Blood-testing startup Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, were once the subjects of spectacular praise, hailed for their promise to revolutionize diagnostic testing in …
Blood-testing startup Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, were once the subjects of spectacular praise, hailed for their promise to revolutionize diagnostic testing in healthcare. Federal investigations soon followed as the company’s practices raised suspicions. Now, Holmes is a defendant in a federal fraud trial. Here’s how she got here and what you can expect from the trial: When Elizabeth Holmes was 9 years old, she told relatives she wanted to be a billionaire when she grew up, according to Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, which documents Theranos’ rise and fall. Around the same time, Holmes wrote in a letter, «What I really want out of life is to discover something new, something that mankind didn’t know was possible to do.» Holmes studied chemical engineering at Stanford before dropping out in 2003 to work on Theranos when she was 19. In 2014, she was dubbed the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, boasting an estimated net worth of $4.5 billion. Holmes was one of a handful of women leading a Silicon Valley unicorn and was hailed as a visionary. Taking after Steve Jobs, one of her heroes, Holmes often donned black turtlenecks and never took vacations. She also drew attention for her uncharacteristically deep voice, which some former Theranos employees believe was faked, perhaps to help Holmes better assimilate in the male-dominated startup world. Theranos was a blood-testing startup that developed a test for a variety of health conditions with blood from a single finger prick, unlike traditional blood tests, which often require multiple vials of blood.
