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“Don’t worry about the future, we’re in good hands.”

So said former US president Bill Clinton in 2015, as he introduced Elizabeth Holmes to an adoring New York crowd.

It seemed an uncontroversial statement at the time, as he hailed the achievements of a woman who had become America’s youngest self-made female billionaire after taking Silicon Valley by storm.

A hub for the world’s biggest tech companies, the only thing more synonymous with this infamous stretch of northern California than scientific breakthroughs and innovative gadgets were the rich white men who were invariably behind them – turtleneck jumpers and smart trouser-sneaker combos in tow.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton speaks with Jack Ma, executive chairman of Alibaba Group, and Elizabeth Holmes, CEO of Theranos, during the Clinton Global Initiative's annual meeting in New York
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Bill Clinton and Elizabeth Holmes at the Clinton Global Initiative’s 2015 meeting in New York

Holmes – a high school computer whizz turned Harvard dropout – was a bona fide gatecrasher, her stunning rise to the cover of Forbes magazine powered by her founding health technology firm Theranos and its rapid ascent to a peak valuation of $9bn. Look back on what it was promising to deliver, and it’s easy to see why.

Revolutionary blood tests were at the heart of its pitch, ones which could be performed at phenomenal speed with merely a small drop required – and no needles.

Holmes’s catchphrase became “change the world”, such were her assertions that the equipment her company had developed could test for dozens of diseases in one fell swoop.

She insisted it would change healthcare in the US, not just by speeding up and streamlining trips to the doctor, but by eventually rendering such visits obsolete by selling the gizmos in stores.

It took more than a decade for such claims to be exposed as the stuff of science-fiction, but Holmes’s shameless willingness to talk the talk regardless helped her become one of the darlings of Silicon Valley, raising hundreds of millions from investors and venture capitalists.

As Theranos grew, her public image was crafted to perfection to make her the perfect face of one of America’s most exciting companies, famously adopting the aforementioned turtlenecks from her idol Steve Jobs, the late Apple founder, and speaking in a strikingly deep voice which added extra gravitas to her every word.

Fame isn’t for everyone, but for Holmes it seemed elementary.

Nothing, it seemed, could go wrong. Until it did. Big time.

Theranos collapsed and Ms Holmes now faces a criminal trial for wire fraud
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Theranos reached a value of $9bn

How the lie was exposed

Holmes’s empire began to unravel upon the publication of a bombshell expose by The Wall Street Journal, which reported that Theranos’s technology was profoundly flawed.

The devices used to collect people’s blood, which the firm dubbed “nanotainers”, were said to be so far off the mark that Theranos had in fact been using other companies’ equipment to carry out blood tests in its laboratories.

The most distressing piece of the Journal’s report was that the company’s ex-chief scientist, Briton Ian Gibbons, had tried to take his own life after telling his wife the tech did not work. He died shortly after from liver failure.

The stories emerged just a month after Holmes had shared the stage with Bill Clinton.

Mr Carreyrou said Holmes channelled Silicon Valley's 'fake it 'til you make it' culture
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Silicon Valley is home to some of the biggest names in tech

As described by Sky’s Ian King when Theranos went bust in 2018, three years after the Journal’s report, key to the company keeping the wool fixed firmly over the public’s eyes until then had been an almost cult-like culture among its executives and staff, and one of extreme secrecy.

Neither are unique to Silicon Valley – some of the big tech personalties who have emerged over the years remain an odd focus of worship in some corners of the internet – but rarely have they combined to such destructive effect.

The journalist who broke the story, John Carreyrou, has since written a book on the scandal called Bad Blood, which stands to be turned into a feature film. There’s perhaps a cruel irony that it’s being produced by Apple, the company whose late co-founder was a source of such inspiration for Holmes.

Her rise and fall also inspired a hit podcast series called The Dropout, and a subsequent Hulu series of the same name starring Amanda Seyfried.

The show presents Holmes as a brave, smart, single-minded young woman determined to succeed, and she is initially easy to root for. As Apple designer Ana Arriola tells Holmes in a scene when she attempts to recruit her following the launch of the first iPhone: “Honestly, it’s just really exciting to me that you’re a young female CEO, instead of a cocky little boy in a sweatshirt.”

But Holmes’s goal of becoming a wealthy star of the biotech scene quickly overcomes all other instincts – including a willingness to tell the truth.

It’s a trait that left some staff feeling deeply uneasy, not just Gibbons and Arriola, who describes her time at Theranos on her LinkedIn page as “altruism through corrupt unethical science-fiction”.

