have something you know, less hateful?

Kiki Monique  36:01

A little bit less hateful. I think I’m gonna apologize. I think I’m gonna offer a future apology to everyone. I don’t know how long it’s gonna last maybe for the next few months for everyone that I complain to about gas prices, because like, this is the first time I’ve had a car in a long time. And California already has like really expensive gas compared to like everyone else, because supposedly they have additives in them. So they like increase the price. I don’t really know. But there’s like one gas station that always has really cheap gas. I think I’ve talked about this before. And I said like, oh, it’s cheaper gas maybe doesn’t make my cargo. But you know, it’s the cheapest gas. It’s never gone above $5, which is like pretty normal in California, like a lot. And so I’m like, okay, I’m gonna go there, because they never hit above five. And this weekend driving by over $5. And that was when I was like, it’s over.

Mohanad Elshieky

See, here’s the good thing about living in New York City. I have no idea what the gas price is. And here’s the thing. There’s a gas station right in front of my building. Like, I can literally look out of the window and see the screen. And I have never bothered because I’m not paying for the subway train to move. So I don’t care. I don’t look at it. People just complain about gas prices. I’m like, I don’t know moved to New York. Here’s a crazy idea. I mean, just coming from me maybe more public transportation should like more money should be put in public transportation. This is just me being crazy right now.

Kiki Monique 

So wild idea that and electric cars which are totally feasible. These are two completely out their ideas.

Mohanad Elshieky

Yeah. Well, I don’t have anything this week that is as you know, as insane as gas prices or wishing people break up for my own. You know, so I can feel bad about myself. Now, I’m honestly it’s a very small thing. But you know, like when you go to a, like a restaurant or something, and they keep, you know, like when they come to you and ask you how how’s the meal going? Which is nice. You know, they do it like it’s going great. Even if you still haven’t tasted it yet, awesome. Amazing. Thank you so much. Yeah, I was doing a show at Union Hall last night. And then I went to a Mexican food place right by it. And I swear, like no exaggeration, if maybe seven times, a different person or like the same person would come to us and just ask like, how’s the food go? Do you want drinks, and I just like, I am here for food, please leave me alone. Like they kept like going at us like to the point like, you know what I want the check, I just want to leave really like I don’t want to drink. Why is it that complicated?

Kiki Monique  38:54

Oh my god. I wonder if they got like a really bad Yelp review. And the managers were like, You need to make sure that you check on all of the customers because we can’t bad services on our Yelp review.

Mohanad Elshieky

And I get it. And I honestly think people who, you know, like leaving a Yelp review is one thing. Like sometimes, like you have such a bad experience that you just have to be like, warn other people, you know, it’s to that point. But like, you know, there are like people like who leave Yelp reviews to any place that they go to. And even though I believe in abolishing prisons, I do think as we still have prisons, these people should be there, just locked behind bars. Because like, if you’re just like, […] like that’s some hobby you have where you just like, leave Yelp reviews, because it does stuff like this where it affects the rest of us who just are not complaining. I just want to have a good experience. And it’s why Uber drivers like they feel like they have to talk to you because other douchebags are just like three stars, the driver did not acknowledge my existence. And I’m like, no, that’s a five-star experience for me.

Hoja Lopez

Yeah, you’re such a harsh punisher, Mo, like, you’re just like you really truly do not believe in a comeback arch you do not believe in, you know, the resolution of the human spirit. You truly are like, jail these people forever, I’m done. And I appreciate that.

Mohanad Elshieky  40:18

[…] people in the customer service industry and, and I think people who because I worked in customer service and I think if you are making these people lives any harder, you truly deserve nothing.

Kiki Monique 

I will say that, like, I was an avid Yelper. But it was positive reviews only because I wanted to counter act a lot of these service, you know, related reviews. And if it was a small business, I wanted to make sure people knew how good it was.

Mohanad Elshieky 

That is good. Yeah. No, I think that’s literally that’s how it should be done. Like, if I have a bad experience somewhere like usually, I’m just like, okay, personally, I’m never going back there. It’s so simple. If I like it, I want other people to go there. So I’ll just, you know, I’ll review it. But the whole thing about going into like, doing it bad. Like, I don’t know, maybe it was my experience. Maybe it’s like on a different day, someone will have a bad experience. Who knows?

Kiki Monique

I will complain if it’s like atrocious like I you know, through my Yelp history, which now you probably will, they’re like, I remember a particular that’s like I went into like, like a beauty supply store. And the person behind the counter refused to take my credit card. And it just felt very racially motivated. And I just felt like you know what, you’re getting a review. I’m sorry. Like, I’m not gonna keep sending. You know, so I will do it. But I get it. Like, I should just sometimes I just have to let it go. But sometimes I just can’t.

Hoja Lopez 

Okay, where do you guys stand? If you get a meal or something that you don’t like? Do you send it back? Are you like, I ordered this? It’s what seems good to me. I have to eat it.

Kiki Monique  42:04

I will return. Not like every single thing but like overcooked meat. I will return things that are not are cold. I will return. It just tastes bad. I generally don’t. I’m just like, oh, no, that was bad. You know, like, because it’s probably gonna be just as bad the next time like, the chef doesn’t know what they’re doing

Hoja Lopez 

That’s what they intended for it to be bad. What about you, Mo?

Mohanad Elshieky 

I don’t think I’ve ever send food back, really. I don’t know.

Hoja Lopez 

It’s the scariest thing in the world to me. I just I’m like, okay, maybe this isn’t the police for me. I get stressed out when I have to return a dish. I truly hate it. I can’t think of a thing. I hate more right now.

Kiki Monique 

Other than happy couples.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Yeah, it seems like it, Hoja. I mean, hey, it’s okay.

Hoja Lopez

Hey, I thought this was a safe space to be an asshole. Okay, and now I’m getting called out again. I already came to the table with my apology that shouldn’t be done now.

Mohanad Elshieky

You thought wrong.

CREDITS

I’M SORRY is a Lemonada Media Original. The show is produced by Alex McOwen, supervising producer is Kryssy Pease. Our executive producers are Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Our mix is by Kat Yore and theme music was composed by Xander Singh. If you like this show, please rate and review. And please don’t cancel us. You can find out more about our show at @LemonadaMedia on all social platforms, or follow us on Instagram at @imsorry_podcast. We’ll be back next week and until then be nice, play fair and always say I’m sorry. Thanks for listening!