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Description

The deception deconstruction continues this week as Kiki, Hoja, and Mohanad unpack the rest of their feelings about disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. They get into the company’s politically-fraught board of directors, Elizabeth’s emotional maneuvering as a new mother, and her unexpected relationship with her alleged co-conspirator Sunny Balwani. Side note: who is Hulu kidding by casting Naveen Andrews to play Sunny?! Plus, Hoja demands different dreams, Kiki says sorry to her sofa, and Mohanad pays the price for his 10-thousand steps on this week’s Sorry Not Sorry.

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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 learned on Tik Tok that […] eyebrows are trying to make a resurgence. And to that, I will say, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me. You can’t fool me again. Those are the wise words of George Bush, our 43rd president, who didn’t give us a lot, but he did give us Bushisms. And for that, I appreciate them.

Mohanad Elshieky

And this is Mohanad Elshieky, and this week, it’s Steph Curry’s birthday. And also mine.

Hoja Lopez  

And my name is Oh, hello Pez. And this week, in honor of Kiki in New York City, I’ve had a bagel every morning. And love it has been the best week ever. Now it’s put me in a good mood every morning, this morning, I had pumpernickel with bacon and chives. But damn if it hasn’t been a delicious weekend/

Kiki Monique 

A bagel a day will make you happy.

Hoja Lopez 

Hello, everyone, and welcome to part two of our Elizabeth Holmes Deep Dive. For this episode, we are going to get into the court case, the trial, the eventual sentencing. And a little bit more about the crazy Balwani Holmes relationship. This has been really interesting because it’s been in the news. And just as a heads-up Sentencing is now set for September of 2022. So we’ve got some time before we figure out kind of like the full consequences of kind of what came up in the trial. But did you see anything in the news about the trial? Like what came up for you so far before we get into it?

Kiki Monique

Well, I was trying to figure out because I was also curious, like why Elizabeth’s sentencing was so far away? And my understanding was that because Sonny’s trial starts in March, right? Some of the stuff that will actually come out in the trial could affect what her sentencing would be. That’s why it’s so far out. Because basically, she’s facing 20 years for each count. So that’s a total of 80 years. And they’re saying the likelihood of her getting that much time is not high. But if it comes out like you know, during Sonny’s trial that maybe worse things happen. She could get a much higher sentence, which I think yeah, you know, I think some people really want.

Mohanad Elshieky

Yeah, I mean, it’s the same thing. I just been like, seeing why it was delayed. And also, it was interesting to learn that one of the reason it was delayed at first her trial, not even the sentencing was because she had a had a child. She gave birth and I was just like, did you want to have a child or that was just to delay the trial?

Kiki Monique 

Well, you know, in our favorite, you know, Phyllis, Dr. Phyllis was the one who called it too, you know, like, she’s probably gonna, you know, get pregnant just to delay this trial. And she’s like, tada.

Mohanad Elshieky 

God. I mean, I want to get a pastor.

Hoja Lopez 

In the whole thing. I guess she is officially married to, his name is Billy Evans.

Kiki Monique 

I feel like we see the ring. Have they confirmed the marriage though? I don’t know if they actually ever confirmed it, which is what’s interesting. But you know, she is living on this like $135,000,000, 9-bedroom estate. While she’s waiting to be sentence with her new man and her baby.

Hoja Lopez

Yeah, well, Vanity Fair confirmed that they were married. But I haven’t necessarily heard like a statement from them. No particular. I think she’s 37 at this point, and then he is 29. So she is quite a bit older than he is. And then he is a very wealthy kind of like hospitality heir and they do have, you know, a child, but to me, I’m like, what kind of person falls in love and marry somebody who’s currently facing, like, 11 counts of wire fraud and like a federal investigation. Like I don’t understand. Why did they meet on Tinder and she’s like, put it on her like profile. Like, how do you, hey, it’s a big red flag, baby. Look at this. She’s waving it entire; her entire persona has a red flag. So that is really confusing.

Mohanad Elshieky  04:38

I know. I just feel it that she got married and had this kid because when they do the sentencing, like, are you wanna like take this mom away from her kid for that long? And have this kid like, grow up without a mom? And like bullshit like this? It’s insane.