Amanda Seyfried as Holmes in The Dropout: Pic Disney+
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Amanda Seyfried as Holmes in The Dropout: Pic Disney+

How a life unravelled

Carreyrou’s revelations, which Holmes has admitted trying to silence, sparked investigations by medical and financial regulators in the US. In a development which would once have been unthinkable, the now 34-year-old was facing criminal charges in 2018.

She and the president of Theranos, ex-lover Romesh Balwani (who she has since accused of sexual assault), were accused of engaging “in a multi-million-dollar scheme to defraud investors, a separate scheme to defraud doctors and patients”, and each faced two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud.

Former Theranos President and COO Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani smiles after a hearing at a federal court in San Jose. Pic: Reuters
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Former Theranos president Ramesh Balwani

Among those defrauded investors were the likes of Rupert Murdoch and the American pharmacy giant Walgreens, while similarly big names had been attracted to Theranos’s board of directors.

Among them were former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, and an ex-director of the US Centers for Disease Control.

All of them had been hoodwinked by Holmes, who had founded Theranos aged just 18 and quickly learned how to tell her backers exactly what they wanted – and she needed them – to hear.

As Eric Jackson, a startup founder and author of The PayPal Wars, put it to Sky News: “There is almost endemic to the system a need to, I don’t want to say exaggerate, but to tell a narrative that’s compelling to investors. At a certain point hype does have to be in line with credibility, if not you’re in an instance of good old-fashioned fraud.”

Whether it was a matter of delusion, falling victim to the treacherous “fake it ’til you make it” culture that permeates American startups, or something more sinister, Holmes maintained during her trial that she initially believed her company’s purportedly revolutionary blood tests were real.

“I wanted to convey the impact the company could make for people and for health care,” she told the court of her meetings with investors.

To prosecutors, such assertions were the consequence of a woman who was “out of time and out of money”.

Having launched her company by repurposing family funds meant for her Harvard degree, taking it mainstream meant doing whatever it took to attract her big time investors and venture capitalists.

The once-enamoured former US secretary of defence Jim Mattis, who joined the company board, told the trial: “There just came a point when I didn’t know what to believe about Theranos any more.”

REFILE - ADDING COUNTRY Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes arrives for a hearing at a federal court in San Jose, California, U.S., July 17, 2019. REUTERS/Stephen Lam
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Holmes arrives for a hearing in San Jose in 2019

‘She chose lies when we needed truth’

Holmes’s sentencing on Friday comes after she was convicted of fraud earlier this year, her years-long scam having failed to move the jury as it had done her backers.

After a case which gripped the world, just as her rise to fame had done, US federal prosecutors want the judge to jail her for 15 years, a term considered appropriate for “one of the most substantial white collar offences Silicon Valley or any other district has seen”.

Balwani has been left waiting until next month for his sentencing, having also been convicted of multiple fraud counts during a separate trial.

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In a 46-page brief last week, assistant US attorney Robert S Leach wrote of Holmes: “She repeatedly chose lies, hype, and the prospect of billions of dollars over patient safety and fair dealing with investors.

“Elizabeth Holmes’ crimes were not failing, they were lying – lying in the most serious context, where everyone needed her to tell the truth.”

A counter document from Holmes’s attorneys, totalling 82 pages, insisted her reputation had been permanently and unfairly destroyed, given it had turned her into a “caricature to be mocked and vilified”.

They are appealing for a sentence of no more than 18 months.

More than 130 friends, family, former investors and employees have also submitted letters to the judge, Edward Davila of San Jose, California, to appeal for leniency.

Senator Cory Booker used his to hail Holmes, still only 38, as someone who “can, despite mistakes, make the world a better place”.

Whether that’s true or not, she won’t be able to from behind bars.

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Stock markets slump for second day running after Trump announces tariffs – in worst day for indexes since COVID

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Stock markets slump for second day running after Trump announces tariffs - in worst day for indexes since COVID

Worldwide stock markets have plummeted for the second day running as the fallout from Donald Trump’s global tariffs continues.

While European and Asian markets suffered notable falls, American indexes were the worst hit, with Wall Street closing to a sea of red on Friday following Thursday’s rout – the worst day in US markets since the COVID-19 pandemic.

As it happened: Worst week’s trading in five years

All three of the US’s major indexes were down by more than 5% at market close; The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 5.5%, the S&P 500 was 5.97% lower, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 5.82%.

The Nasdaq was also 22% below its record-high set in December, which indicates a bear market.

Read more: What’s a bear market?

Ever since the US president announced the tariffs on Wednesday evening, analysts estimate that around $4.9trn (£3.8trn) has been wiped off the value of the global stock market.

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Mr Trump has remained unapologetic as the markets struggle, posting in all-caps on Truth Social before the markets closed that “only the weak will fail”.

