Fallen star of Silicon Valley, the founder of the start-up Theranos, which she created at the age of 19, has been found guilty of four of the eleven charges against her.
Monday January 3, New York Times reports that the San José court has delivered its verdict after seven days of deliberation and three months of trial. Previously regarded as one of the world’s most influential self-made women, Elizabeth Holmes has been convicted of “large scale fraud“, as the prosecutor Stephanie Hinds explained. The one who risks nearly twenty years of imprisonment will know later her exact sentence, which will be pronounced by the federal court. With her company Theranos, the young self-made billionaire promised to revolutionize medical analysis with cheaper and faster tests, able to detect approximately 200 health problems with a simple finger prick.
To make Theranos machines capable of carrying out these promising blood tests, this admirer of Steve Jobs had succeeded in bringing together nearly $ 700 million, obtained from luminaries and other investors. In 2015, two whistleblowers revealed that the technology, deployed in forty pharmacies of the giant Walgreens, had never worked and that certain analyzes had been falsified by employees, under pressure from the manager.
A carefully crafted scam
The world of “tech” is disillusioning. The businesswoman, now 37, is held to account as the box definitively closes its doors in 2018. The scandal continues until the leader is declared aware of the vast hoax, she who would have perpetuated lies to investors over the years.
Article written in collaboration with 6Medias.
Photo credits: Alamy / ABACA