Kiki Monique

And I just was trying to figure out I mean, this dude, she married I mean, he comes from All of this money. Normally, when you come from a family with that much wealth, they really like will prevent you from marrying people. Because they’ll say like, Hey, we’re gonna cut you out of the will, we’re going to take away your trust all of these things, just so that they don’t marry people that they don’t want in the family. So I was shocked to see that he went through with it. And to me, I was like, it must be some sort of like, rebellion thing, right? Like, when you grow up in a family like that. And you see this woman who let’s be real, if you attach yourself to somebody, and she goes to prison, and now you have this kid with her, people are going to come to you for book deals or random things, right? And if you don’t necessarily want to be in your family’s hotel business, and you want to look to maybe be an entertainer, I mean, maybe this is how you do it.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Yeah. And this woman, Elizabeth Holmes, very committed to never married anyone who’s or being with anyone who is close to her age is either 20 years older, or younger. There’s no in between. She’s like, nope, not you cannot be born around the decade I was I was born.

Hoja Lopez  06:11

She’s like me in high school.

Kiki Monique 

She always wants to like copy yourself after old white men. And I feel like old white men will do the same thing. It’s kind of like they either date super young, or maybe they are sort of like playboys who find like a, you know, richer person, you know, who knows?

Hoja Lopez 

And that is sort of like what we see during the trial. But the biggest I think part for me, too, is coming from like the Balwani angle too, because we didn’t talk about it that much in last episode, because I wanted to leave some of the weird, juicy details. Yeah, and do kind of like a little micro deep dive on Balwani. Because they talk about it a little bit in the actual TV show, and how they kind of portray him is really interesting. But he is much older than her. And he launches something called commerce bid, which is a software company that helps businesses kind of like, buy and sell items, right? When kind of the internet was burgeoning, which is really just essentially, I would guess, kind of like an Amazon style website, but the idea of selling that website and selling the shares, yes, for 40 million bucks, which is insane. So obviously, you know, if you’re a 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes, who wants to be in tech, and you meet this person, that’s worth $40 million, because of that, like I can definitely see how she was sort of taken by him, and then all that sort of maintain the relationship while she was 19 While he was 37. And that sort of begin platonically. But then, as we see in the show, they ended up getting in a relationship and moving in together in 2005. And that’s two years after she founded Theranos, and then a year after she dropped out of Stanford.

Kiki Monique 

But he was married when they got to, I mean, when they met, when they got together, he was married when they met. And he sells this company for $40 million, and then gets a divorce. I mean, I’m already like not liking this dude.

Hoja Lopez  08:06

Again, the idea that he gets involved in Theranos in 2009, and he really gets us in, he kind of buys his way into the company with sort of a $13 million kind of relief fund. And this he goes on to explain in his testimony, just basically saying that the company is like low on cash, and that he sort of says that he knows of the mission, and that he believed what the company was trying to do, and ended up giving it as a $13 million personal loan with no interest it’s sort of a good faith loan. And then six months later, he’s president and CEO of Theranos. So yeah, obviously it’s like you can already start to tell that he’s kind of actively involved in things that are not really on the up and up and then again, as they you know, they show in the show they don’t disclose their relationship to you know, employees and different people working at their house. But then that got me thinking have Kiki or Mohanad ever dated anybody that they worked with it and caused any drama at all?

Kiki Monique 

That was like always my worst nightmare when I would see people hooking up with work, I thought of like sleeping with you and then now sitting at a desk like that you walk by every I could never do it. I just couldn’t

Mohanad Elshieky 

Yes, it’s weird. Not recommended. Also, one thing to say about Sonny, and the drop out, they really did him a huge favor. They got Naveen Andrews to play him.

Hoja Lopez 

So beautiful.

Mohanad Elshieky 

I’m sorry. Like, come on. We’ve seen the real Sonny. I’m just like, like you’re trying to be like this man is hot. Yep. That’s why she fell for him. Like he’s just a dude.

Kiki Monique 

Yeah. Naveen was the only way it was gonna convince me that a guy that like had all of these terrible qualities I would still want to sleep with. Yeah, otherwise, it makes no sense like you’re terrible qualities and I find you not attractive, no.

Mohanad Elshieky  10:02

It’s so fucking weird. And it’s just like, the more I like read about her company in the money that she got the, I mean, the Dropout is not done yet. You know, like, it’s only like four episodes out so far as the time of recording, but it’s just the men around her and like how she just like to bring them in and making them like pay all of that money. I really can’t tell her what’s happening here. Like, is she that convincing? Are they that desperate? I’m not sure.

Hoja Lopez 

Yeah, she’s a cute girl at a bar asking for a martini, you know, and the guys are like coming up. And she’s like, thank you for this drink. And now goodbye. I want nothing to do with you at all. And I don’t mind a little bit of that behavior. Honestly, I think that that that can be a little, you know, that could be fine. But I’m not happy that she embezzled money from investors. But I would have preferred it just been from these rich dudes instead of affecting actual patients. And actual real people, you know?

