Forbes’ Billionaire to a Fraud
With her slicked bun, black turtleneck, and deep voice, Elizabeth Holmes reigned as the “Female Steve Jobs”, being named as the youngest and wealthiest self-made billionaire in 2015. Living up to the magic of Silicon Valley’s unicorn startups, her company Theranos was once valued at an estimated $9 billion but now on any media outlet, her current net worth has been deemed $0 as of 2022. With this drastic transition, we are left to wonder, how did a revolutionary of the medical industry go so quickly from reaching her pinnacle to faltering downhill?
It is reported that at the age of 9, Elizabeth Holmes declared to her relatives her wish to become a billionaire, saying it with the “utmost seriousness and determination.” She often threw temper tantrums as a child when losing at Monopoly and during high school, Holmes quickly became a straight-A student while selling C++ compilers (translating software) to Chinese schools. Part way through high school, Holmes was accepted into Stanford University’s prestigious summer program which included a trip to Beijing. She later on went on to attend Stanford University where in her sophomore year, Holmes decided to begin her first business endeavour by going up to her professor and saying, “let’s start a company.”
Holmes first filed for a “medical device for analyte monitoring and drug delivery.” This company, originally named Real-Time Cures, later transitioned to Theranos, the business model centered around the notion of administering blood tests using technology that solely necessitated a finger pin prick as well as a miniscule amount of blood. Due to this unprecedented idea, Theranos gained traction and more users and investors, such as Henry Kissinger (former Secretary of State) as well as the Walton family of Walmart fame, reaching a valuation of 9 billion USD. By the next semester, Holmes dropped out of Stanford to fully pursue Theranos with her right-hand man and partner, Chief Operating Officer Sunny Balwani. Holmes seemed to be on top of the world. But doubts emerged.
Initially, Holmes had taken investors' money on the condition that she would not have to reveal how the technology worked and have final say over every decision regarding Theranos. This state of concealment covered almost every aspect of the company: Holmes rarely did interviews, dressed in all black, confoundingly never took vacations, and spoke in a suspiciously deep voice. Employees were required to sign non-disclosure agreements and three former Theranos employees were taken to court accused of misuse of Theranos’ trade secrets.
October 2015 was the turning point. The Wall Street Journal broke the news that the Edison blood-testing device which was responsible for putting Theranos on a global pedestal was instead using conventional blood testing machines and providing inaccurate results. The bubble had burst: the previously respected company faced a stream of continuous obstacles from legal, medical, financial and media authorities. While Theranos denied these allegations, the entire world backlashes these allegations. In March 2018, Elizabeth Holmes, Balwani, and her company were charged with fraud for “deceiv[ing] investors into believing that its key product - a portable blood analyzer - could conduct comprehensive blood tests from finger drops of blood.” In June of that year, Holmes and Balwani were indicted on various counts of wire fraud and conspiracy as they were allegedly aware of the inaccuracy of their devices and thus attempted to conceal their faults. Although the trial was initially scheduled to begin July 2020, the pandemic delayed it until the following year.
On January 3, 2022, Elizabeth Holmes was officially found guilty on three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. It is almost impressive how Holmes successfully lied to the entire world. At a time of greater consciousness of gender inequality, especially in the STEM field, Holmes has since become a complex figure in society. Notable for her deep voice and Steve Jobs-esque wardrobe, Holmes consistently embraced masculine ideals of leadership to get ahead in her life. It was the rejection of Holmes’ femininity that got her peers and male CEOs in Silicon Valley to respect her. But, in court Holmes made an effort to be presented as the victim in court, appealing to our normative sensitivity to female conviction. She was ultimately seen picking and choosing the right time to embody masculine and feminine traits depending on its convenience to better herself. In September of 2020, court documents suggest Holmes might take on a “mental disease” defense mechanism with potential backing of her allegations of being a victim of an abusive relationship with Balwani. Holmes testified 7 times, each time blaming another person for the downfall of her company. She has used her being a female in this society as means to reshape her fallen reputation and continuously undermined the capacity of women for the sake of her own image. Using the normative sensitivity to the conviction of women to her advantage, making it seem that society is against women when in reality, she herself is against it.
Holmes has brought not only an astounding case of fraud in which her company tricked billions of people globally, but also the misrepresentation of her entire gender in court, claiming that she had no knowledge of the fraud committed by her company. This makes no sense as she was fully in charge, operating as the Alpha and with this, Elizabeth Holmes deserves her full term of imprisonment.