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Comment by bane | Hacker News Reader

Not too much new here except:

- focus is on Balwani, the COO who drove to work in cars with vanity plates on his sports cars that read DAZKPTL and VDIVICI

- Balwani and Holmes met in Beijing as part of a Stanford course in China, she was young and bullied by the other students and Balwani took her under his wing

- apparently Holmes and Balwani were dating, she fired him, they aren't together and because of the ongoing criminal probe have been instructed not to speak with each other

- Balwani had a small war against Glassdoor reviews including having HR post fake ones and pressuring Glassdoor into taking down overly negative ones

- Holmes' weirdly low voice was an act! She's been caught using her normal register.

- They invited VP Biden to tour a fake lab.

Man the onion layers of weirdness just never stop peeling away about this company.

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I called out the fake voice thing years ago. It was blatantly obvious, but I guess people were afraid of being "sexist".

Also curiously sanpaku, not that that really means anything. JFK was sanpaku as well, so... meh.

> Balwani had a small war against Glassdoor reviews including having HR post fake ones and pressuring Glassdoor into taking down overly negative ones

This now seems par for the course. Many many companies are posting fake Glassdoor reviews (and trying to get bad ones taken down) now.

> Holmes' weirdly low voice was an act! She's been caught using her normal register.

Was going to say that's kind of a silly thing say, but after watching a few videos it is kind of unsettling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YecjzEScXqU&t=105

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGfaJZAdfNE&t=403

Had the other signals not been there I'd say, whatever, they want to appear more powerful by using "top 10 tips and tricks of persuasion". However given the other controversy and shadiness it just adds to the pile.

They kind of glossed over it, but they were romantically involved? Apart from the age difference which is creepy enough, how was this kosher given she was his superior?

I'm curious though. Why did she fake a low voice? What does that achieve?

The low voice bit isn't in the article, was it previously?

I believe it’s in the video

> Holmes' weirdly low voice was an act! She's been caught using her normal register.

I dunno, there's no actual evidence of that though? He just mentioned an anecdote from one employee.

It seems a bit far fetched... How would the overhead of such an act be worth it? And in 10+ years she never slipped up on video? And what about everyone that knows her in real life?

How would the overhead of such an act be worth it? And in 10+ years she never slipped up on video? And what about everyone that knows her in real life?

I actually know someone who does this (disclaimer: an ex-boyfriend of my wife). He's a scrawny little guy, arms like noodles but he puts on this big... booming... voice. He's done it for so long that I guess it's become a habit but far from having the desired effect people just snigger about it behind his back. I guess there was a book or a "guru" at some point that advised this in order to seem more leader-y.

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