Mohanad Elshieky 

Yeah, like for the record, I am not against anyone. Getting those like rich, like white dudes to pay you so much money to do anything, I do not care about them. I do not care about their money. Like these dummies just have too much money. And they’re just, they literally just have no idea as nothing as the fact that she then was like, No, this machine works. And we will let actual people use it and just miss on diseases that they might have or tell them that they’re fine. While they’re not. That’s an issue. I’m not trying

Kiki Monique 

to be a mean, girl. But look, I’m a girl. And sometimes the mean girl comes out. And I’m looking at Elizabeth and she’s, you know, a smart woman and all these things. But the reason I feel like she’s getting all this money isn’t because of necessarily her brain. It’s because these guys see again, like this like blonde woman and they’re just like, oh, yeah, like money to the skin. But as a woman, I just kept being like, she’s normal looking. All I’m saying is she just feels very normal looking. I just like in my head think like, you would have to be some stunner in order to like, pull off this sort of thing. And every time I see her, I just see this like woman who wears a turtleneck who like whose hair is like, unkempt. And she just has these men wrapped around her fingers. Like would I kill it and Silicon is what I’m saying.

Hoja Lopez  12:36

How can I get into Silicon says Kiki money. I do think that the angle of like her being somewhat charming. And for her deep voice being incredibly alluring and interesting to these people. But I do think that you have to have some kind of game like you have to be able to sell somebody a vision. I do think to a certain extent, she’s probably a very gifted, like, and convincing person and speaker. And a lot of the things that I hear about these companies is that they invest in like leadership and whether or not they believe in the leader versus the idea. Exactly. So I think in this case, they’re like, okay, well, maybe this product isn’t developed yet, or we don’t have all the answers about this product. But I really believe that this is the right person to steer this forward. So I think that there’s probably elements of that as well.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Oh, absolutely. I mean, her pedigree Yeah. Yeah. And like also, like most women are not willing to talk to these douchebags, they literally have no one to talk to them, except their other bros because they fucking suck. Yeah. And the idea that a woman is nice to them, like even like, doesn’t even have to be very nice, just like, you know, kind of like tickle their egos. Obviously, I’m not sure how much of it is like true. But like when the Walgreens guy, he was like, You can call me, Dr. J, or whatever they play basketball and she laughs like lame jokes, and calls him whatever he wants. He’s like, willing to give her millions of dollars just for that. Because you know, because I’m like, they’re bunch of losers. That’s all I can say about them.

Kiki Monique  14:06

It reminds me of the other Hulu series, we watch Pam and Tommy when Pam Anderson had to go to that conference in Mexico, just to be around all of these guys who had paid all of this money for this like, you know, conference and her as a guest there just to sit at a table with Pamela Anderson. And like, of course, she’s going to entertain them because she’s getting paid all this money, but it’s just like, okay, whatever, whatever, I need to do to get paid.

Hoja Lopez 

It’s a lot of like interesting power dynamics at play in that series, and in this series, and we don’t usually see like a female CEO or somebody at that level, like kind of toying with other people. And I love to see it a little bit. I know that’s bad. And I hate that she broke the law and I hate that people were hurt, but I always I just love a bad woman. Like I love it when women can reach a level to where their fraud can waste millions of dollars. You know, like it’s..

Mohanad Elshieky 

Again, but a lot of it and I think Kiki like talked about this a bit, you know the last episode. It’s a lot of what a white woman tears too, involved in it. She knows when to let these come out and they work in her favor. And you know, they were like literally about to vote her out as a CEO of the company because she kept fucking up. And then she just went in and just cried to them, and then they were like, we can’t do this to her.

Kiki Monique 

Well, yeah, I mean, you know, the white woman tears definitely came out during the trial, because, like, one of the most controversial things was how she was she, you know, in her trial, she said that Sonny was mentally and sexually abusive towards her, and sort of tried to, like, use that as a reason of like, why she was doing those things. Yeah. And I think he got walked back a bit. You know, they released what was it like pages and pages of the text messages between them. That was really to show like how they were really intertwining business with their personal. And it’s like, first of all, so many of those text messages were just so cringy, they were saying between each other, but it’s just kind of like on one hand, like we saw the relationship you had and now it’s like to say that when it’s benefiting you is also just like, oh, girl, come on, yeah.

