Elizabeth Holmes is rebranding herself as a sweet, devoted mother. Will anyone buy it?

theguardian.com:

M eet Liz Holmes. She is a devoted mother of two little kids who loves nothing more than family outings to the zoo, walking her dog, and talking to her husband in a very normal voice that is absolutely nothing like the weird baritone her evil alter ego, Elizabeth, affected.

You remember Elizabeth Holmes, don’t you? Unlike nice, sweet Liz, Elizabeth was a bit of a schemer. Last year Holmes was convicted on four counts of defrauding investors, by pretending that her blood-testing startup, Theranos, was functional when it wasn’t, and given more than 11 years in prison. She was due to start her sentence on 27 April, but filed a last-minute appeal, buying her a little more time at home. How did she decide to spend those last precious moments of freedom? Taking her kids to the zoo and doing a photoshoot for the New York Times. After almost seven years of media silence, Holmes recently spent several days opening up to a Times writer over berries and Mexican food. The result is a 5,000-word profile introducing her new persona to the world.

Holmes may never have perfected Theranos’s blood-testing technology but she was always brilliant at branding. Her original persona was almost a paint-by-numbers of what the world thought a tech visionary should look like: she wore black turtlenecks like Steve Jobs; she dropped out of Stanford; she was a vegan on a strict green juice diet, and she was secretive and self-restrained. Before everything fell apart, the press ate her image up. She was hailed as “the next Steve Jobs” and celebrated as “the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire”.

Now that her previous incarnation has failed, it’s fascinating to watch Holmes pivot. Her CEO persona, she is keen to explain, was an act: “a character