![]() ![]() Before long she had developed a pattern, befriending older man after older man to believe in and champion her. Her first key connection was Don Lucas, a well-known venture capitalist (VC) in Silicon Valley, and he, as the Chairman of the Board of Theranos, introduced Holmes to his VC contacts. This makes it clear, according to Carreyrou, that Holmes pushed out the product before it was ready for the express purpose of misleading investors.īut how was this young woman able to gain such trust and enthusiasm from so many respected investors to begin with? As a 19-year-old college dropout, Holmes didn’t have much credibility, but she did have passion and an innate sense for business. Over its 12-15-year lifespan, Theranos raised almost $1 billion, with over 75% of that funding raised after the technology was commercialized. “I think this was a case of someone with real vision and dreams, getting ahead of herself and getting caught in the cycle of lies.” – John Carreyrou Investors Get Swindled “I think this was a case of someone with real vision and dreams, getting ahead of herself and getting caught in the cycle of lies,” said Carreyrou. ![]() They made this decision, of course, to continue to solicit funding, even though they were now unquestionably not delivering on their promises. The corners that were cut became bigger.”Ĭarreyrou said “the big red line” was crossed when, in 2013, Holmes and her business/romantic partner made the decision to go live with their flawed blood testing technology instead of pulling back. People were constantly being hired and fired. “She was very secretive,” Carreyrou said. Investigative journalist, John Carreyrou, speaking on Thernos. The pressure and unrealistic expectations she created formed an incredibly toxic work culture. However, the industry and technology proved more difficult than Holmes probably anticipated. She was instead simply full of ambition and dreams of becoming the “next Steve Jobs” from the start. Overpromising and UnderestimatingĬarreyrou said he believes that Holmes did not start off with fraudulent or malicious intent. “Holmes was a Stanford dropout with barely a year and a half of medical studies under her belt, who had apparently revolutionized medicine, and I knew that’s just not how things work,” Carreyrou said. He asked, “Have you heard of this ‘wunderkind’ out of Silicon Valley named Elizabeth Holmes and her startup, Theranos?” Carreyrou had, in fact, read a New Yorker profile and had already been skeptical. Adam Clapper, a pathologist who often blogged about scams in the laboratory space. The TipoffĮarly in 2015, Carreyrou got a call out of the blue, from Dr. The event was moderated by Melanie Kay, DFEI Director at the CU Law School, with over 400 attendees joining either in person or via live stream in Boulder. The Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative (DFEI) at the University of Colorado Denver Business School brought John Carreyrou, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal and author of the National Bestseller Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup to Denver to share the full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of Theranos. Theranos promised to deliver a groundbreaking blood testing technology that could revolutionize health care, and it was led by a young, charismatic, Silicon Valley sensation named Elizabeth Holmes, who turned out to be nothing but a fraud, fooling the media, the public, and stealing millions from savvy investors. From the initial excitement of a revolutionary biotech startup, to the sudden suspicions and accusations, to the jaw-dropping exposure of a multibillion-dollar fraud, the journey of Theranos has been nothing if not captivating. ![]() The story of Theranos has dominated headlines for years now. ![]()
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