Hoja Lopez  16:47

The trial is going to be really interesting and for me, like seeing everything come out kind of on Elizabeth’s side has been revealing because it is a narrative in some ways. And so Balwani’s style is gonna be, you know, a narrative where he’s defending himself from, you know, everything that she’s sort of accused him of, and then probably having his own negative narrative about Elizabeth. I mean, I don’t doubt that they’ll be sort of like some, some dirt slinging back and forth. I’m excited to watch that. Yeah, I’m very excited. And I know, Kerry Rue, the person who wrote the book about her, he went on in 2018. He did a Reddit AMA. And one of the things that really popped out for me of what he said, talking about some of the text messages, that they reinforced the idea that their relationship was kind of a partnership of equals. So in some ways, part of the trial is this game or escapade of, you know, pointing the finger at each other. But the truth is, a lot of the evidence actually points to the fact that Sonny is the one who actually voices some words of caution or expresses, like some misgivings, whereas Elizabeth never seems to be expressing those. That’s like hard evidence of..

Mohanad Elshieky 

Let’s not forget, like he joined a company later. So the fraud started before he was on the board of the company. So I mean, you know, you were doing this already. And there was no pressure, he was not involved with the company. Like I’m not saying this is a good like, this is still a man who fucking like, wasn’t in a relationship with a 19 years old. So he’s a fucking creep. But you’ve been doing this fraud for longer than that. And I think it’s also very interesting, because we see in the show, and this is a true thing that heard that word for Enron, which is like one of the biggest candles of like the century when they like went bankrupt. To see that happen to your dad and be like, this is, I’m gonna do this.

Hoja Lopez  18:45

I’m gonna do the exact same thing. Yeah, so particularly for the, you know, what she’s accused of, or what kind of came out in court is the idea that, you know, there’s 11 counts against her of wire fraud, or conspiracy to commit wire fraud. And in my research, I was like, what the hell is wire fraud? Like, what does it actually mean? And why do we keep like, using this particular thing as a device to catch these sort of like white collar criminals? And it’s just a really interesting to me feeling of, like, why do we use this? And essentially, it’s like the prosecution A, they have to prove that you were a part of the scheme to defraud people, but then they also have to prove that you knew that you were being dishonest and that you knew about the deception. And then also under the guise of that you use wire radio or television, or social media, or signals or internet or fax to commit this crime. So it’s a very broad, basically description that allows, you know the law to kind of capture a lot of people within that description. So it was just really interesting to me when I was like, what the hell is a wire fraud. So they find her guilty on four of those 11 accounts. And you know, just to mention a couple of them, some of the accounts that they found her guilty on was of defrauding lake shore Capital Management of essentially $100 million of wire transfer for mostly family holdings. And that was for $6 million. Like, and the list just kind of goes on, in terms of the people that she defrauded.

Kiki Monique  20:32

But it seemed like most of the charges that she was found guilty on, were really only for the big investor. That’s, like, the lesser charges that actually hurt like individual people, she wasn’t found guilty on.

Hoja Lopez 

Which is famously, the way that the American justice system functions is, yeah, they’re comfortable in Okay, giving money back to big companies and bailing out giant entities, but they’re not comfortable with the idea of, you know, like individual paying patients that were affected because of like, faulty blood testing results. So none of those wire frauds actually went through, which is a really interesting thing. And I think, you know, goes back to the idea of, like, you have to prove mal intent on each one of those. And it’s possible that they couldn’t prove it for those particular ones.

Mohanad Elshieky 

I mean, also, like is, is part of it, you know, because the American laws like very like situation, or like, it’s like, case by case thing, and you don’t want to set precedent. So if you basically do that, then so many other people will come and sue other drug companies and like, and all of that and you don’t want that you don’t want, you don’t want people like demanding money or like talking about, like, their rights being violated or any of that. You know, if you fraud a big company, then you know, that’s not good.

Kiki Monique 

Yeah. I mean, cuz like, you can pay one large, you know, 100-million-dollar payout. But God forbid, you had hundreds of millions of people who each deserved a payout, then you owe billions. Well, then you’re screwed.

Mohanad Elshieky  22:05

Because like, they know people don’t have money to go with these lawsuits. It’s fucked up.

Hoja Lopez 

Have you ever gotten like 17 cents from AT&T? Being like, sorry.

Kiki Monique 

The amount of emails I get saying, like, do you want to sign up for this class action? It’s like, I used to do them all until I started getting yeah, like 14 cents. And then I’m like, you know what? Keep your stupid pennies.

