Elizabeth Holmes. Crazy eyes. = red flag.
Cliff nizzotes
Holmes went to Stanford to study chemical engineering. When she was a freshman, she became a "president's scholar," an honor which came with a $3,000 stipend to go toward a research project.
As a sophomore, Holmes went to one of her professors, Channing Robertson, and said: "Let's start a company." With his blessing, she founded Real-Time Cures, later changing the company's name to Theranos.
Theranos' business model was based around the idea that it ran blood tests using proprietary technology that required only pinprick in your finger and a small amount of blood. Holmes said the tests would be able to detect medical conditions like cancer and high cholesterol.
Holmes took investors' money on the condition that she wouldn't have reveal how Theranos' technology worked. Plus, she would have final say over everything having to do with the company.
At one point, Holmes was the world's youngest self-made female billionaire with a net-worth of around $4.5 billion.
By August 2015, the FDA began investigating Theranos, and regulators from the government body that oversees laboratories found "major inaccuracies" in the testing Theranos was doing on patients.
By October 2015, Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou published his investigation into Theranos' struggles with its technology. Carreyrou's reporting sparked the beginning of the company's downward spiral.
Carreyrou found that Theranos' blood-testing machine, named Edison, couldn't give accurate results, so Theranos was running its samples through the same machines used by traditional blood-testing companies.
By 2016, the FDA, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and SEC were all looking into Theranos.
In March 2018, Theranos, Holmes, and Balwani were charged with "massive fraud" by the SEC. Holmes agreed to give up financial and voting control of the company, pay a $500,000 fine, and return 18.9 million shares of Theranos stock. She also isn't allowed to be the director or officer of a publicly traded company for 10 years.
The rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes, who started Theranos and became the world's youngest female billionaire before it all came crashing down
Cliff nizzotes
Holmes went to Stanford to study chemical engineering. When she was a freshman, she became a "president's scholar," an honor which came with a $3,000 stipend to go toward a research project.
As a sophomore, Holmes went to one of her professors, Channing Robertson, and said: "Let's start a company." With his blessing, she founded Real-Time Cures, later changing the company's name to Theranos.
Theranos' business model was based around the idea that it ran blood tests using proprietary technology that required only pinprick in your finger and a small amount of blood. Holmes said the tests would be able to detect medical conditions like cancer and high cholesterol.
Holmes took investors' money on the condition that she wouldn't have reveal how Theranos' technology worked. Plus, she would have final say over everything having to do with the company.
At one point, Holmes was the world's youngest self-made female billionaire with a net-worth of around $4.5 billion.
By August 2015, the FDA began investigating Theranos, and regulators from the government body that oversees laboratories found "major inaccuracies" in the testing Theranos was doing on patients.
By October 2015, Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou published his investigation into Theranos' struggles with its technology. Carreyrou's reporting sparked the beginning of the company's downward spiral.
Carreyrou found that Theranos' blood-testing machine, named Edison, couldn't give accurate results, so Theranos was running its samples through the same machines used by traditional blood-testing companies.
By 2016, the FDA, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and SEC were all looking into Theranos.
In March 2018, Theranos, Holmes, and Balwani were charged with "massive fraud" by the SEC. Holmes agreed to give up financial and voting control of the company, pay a $500,000 fine, and return 18.9 million shares of Theranos stock. She also isn't allowed to be the director or officer of a publicly traded company for 10 years.
The rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes, who started Theranos and became the world's youngest female billionaire before it all came crashing down