The UK’s leading stock market, the FTSE 100, also suffered its worst daily drop in more than five years, closing 4.95% down, a level not seen since March 2020.

And the Japanese exchange Nikkei 225 dropped by 2.75% at end of trading, down 20% from its recent peak in July last year.

Pic: Reuters
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US indexes had the worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. Pic: Reuters

Trump holds trade deal talks – reports

It comes as a source told CNN that Mr Trump has been in discussions with Vietnamese, Indian and Israeli representatives to negotiate bespoke trade deals that could alleviate proposed tariffs on those countries before a deadline next week.

The source told the US broadcaster the talks were being held in advance of the reciprocal levies going into effect next week.

Vietnam faced one of the highest reciprocal tariffs announced by the US president this week, with 46% rates on imports. Israeli imports face a 17% rate, and Indian goods will be subject to 26% tariffs.

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Do Trump’s tariffs add up?

Read more:
Markets gave Trump a clear no-confidence vote
There were no winners from Trump’s tariff gameshow

China – hit with 34% tariffs on imported goods – has also announced it will issue its own levy of the same rate on US imports.

Mr Trump said China “played it wrong” and “panicked – the one thing they cannot afford to do” in another all-caps Truth Social post earlier on Friday.

Later, on Air Force One, the US president told reporters that “the beauty” of the tariffs is that they allow for negotiations, referencing talks with Chinese company ByteDance on the sale of social media app TikTok.

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Tariffs: Xi hits back at Trump

He said: “We have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say, ‘We’ll approve a deal, but will you do something on the tariffs?’

“The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have.”

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Financial markets were always going to respond to Trump tariffs but they’re also battling with another problem

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Financial markets were always going to respond to Trump tariffs but they're also battling with another problem

Global financial markets gave a clear vote of no-confidence in President Trump’s economic policy.

The damage it will do is obvious: costs for companies will rise, hitting their earnings.

The consequences will ripple throughout the global economy, with economists now raising their expectations for a recession, not only in the US, but across the world.

Tariffs latest: FTSE 100 suffers biggest daily drop since COVID

Financial investors had been gradually re-calibrating their expectations of Donald Trump over the past few months.

Hopes that his actions may not match his rhetoric were dashed on Wednesday as he imposed sweeping tariffs on the US’ trading partners, ratcheting up protectionism to a level not seen in more than a century.

Markets were always going to respond to that but they are also battling with another problem: the lack of certainty when it comes to Trump.

More on Donald Trump

He is a capricious figure and we can only guess his next move. Will he row back? How far is he willing to negotiate and offer concessions?

Read more:
There were no winners from Trump’s tariff gameshow
Trade war sparks ‘$2.2trn’ global market sell-off

These are massive unknowns, which are piled on to uncertainty about how countries will respond.

China has already retaliated and Europe has indicated it will go further.

That will compound the problems for the global economy and undoubtedly send shivers through the markets.

Much is yet to be determined, but if there’s one thing markets hate, it’s uncertainty.

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Court confirms sacking of South Korean president who declared martial law

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Court confirms sacking of South Korean president who declared martial law

South Korea’s constitutional court has confirmed the dismissal of President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached in December after declaring martial law.

His decision to send troops onto the streets led to the country’s worst political crisis in decades.

The court ruled to uphold the impeachment saying the conservative leader “violated his duty as commander-in-chief by mobilising troops” when he declared martial law.

The president was also said to have taken actions “beyond the powers provided in the constitution”.

Demonstrators who stayed overnight near the constitutional court wait for the start of a rally calling for the president to step down. Pic: AP
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Demonstrators stayed overnight near the constitutional court. Pic: AP

Supporters and opponents of the president gathered in their thousands in central Seoul as they awaited the ruling.

The 64-year-old shocked MPs, the public and international allies in early December when he declared martial law, meaning all existing laws regarding civilians were suspended in place of military law.

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Highs and lows of Five-Year Keir
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More on South Korea

The Constitutional Court is under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement of the impeachment trial. Pic: AP
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The court was under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement. Pic: AP

After suddenly declaring martial law, Mr Yoon sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly.

He has argued that he sought to maintain order, but some senior military and police officers sent there have told hearings and investigators that Mr Yoon ordered them to drag out politicians to prevent an assembly vote on his decree.

His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December, accusing him of rebellion.

The unanimous verdict to uphold parliament’s impeachment and remove Mr Yoon from office required the support of at least six of the court’s eight justices.

South Korea must hold a national election within two months to find a new leader.

Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, is the early favourite to become the country’s next president, according to surveys.

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