Hoja Lopez 

I hate that’s what they count on. And I hate that even in like this particular trial. We like the three of us. So clearly observe how like unjust these systems are towards people who can’t really afford to defend themselves. And so ultimately, out of all of this, the people that are most affected are always like patients. And hopefully, you know, in the Balwani case, and in the sentencing, that’s something that they take into account. We do the show as the idea of like, being empathetic or trying to understand why people do the things that they do and why we feel like an apology is necessary. I’m really struggling with Elizabeth because there’s something about the privilege of her upbringing, there’s something about just like, the idea that somebody wants to prove themselves and that being enough to then choose this kind of level of fraud. I’m on the struggle bus with trying to find redeeming qualities about her and I know that’s not our job, but damn.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Yeah, I’m just gonna go ahead and say like, mostly people like those tech bros, which covers both men and women. I have no sympathy or empathy for them. I truly was like, a bunch of fucking losers. Yeah, who I mean like, look at like Elon Musk’s Twitter account, that man now is posting the cringiest memes you can ever think of, the richest man in the world. And surely one of the most cringes people ever. It’s just a bunch of other bros just hyping him up all the time. I have no empathy, sympathy, nothing to them, they get more chances than any of us are afforded. And this is what they choose to do with their money. Just fuck other people and just like do the like little experiments and stuff. And also the other thing is like, you know, I was looking at like Elizabeth Holmes like board, and, my God, the people she had on.

Hoja Lopez  24:28

It’s a who, who, have sort of like financial war crimes

Mohanad Elshieky 

Henry Kissinger was on it. What was the selling point? They were like, hey, Henry, this is about blood that he was like, absolutely. He’s like I am in I fucking love this shit. Will people die? Maybe? Hopefully not. And he was like, well, yeah, sure. Hopefully not.

Hoja Lopez 

We’re all crossing our fingers.

Kiki Monique 

I mean, I’m calling it I’m telling you I don’t think that, I think should get at max for years. You say I’m telling you I think she’ll get maybe four years. And again, she’s leading her whole sentencing up living in the lap of luxury now, chilling in a state that most people would never even get to touch a foot on in their lifetime, and it will be very kush and she’ll get out, and she will still have a charmed life. And I guess that to me is why I have no sympathy because I’m like, you’re going to be fine when you come out. Most people who commit crimes are not okay, when they get out, most marginalized people I should say, who commit crimes are not okay, when they get out if they make it out at all. Because normally what happens is like they get in there, and they end up in the cycle and things happen, and they just end up staying there for so long.

Mohanad Elshieky 

You know it’s gonna be even worse. I just feel could be worse than that. No, I’ll tell you. I just feel it in my bones, especially with like, the fucking kid that she has. She will get jail time, but it will be house arrest, so she can spend time with a child. So it’s like, what three years or whatever of house arrest. She’s select living in this fucking mansion doing whatever she wants. And then basically, she literally misses nothing. And she’ll be fine.

Kiki Monique  26:24

So basically, quarantine, we’ve all been under house arrest, but we’ve had to do it in like shoe boxes.

Hoja Lopez 

She gets to have the maternity leave that the rest of America can’t. Exactly. She’s like, well, I’m on maternity leave.

Mohanad Elshieky  

That’s exactly what’s gonna happen. And in those three years, or something she’s gonna come out with, first of all, she’s gonna come out with like, some nonprofit, yeah, whatever. To be like, this is the […] apologizing, blah, blah, blah, and like defending people, blah, whatever. And then she will have some other product as just not gonna work, obviously.

Hoja Lopez

I think these are both good predictions like I cannot see a fault. And either than they might both come true. Or the idea of like a very short sentence, which again, when you realize that marginalized people go to jail for longer periods of time with harsher sentencing, for lesser crimes, and stuff that affects, you know, 1000s of people, if not millions of people than just sort of gets kind of swept under the rug. So I think we acknowledge that in and of herself. Elizabeth Holmes is sort of a bit of a monster. And then the system that’s going to judge her generally, is sort of built for people like her honestly. And again, the trial is, is really interesting, because we don’t know how it’s gonna go. But then also, I mean, part of her restitution ultimately is going to be that maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, the fines of $250,000 plus kind of restitution for each of those 11 counts, but they both have pleaded not guilty to all charges. They both are trying to get away with as much of it as they can. But they’ve I mean, federal prosecutors have drawn hundreds of possible witnesses, I know that they wanted to bring in like Kissinger and Rupert Murdoch. And you know, they even have a James Mattis, who’s the former US Secretary of Defense on the list for people that they wanted to testify, but those people are not going. They didn’t show up, they’re not going to be there. And ultimately, if this trial really is about, or that really was about kind of convincing jurors that the claims that she made to kind of investors and patients and corporate partners, were real, we go back to the same thing that we talked about last episode, which is, is this kind of the optimism of a very ambitious, cute startup leader lady, or is this the real machinations of somebody who, who knew what was happening? And the truth is, when they read those guilty verdicts, they decided that this is what was happening, that she was the machine and that she was making decisions behind that. And she knew that it was all abusive and manipulative, you know?

