Elizabeth Holmes: How Theranos founder went from billionaire darling of Silicon Valley to the brink of prison
“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.
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 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.
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+
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 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.”
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.
World
Trump criticises Putin after potentially ‘historic’ meeting with Zelenskyy before Pope’s funeral
Donald Trump has criticised Vladimir Putin and suggested a shift in his stance towards the Russian president after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the Pope’s funeral.
The Ukrainian president said the one-on-one talks could prove to be “historic” after pictures showed him sitting opposite Mr Trump, around two feet apart, in the large marble hall inside St Peter’s Basilica.
The US president said he doubted his Russian counterpart’s willingness to end the war after leaving Rome after the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican.
Follow live updates: 200,000 mourn at Vatican
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said “there was no reason” for the Russian president “to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days”.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
He added: “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian leaders was their first face-to-face encounter since a very public row in the Oval Office in February.
Mr Zelenskyy said he had a good meeting with Mr Trump in which they talked about the defence of the Ukrainian people, a full and unconditional ceasefire, and a durable and lasting peace that would prevent the war restarting.
Other images released by the Ukrainian president’s office show Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron were present for part of the talks, which were described as “positive” by the French presidency.
Mr Zelenskyy‘s spokesman said the meeting lasted for around 15 minutes and he and Mr Trump had agreed to hold further discussions later on Saturday.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Basilica
But the US president left Rome for Washington on Air Force One soon after the funeral without any other talks having taken place.
The Ukrainian president’s office said there was no second meeting in Rome because of the tight schedule of both leaders, although he had separate discussions with Mr Starmer and Mr Macron.
The French president said in a post on X “Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire” and that a so-called coalition of the willing, led by the UK and France, would continue working to achieve a lasting peace.
There was applause from some of the other world leaders in attendance at the Vatican when Mr Zelenskyy walked out of St Peter’s Basilica after stopping in front of the pontiff’s coffin to pay his respects.
Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president met for the first time since their Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine.
Professor Father Francesco Giordano told Sky News the meeting is being called “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy, adding: “There’s so many things that happened today – it was just overwhelming.”
The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Mr Putin at the Kremlin.
They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
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Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.
Mr Trump has claimed a deal to end the war is “very close” and has urged Mr Zelenskyy to “get it done” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
He has previously warned both sides his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace if the two sides do not agree a deal soon.
Meanwhile, the Polish armed forces said a Russian military helicopter violated its airspace over the Baltic Sea on Friday evening.
“The nature of the incident indicates that Russia is testing the readiness of our air defence systems,” they said in a post on X.
On an extraordinary day, remarkable pictures on the margins that capture what may be a turning point for the world.
In a corner of St Peter’s Basilica before the funeral of Pope Francis, the leaders of America and Ukraine sit facing each other in two solitary chairs.
They look like confessor and sinner except we cannot tell which one is which.
Leaning forward hands together in their laps, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy stare at each other in one photo.
In another, the Ukrainian president seems to be remonstrating with the US president. This is their first encounter since their infamous bust-up in the Oval Office.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
Other pictures show the moment their French and British counterparts introduced the two men. There is a palpable sense of nervousness in the way the leaders engage.
We do not know what the two presidents said in their brief meeting.
But in the mind of the Ukrainian leader will be the knowledge President Trump has this week said America will reward Russia for its unprovoked brutal invasion of his country, under any peace deal.
Mr Trump has presented Ukraine and Russia with a proposal and ultimatum so one-sided it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Kyiv must surrender the land Russia has taken by force, Crimea forever, the rest at least for now. And it must submit to an act of extortion, a proposed deal that would hand over half its mineral wealth effectively to America.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Afterwards, Zelenskyy said it had been a good meeting that could turn out to be historic “if we reach results together”.
They had talked, he said, about the defence of Ukraine, a full and unconditional ceasefire and a durable and lasting peace that will prevent a war restarting.
The Trump peace proposal includes only unspecified security guarantees for Ukraine from countries that do not include the US. It rules out any membership of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s allies are watching closely to see if Mr Trump will apply any pressure on Vladimir Putin, let alone punish him for recent bloody attacks on Ukraine.
Or will he simply walk away if the proposal fails, blaming Ukrainian intransigence, however outrageously, before moving onto a rapprochement with Moscow.
If he does, America’s role as guarantor of international security will be seen effectively as over.
This could be the week we see the world order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War buried, as well as a pope.
World
Pope Francis funeral: 200,000 people bidding farewell to pontiff who had ‘open heart towards everyone’
Tens of thousands of people have packed St Peter’s Square as the funeral of Pope Francis begins.
Royals, world leaders and cardinals joined scores of worshippers at the Vatican, as mourning of the 266th pontiff transcended wealth and social class.
In keeping with Francis’s life as a breaker of tradition, many of the more elaborate and expensive rituals customary for the burial of popes have been foregone in favour of simpler options.
Around 200,000 people are attending the funeral, with around 50,000 packing out St Peter’s Square.
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Pope’s coffin carried out as funeral begins
Follow live: Pope Francis funeral service latest updates
His body had been lying in state since his death aged 88 on Easter Monday, spending the last few days in St Peter’s Basilica to allow mourners to pay their respects.
The Vatican – where the funeral service is taking place – and Rome – where Francis will be laid to rest – are under heavy security, with a no-fly zone in place overhead.
The coffin of Pope Francis is borne aloft by pallbearers. Pic: Reuters
Members of the clergy gathered to say farewell to their pontiff. Pic: Reuters
President Donald Trump and Joe Biden, along with Sir Keir Starmer, President Emmanuel Macron and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, headline a huge selection of global leaders and dignitaries.
Read more:
Pope Francis’s funeral – what is happening and when
Full order of service for Pope’s funeral
Francis’s coffin has been taken out into St Peter’s Square where 220 cardinals and 750 bishops and priests are sitting in rows, waiting to say goodbye to the Bishop of Rome.
A series of readings and prayers are being read before the 50,000 faithful gathered before the basilica, and the coffin will be sprinkled with holy water and incense.
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Singing rings out at the Vatican
Members of the clergy stand in St Peter’s Square. Pic: Reuters
It began with Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re reading the Penitential Act – a way for the faithful to confess their sinfulness.
This was followed by the Liturgy of the Word, a part in Catholic mass where faithful gather to hear and reflect on the word of God.
Cardinal Re then delivered the homily, speaking about Pope Francis’ life and service to God.
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Applause breaks out as Zelenskyy arrives
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re read the homily
The cardinal praised the pontiff as someone who “touched the minds and hearts of people” who was “attentive to the signs of the times”.
He added: “Despite his frailty and suffering towards the end, Pope Francis chose to follow this path of self-giving until the last day of his earthly life.”
He said Francis “was a pope among the people, with an open heart towards everyone”.
Tens of thousands pack St Peter’s Square for the funeral. Pic: AP
Clergy seated during the funeral. Pic: AP
At the end of the mass, the choir will sing in Latin: “May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs come and welcome you and take you into the holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem.”
After the service, Pope Francis’s body will be taken in procession through the streets of Rome to his final resting place at his favourite church, the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.
Worshippers outside the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. Pic: Reuters
He will be ushered into the basilica – dedicated to the Virgin Mary – by prisoners and migrants, a last reflection of his priorities as pope.
In a break with tradition, the Pope outlined in his will his request to be buried “in the ground, without particular ornamentation” but simply with the inscription “Franciscus”.
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