She was “the youngest billionaire in the world,” according to Forbes magazine. The “next Steve Jobs,” said Inc, another major business magazine. In 2014, Elizabeth Holmes, then 30 years old, was on top of the world. She dropped out of Stanford University to found a company valued at $9 billion, Theranos. What did she promise? To revolutionize disease diagnosis.
The Theranos promised that, with just a few drops of blood taken from a finger prick, the company could quickly detect diseases like cancer and diabetes. Powerful people were drawn to the promises and invested heavily in the business. U.S. Treasury Secretary George Schultz, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, and America’s wealthiest family, the Waltons, were among her supporters. This backing gave Holmes credibility.
But in 2015, the “world” created by the entrepreneur began to crumble when a whistleblower raised concerns about Theranos’ main testing device, called Edison. The Wall Street Journal published a series of damning allegations claiming that Theranos’ test results were unreliable and that the company was using commercially available machines made by other manufacturers to obtain most of its results.
Lawsuits against Theranos began to pile up. Investors cut ties, and in 2016, U.S. regulators barred Holmes from operating her blood testing service for two years. In 2018, Theranos was dissolved.
In March of that year, Holmes, along with her ex-boyfriend, Ramesh “Sunny,” who helped her launch the company, was arrested on criminal charges of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud. She was released on bail.
Prosecutors argued that she knowingly misled patients about the tests and greatly exaggerated the company’s performance to investors.
Holmes lives in California with her partner William “Billy” Evans, heir to the Evans Hotel Group. They have one child and she is pregnant with a second.
Holmes’ lawyers said she should not face a prison sentence, arguing that she was not a danger to society. They offered in her defense testimonies from more than 130 people, including New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.
But in the United States, justice is often served. Holmes was sentenced to 135 months (11 years, 3 months) in federal prison for defrauding investors of Theranos, Inc. out of hundreds of millions of dollars. Because she is pregnant, she will not have to report to serve her sentence until April of next year. Her lawyers will appeal the sentence, which could also help delay the start of her sentence or even change the current ruling.
The story of Elizabeth Holmes has become a series “The Dropout,” available on Star+. The protagonist is played by Amanda Seyfried. The plot tells the story of Elizabeth, the founding of her successful business, and how everything went wrong.