Mohanad Elshieky 

yeah, I mean, I think most of these people are just like, really, really believe in themselves in how smart they are. And the loss of lives means nothing it because like they keep reading about like people in the past who were you know, had these like big inventions and society to not accept them at first, but then they managed to get through him and made a big thing. And she think they are the same exact thing. And normal people are like nothing like it’s an unnecessary casualties, basically.

Kiki Monique

you know, the HBO documentary, the inventor, like the very first line, they talk about Thomas Edison, I mean, and his whole thing as an adventurer, he would make these promises, get people to invest in them, and then it toil away until he got it to work. And so, you know, obviously that is pretty normal in you know, startup world. It’s like you really truly believe in your yourself. But at some point you realize dreams do have deadlines. I like to say dreams don’t have deadlines, but some dreams do have deadlines exactly when you get to a point where you’ve just like worn it out, and that’s when you cross over into like, but then you’re into like, you can’t return zone because now you’ve taken all of this money that you spent all of this money. So now you have to forge ahead, and then you become a criminal. It’s a slippery slope. And I can understand how you can get there. It’s just that like, I unfortunately don’t think I’d ever get the chance to get even that far. Because people would be questioning me before I even got like $1 million, let alone hundreds of millions.

Hoja Lopez  30:38

Or trying to withdraw $12,000 from Bank of America by passing a polite and delicate note to a woman. Shout out to Ryan Coogler he’s best man alive but okay, I will say one positive thing out of this is that she did swindle Betsy DeVos out of $100 million. Yeah. And that brings me a little bit of joy.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Yeah, that’s okay with me.

Hoja Lopez 

I love it. I’m sure she’s still from a lot of people. But that’s one that I’m like, Okay. Maybe Holmes is doing one, is doing one for the team.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Exactly. Again, I don’t have any issue with all of the money she took from these rich people. Fuck that.

Hoja Lopez 

Okay, so to our apology base. I mean, I definitely think that Elizabeth has to apologize, I’d really doubt that she will, because part of her defense is that she never feels like she did anything wrong. And so I guess when it comes to an apology, do you ever dig your heels in either of you where you really know you should apologize internally, but you have decided that as a stand you will not like what do you knew? Okay, here we go. What is it about the idea? Because she clearly needs to apologize, but she not.

Kiki Monique  32:11

For me, it’s just more like when I don’t think the person deserves it, because I’m probably wrapped in some other reasons why, like, they don’t deserve it from me. Yeah, I mean, an Elizabeth case. You know, I think she’s just living in delusional world for so long. And she’s believing her own lies.

Mohanad Elshieky 

I think it would be very funny if one of the requirements of her like sentencing is that she apologized to people in her normal voice. Look, I’m sorry to everyone. Yeah, just like, oh, okay, I’m really stuck here. I cannot revert back. I wonder if it hurts when she does that. But that’s another conversation.

Kiki Monique 

I mean, if anything, she should at least apologize for failing. Because look, she made these promises, that she could save all of these people who have to do these blood draws that are just like, you know, so taxing on them, all of this time by like doing a blood prick, you know, and so at the very least, you could at least apologize and say, sorry, I thought I could do this, and I failed you as an inventor.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Exactly. And to the people who she fired, you know, like, a lot of people lost their jobs, and that fucking sucks.

Kiki Monique 

And some people lost their lives. I mean, yeah, remember the head scientists, you know, like, the way they, you know, treated him. It’s sad.

Hoja Lopez 

Again, going back to the thing that they said of her choosing fraud over business failure, it’s like, human beings are so desperately afraid of failure and public failure, that, that she was willing to push it to that length in order to avoid feeling the bad feeling and having other people see her in that specific light. And while I can identify with the emotion of not wanting to feel embarrassed, not wanting to feel failure, the vitriol and the craziness with which she protected herself, and her other people, is something some people around her and herself will have to forgive her for, because I don’t necessarily think that the population at large or other people will really be able to forgive her for.

Kiki Monique  34:27

Can I ask you a question? You know, I remember seeing in all of the photos when she’s going to trial pictures, usually she’s between her mother and her now husband, boyfriend, whomever he is, I never see her father. I don’t know. Is that because he passed or is it because like, he was also wrapped up in this Enron scandal and maybe looking at his own daughter go through this. He’s like, actually ashamed of her. I don’t know. I just I hadn’t seen him in any of the photos.

Hoja Lopez 

Yeah. I don’t know if they’re necessarily close. I looked up a little bit about him just in terms of like, you know, his background and the fact that he was wealthy. I know he’s like, currently still, like, he works as a consultant, kind of. So he still works, you know, with like project management. And it’s very sort of, like vague. So I imagine, like a lot of consultants, he just uses people that he knows to bring him in to do jobs and to kind of help but I don’t know anything about their relationship.

