Elizabeth Holmes: Who Is the Theranos Founder and What Did She Do?

Elizabeth Holmes was just 19 years old when she dropped out of Stanford University to launch a healthcare start-up called Theranos. The Theranos Foundation claimed to bring forward a revolutionary method in the healthcare industry. With just a pinprick of blood, which they called the Edison Test, Theranos claimed to be able to detect diseases such as cancer and diabetes, according to BBC.

The company then rose to popularity and became worth $9 billion in just a few years. Soon, the biggest investors became part of the project. It became one of the most talked about technologies in the Silicon Valley. However, Theranos Foundation had collapsed by 2018 after the test and the claims that they made about it were found to be false. Evidence revealed that the technology used was not dependable and could deliver faulty results, NBC News reported.

Holmes reportedly knew that the results were not consistently accurate. Theranos’ Chief Operating Officer, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, was also charged with fraud. During Elizabeth Holmes’ trial, her attorney reportedly accused Balwani of lying to the investors about how much the company was making and misleading the stakeholders. Balwani was also Holmes’ former romantic partner.

According to the United States Attorney’s Office, both Holmes and Balwani were employing conventional technology to carry out the blood tests that they claimed were being done only by the Theranos analyzers. Both of them knew of the Theranos technology’s shortcomings. However, they continued to stand by the claims they had made about the efficiency.

NPR reported that Elizabeth Holmes also made false claims to her investors that the Theranos technology had been used on the battlefields in Afghanistan. The motivations behind Holmes’ frauds were not established by the court. However, defenders claim that she was under immense pressure to compete in a male-dominant industry.

How many years was Elizabeth Holmes sentenced to?

Elizabeth Holmes was 39 years old when she reported to the minimum security, federal women’s prison camp, in Bryan, Texas, the Guardian reported. She had been sentenced to 11 years and 3 months in prison. Holmes was found guilty of four counts of defrauding investors. She had been out on bail since 2018 when she was first charged with heading the failed blood-testing firm. Holmes was also asked to pay $452 million to the victims of the fraud.

The prison that Holmes was held in, reportedly houses white-collar and non-violent federal women prisoners. It requires that all inmates hold a job for a minimum of 90 days. Even in case of Elizabeth Holmes’ sentence being reduced for good conduct, she will reportedly have to serve at least 85% of her total sentence.

In July 2023, NBC News reported that Elizabeth Holmes’ sentence might have been reduced by two years. Her expected release date was mentioned as December 29, 2032, on the website of the Bureau of Prisons. The report also emphasized on the role of good conduct time which prisoners may earn. The good conduct time would then reflect on their projected release date. There are other ways too to earn an earlier projected release date.

Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani was also reportedly convicted of 12 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison. That is longer than what Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to owing to his experience in running other businesses.

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