Who is Elizabeth Holmes?
Elizabeth Holmes is the founder and former CEO of Theranos, a now-defunct company that was once valued at $9 billion. She is currently facing criminal charges for allegedly defrauding investors and is awaiting trial. If convicted, she could face up to 20 years in prison.
Theranos was a Silicon Valley startup founded by Elizabeth Holmes in 2003. Originally known as “The Blood Edison,” the company developed technology that could run blood tests using just a few drops of blood instead of traditional venipuncture procedures.
The company claimed to have revolutionized blood testing, and its early investors included Larry Ellison (founder of Oracle) and Tim Draper (co-founder of Draper Fisher Jurvetson).
In 2014, Holmes was listed as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, with a net worth of $4.5 billion. However, by 2015 Theranos’ reputation had begun to suffer after several reports emerged alleging that the company’s blood tests were inaccurate and had misled investors about its technology.
Holmes was also featured in a recent HBO documentary called The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, which chronicles her rise and fall. Before her arrest, Holmes was considered a wunderkind in the tech world, being named the youngest self-made female billionaire at the age of 27. Holmes has since dropped out of the public eye and is living a private life.
Holmes has been called the “Queen of Silicon Valley” and is currently a co-founder and CEO of Theranos. She has also been named number one on Time magazine’s 100 most influential people worldwide. Her work has helped change the way we think about healthcare, and she is an inspiration to many young entrepreneurs.
Elizabeth Holmes beginnings
Holmes was born in Washington, D.C., in 1984 to Noel and Connie Holmes. She has a brother and sister. Her father is a Congressional staff member, and her mother is a Congressional lobbyist. She grew up in Houston and attended St. John’s School.
From a young age, Elizabeth Holmes showed an aptitude for business. At the age of 7, she had a book with detailed engineering drawings with which she tried to invent a time machine.
However, at nine years, Elizabeth had written a letter addressing her father about her ambitions to discover something new in her life, something that could leave the world wondering how she did it.
She started her first company at the age of nine, and by the time she was a teenager, she had already interned at various businesses, including a law firm and a hospital.
After high school, Holmes enrolled at Stanford University to study chemical engineering. During her time at Stanford, she came up with the idea for Theranos, a company that would revolutionize the medical industry.
At Stanford University, Elizabeth Holmes discovered a way to quickly and easily test for multiple diseases with a single drop of blood. She discovered a scanner that could detect infections and release the required antibiotics. She also developed a portable device that could be used to test for Ebola, HIV, and other viruses.
Her work has the potential to change the way we diagnose and treat diseases. Ebola, for example, is currently only diagnosed through a lengthy and expensive process that requires sending samples to a specialized laboratory. With her new device, a diagnosis could be made in minutes, and treatment options could be more readily available.
However, Elizabeth dropped out of Stanford University in 2003. This is because she was passionate about starting her own company and felt she could not accomplish her goals while also attending school full-time.
This is when she approached Channing Robertson, who was one of the professors at the university. Holmes suggested that they should start a company and this is how Real-Time Cures came to be.
After a while, she changed the company’s name to Theranos and filed a patent for a wearable device that was useful for administering medication. To focus on building Theranos, Holmes dropped out of school and started working in a college house basement.
Her Meteoric Rise
In 2003, Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos, a blood-testing startup that claimed to run over 200 blood tests from a single drop of blood. Theranos grew rapidly and was valued at $9 billion by 2014.
Theranos project was funded by a number of high-profile investors, including Larry Ellison, Rupert Murdoch, and Betsy DeVos. Elizabeth Holmes herself was the largest shareholder in the company. Other significant investors in the company included John Doerr and Ben Silbermann.
Due to her known skills, Holmes was invited by Dr. Flier to join the board of fellows at the medical school, where she ended up being removed after the scandal. Flier claimed that Holmes was confident, but when asked about the technology she used to market her industry, she seemed not to understand it clearly.
But in 2015, investigative journalists began to raise questions about Theranos’ technology, and the company quickly unraveled. In 2018, Holmes and her former President, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, were indicted on several counts of fraud and conspiracy. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2019.
Theranos’ problems can be traced back to three primary sources: the accuracy of its blood-testing technology, Holmes’s aggressive marketing tactics, and the company’s lack of transparency about its finances.
In 2015, a whistleblower raised some concerns about the Edison, which was the company’s flagship testing device. It was noted that Theranos used machines from other manufacturers to conduct its tests.
Defrauded Investors, patients, and doctors
Patients and doctors
The prosecutors’ complaint filed against Theranos by former employees claims that the company used false claims to defraud doctors and patients. The complaint alleges that Theranos submitted false claims to government healthcare programs and private insurers for reimbursement of laboratory tests that were never performed or were not medically necessary. The complaint also alleges that patients were defrauded by being billed for tests that were not performed.
According to the complaint, Theranos hired doctors to write false prescriptions for tests that were not medically necessary in a bid to defraud doctors and patients. It also alleges that Theranos paid employees to falsify patient records to make it appear as though patients had received required tests.
Defendants
The defendants defrauded the investors in Elizabeth Holmes and The Theranos Corporation. The defendants misrepresented the true capabilities of Theranos Corporation’s products and technology, leading to massive losses for the investors.
In addition, the defendants fraudulently used investor money to finance their lavish lifestyles, leaving many people struggling financially. While the company claimed its technology could provide accurate blood tests even without a needle, the indictment alleges this was not the case.
The SEC lawsuit seeks restitution for those harmed by the Theranos fraud and a ban on Holmes and Balwani from running any public company. The indictment filed in San Francisco on Friday charges two top executives at Silicon Valley startup Theranos with massive fraud. This is based on allegations that its blood-testing technology was overhyped and actually did not work as well as claimed.
Elizabeth Holmes’s Arrest
Elizabeth Holmes was arrested in 2018 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the (FBI). Her arrest was a significant blow for Theranos, which has been struggling to revive its reputation since the SEC allegations came to light. The arrest also raises questions about the efficacy of so-called “unicorn” startups, often heralded as innovative and exciting but which may be scams.
In 2015, Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and former President Ramesh Balwani were indicted on federal fraud charges. Balwani was also indicted on nine wire frauds, and two money laundering counts. The charges stem from Theranos’s claim that it’s a desktop blood-testing device, Edison, could analyze a small drop of blood from a finger stick and provide an array of test results.
Elizabeth Holmes’ Trial
The Elizabeth Holmes trial was set to begin in March of 2020. The trial was expected to last for six to eight weeks. The head of the trial during the Elizabeth Holmes case varied depending on which stage of the trial was taking place. However, some key figures who may have held this position include Judge William Alsup and prosecutor Samuel A. Cummings.
Both of these individuals played a significant role in the case, and their decisions could have had a large impact on the outcome. Additionally, Holmes’ defense team likely included attorneys such as David Boies and Helen Phillips. As such, it is difficult to say definitively who was responsible for the trial’s overall direction.
Jury selection was set to begin on March 2, 2020. On March 9, the Opening statements were delivered, and there was a Direct examination of witnesses by attorneys starting on March 16th to March 21st. However, Cross-examination of witnesses by attorneys was done on April 5-7.
The trial was expected to focus on whether or not Elizabeth Holmes defrauded investors of her blood-testing company, Theranos. The trial was also expected to focus on whether or not Holmes lied to doctors and patients about the accuracy of Theranos’ blood-testing technology.
It was also expected to include testimony from Holmes’ former business partners and members of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). While it is still unclear exactly how much damage Theranos caused, its collapse has likely cost investors millions of dollars and may have derailed many other promising startups. If convicted, Holmes could face up to 20 years in prison.