Kiki Monique 

I mean, because it would be interesting. I mean, he lost his livelihood. He was embarrassed, didn’t want to have to go ask money all because you know, his company was defrauding people. And here he has his offspring, doing the exact same thing, I would think it’d be hard for a father to look his daughter in the eye after that.

Hoja Lopez 

Yeah, that sounds probably like a not just a fraught relationship now. But also, again, as we see in the show, it seems like they put a lot of energy and hope and optimism into her career and into how smart she was. And it always sucks when the promise of something doesn’t meet up with the results. And this is just such a sad, spectacular fall from something that could have been a really amazing career a really amazing person, who, if without that sort of ego, or without maybe some of the, the, the dreams of it could have been somebody that we you know, as women could have looked up to and could have seen something like Oh, shit, like, it’s possible for more people to do it. And, and again, it’s always fucking hard because now it’s going to take the next blonde blue-eyed bitch, like 10 more years. You know what, I take that back? It’s gonna happen again.

Kiki Monique  36:42

Wait, I was gonna say I was sensing a little bit of empathy there. I saw I saw it coming out. I was like, oh, here it comes.

Hoja Lopez 

I’ve rolled it back in. I just sucked that right back into my body. And I was like, You know what? No, ma’am. But I guess in my mind, I really am waiting to not have to take a you know, so much blood out for the next time that I need to take tests because genuinely that, in essence, when it does happen, will really change people’s lives. And that was a part of the that was a part of the fantasy, because we all individually want that part of our lives to not be uncomfortable. And when it’s handed on a silver platter. It makes sense that people were really frickin excited about it. Of course.

Kiki Monique 

How many episodes are in total in the Hulu series?

Mohanad Elshieky 

Hopefully no more than eight. I’m tired of waiting.

Hoja Lopez 

We’re not gonna get Amanda Seifried for a full, you know, like 12-episode arc.

Kiki Monique 

The most it was like 9 or 10. Usually. Well, we won’t have a conclusion in real life because Sonny’s trial starts in March. Well, so that’s this month. Yeah. So we’ll see that live. And then then we gotta wait till fall to see this.

Mohanad Elshieky  38:04

I’m excited. I’m excited to watch when this year has come out about him. Too bad you can call it this always Sunny.

Hoja Lopez 

Were you holding on to that in your back pocket?

Mohanad Elshieky 

No, I literally just thought about it.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Okay, and now it’s time for my favorite segment. Sorry, not sorry, where we either apologize to someone, or we demand an apology. Like every week, I’m going to start with Oh Ha, what’s happening this week,

Hoja Lopez 

I would like to demand an apology, this time around. I’m feeling very confident. And I would like to get an apology for my dreams. And they have been sort of haunting me this week. Because I’ve been waking up like early at like 6am or something and then I go pee and then when I get back to sleep and those hours from like, 6am to like, 9am When I go back to sleep. I mean, the craziest shit has been happening in this noggin of mine, you guys. At one point, I had a dream that I was a sequin you know, like a sequence on a dress, a single sequence single sequence surrounded by sequence and I was like, I don’t know. I feel like this is too heavy. And then I went on a big thing to figure out what it meant. And I’ll be honest, I just think maybe it doesn’t make any sense.

Kiki Monique 

Yeah, I mean normally dreams like that means either you’ve done drugs or I will say that the going back to bed is similar to doing drugs because like you can have like a totally normal sleep but then when you wake up and try to go back to sleep, the dreams are never the same.

Hoja Lopez

Funky dreams in there, some funny nightmares where you know like stuck in place stuff or but anyways, I demand an apology maybe from my own brain and that whole system going on in there that I have no control over. You know, I’m just not into it. I would prefer a nice rock solid, hard sleep positive dreams. I would like sexy dreams. I would like to have nice fun dreams of me being a millionaire, but instead, I don’t know I’m trapped in like with cave dwellers underground, surviving for food.

Mohanad Elshieky  40:22

I don’t think yeah, I mean, dreaming about being a millionaire is great. I had that last night. And then I woke up and I was like, well, I am not. So it is disappointing how they end.

Kiki Monique 

It’s the same when I’m eating something really good in my dream and wake up. And it’s not really there being poor and hungry when you wake up is the worst part?

Hoja Lopez 

Reality check when the dream is not true.

Mohanad Elshieky 

So Kiki, what’s happening with you this week?

Kiki Monique

Well, interestingly enough, it’s sort of revolves around sleep too. But I’m going to give an apology. And I’m going to give it to my couch. Because as you know, for the last year, I’ve pretty much been exclusively sleeping on my couch, because, you know, I watch TV. And then it’s just like, I fall asleep. But like for the last like, two, maybe three weeks, I have been solely devoted to bed sleep, I’ve been sleeping in my bed every single night. So I feel like I owe an apology for just kind of abandoning my couch. And just to say, like, I’m probably not going to return anytime soon. Because, you know, we had SuChin Pak who is like the co-hosts of Adhikar on our show recently. And her and COO lab are always talking about this pillow that they like, are obsessed with like, and like their audiences obsessed with. And so I’m like, okay, let me see what this pillow is about. So I got one of these pillows. I was look, I was skeptical at first because it’s like this over the head pillow, which, you know, I’m already a weird sleeper as it is. And I thought like, okay, over the head, is it going to feel like restrictive am I going to feel like I’m suffocating. But like, it’s actually like really the opposite. So it’s like this sleep crown pillow and it has liked a curve out where your mouth goes. And so you just like lay it over your head. And you can sort of tuck it behind your head, even if you sleep on your back. Or if you sleep on your side, kind of just wrap it around. So it’s kind of like having like, like, almost like a weighted blanket or like a face mask for you. Or like a weighted blanket for your face. Right. And I literally have not, I’ve been sleeping so well because like normally, like I have these outside lights that like automatically go off anytime there’s any motion and it’s like, you know, feral cat, possum, whatever they like, are always on. So it’s like, it blocks that completely out. Which is really, really nice. And I actually sleep through the night. And look, I’ll trust anything. I mean, the person who invented this pillow apparently is like some restorative yoga teacher, and who’s all about like sleep and so I’m like, okay, I trust people who spend their lives just trying to like get me comfortable and get me to sleep. So I’m sorry to my couch but I don’t think I’ll be making a return because I purposely leave this like sleep crumble because you know, it’s like it is a little bit pricier it’s like made in the US it’s like you know handmade all of that so yeah, and so I’m not gonna leave it on my couch for my cats to scratch up I purposely leave it in my bedroom. So in order to get to it I have to go to sleep on my bed so I’m sorry to my couch but I don’t think I’ll be making a return anytime soon.

Hoja Lopez  43:39

You’re in a self-care routine sounds like I need something like that too, to just ward away the bad dreams.

Kiki Monique 

I think it will help it might have with your dreams for real.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Well, I’m gonna demand an apology like I do every week. I never apologize. I cannot remember the last time I’ve done anything wrong. Some of us are just born like this and that’s fine. The Apology I’m demanding is from LaGuardia Airport. If you’re not familiar with LaGuardia, and you’re not from New York haven’t traveled into it or anything. It’s an open-air prison that has flights sometimes that come out of it if you’re lucky, the flight will be there and you will leave. No promises. I was traveling to Vermont. Burlington, Vermont, great city. Great coffee by the way. Very nice people. Everyone there in Burlington look like they pay their rent in compliments. It was great.

Kiki Monique 

They have really good syrup.

Mohanad Elshieky

They do. Yes. But LaGuardia other than being just an awful airport with the hottest coffee to ever exist. You cannot touch like the when they give you the coffee like it’s not supposed to be touched by hand or mouth, I guess.

Kiki Monique 

Sounds like a lawsuit.

Mohanad Elshieky 

I feel like if you sue them, it will crumble. They’re like, literally we have nothing. We’ll just close. You know the thing they do where they, when you get to your gate, like let’s say the gate is B1. Yeah. And then maybe like 20 or like half hour before your flight or something. They’re like, oh, sorry, we’re changing the gate. And now it’s gate. B300. It’s only six miles away. And I checked my health app and that day, I got to my 10,000 steps. And nothing worse that can happen to you other than just like having to walk really fast. When it’s obvious it’s cold outside in New York City like wearing a coat. But you’re cold and also sweaty.

Kiki Monique

It’s the worst I actually refuse to do it one time. I went limping up I just like threw in a limp to one of those like guys with the tramps and I was like, and he just like get on. I faked my way into those trams before I like running down a mile long hallway I won’t do it.

Mohanad Elshieky  46:11

The only saving grace was I got something from Shake Shack and it I don’t know why maybe because of the whole trip being just in torture. Probably the best meal I’ve ever had. So thank you Shake Shack, I guess.

Kiki Monique 

that actually I’ve been to that Shake Shack you’re speaking of and it’s actually is very delicious.

Hoja Lopez  

Call it emotional reward eating. This is exactly right.

Mohanad Elshieky 

Exactly. Especially that the flight did not have any food or coffee or anything on it. They were just like, hey, like you can like sit on one of the wings if you want to…

Hoja Lopez 

Well if you want to go to any niche airport, any little small airport is definitely going to be more expensive. But welcome back home. Your home now.

Mohanad Elshieky

Thank you.

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!