The Trial of Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes Opens - AppMasterWorld.com
Monday, May 29, 2023
  • Contact Us
  • Disclaimer
  • Sitemap
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
AppMasterWorld.com
  • Home
  • News
  • SOCIAL MEDIA
  • SAAS APPS
    • Marketing
    • Business
    • Creative Apps
    • Management Apps
    • Productivity Apps
    • Saas offers
  • GAMING
  • INDUSTRY
No Result
View All Result
AppMasterWorld.com
No Result
View All Result

The Trial of Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes Opens

September 9, 2021
in News

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The defendant, wearing a gray suit, sat quietly at a table surrounded by lawyers, her expression hidden behind a blue medical mask. Occasionally, she looked around. Her boyfriend and family members sat, also masked, in the packed gallery of Courtroom 4.

A low roaring undercurrent of clacking laptop keyboards began as Robert Leach, an assistant U.S. attorney, declared that the defendant had lied and cheated to get money.

“That’s a crime on Main Street and it’s a crime in Silicon Valley,” he said.

So began the trial on Wednesday of Elizabeth Holmes, who dropped out of Stanford University to create the blood testing start-up Theranos at age 19 and built it to a $9 billion valuation and herself into the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire — only to flame out in disgrace after Theranos’s technology was revealed to have problems.

In 2018, Ms. Holmes and Ramesh Balwani, her onetime business and romantic partner, were indicted with 12 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. According to federal prosecutors, Ms. Holmes and Mr. Balwani misrepresented the abilities of Theranos’s technology and the company’s business performance to investors. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Ms. Holmes’s trial, in federal court in San Jose, Calif., began just a month after she gave birth to a son, but more than three years after Theranos was dissolved and six years after The Wall Street Journal first exposed problems with the start-up’s blood tests. The trial is expected to last 13 weeks and potentially feature as witnesses high-profile ex-board members and investors such as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

If convicted, Ms. Holmes, 37, faces up to 20 years in prison. Mr. Balwani’s trial is slated to start in January.

Part media spectacle, part modern business parable, the case was the culmination of a decade of Silicon Valley excess, where a seemingly endless fount of capital for money-losing start-ups created immense wealth for their founders and investors and led to an environment where some were willing to look the other way when companies stretched the truth.

During its fast rise, Theranos was celebrated as a paragon of Silicon Valley’s disruptive business magic — the precise kind of magic that gave rise to Apple, Facebook, Google and Tesla, four of the most valuable companies in the world. But since Theranos’s dramatic collapse, the company has become a symbol of the dark side of tech culture’s “fake it till you make it” hustle. The start-up industry has strained to distance itself from Theranos.

Ms. Holmes’s trial also stands out for its rarity. Criminal prosecutions in Silicon Valley have declined markedly in recent years.

“The eyes of the world are watching this trial,” said Jessica Roth, a law professor at Cardozo School of Law and former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York. “Legally, to fake it when you know you haven’t made it is still fraud,” Ms. Roth added. “Did they know they were faking it or did they believe they were making it?”

Interest in the trial was so high that a line began forming to get into the federal courthouse before 5 a.m. Entering the windy alley in front of the courthouse at about 8 a.m., Ms. Holmes was swarmed by camera crews. She was escorted through the scrum by her boyfriend, Billy Evans, and family members.

Curious members of the public also showed up, as did a crew of three blond women in black suits who resembled the defendant. At one point, Mr. Evans and the women in black passed around a padded seat for the courtroom’s hard benches.

The case hinges on whether Ms. Holmes intended to deceive investors and others and whether she was manipulated by Mr. Balwani. Battle lines were immediately drawn by prosecutors and the defense in their opening statements.

Making the government’s case, Mr. Leach methodically described the times that Theranos came close to going out of business. “Out of time and out of money, Elizabeth Holmes decided to lie,” he said, in what became a refrain.

Mr. Leach showed an image of Theranos’s blood analyzing machine, known as Edison and MiniLab, and said it “was not doing anything that couldn’t be done in an ordinary central blood testing laboratory.” He described Theranos’s false claims that its technology was being used on battlefields. He showed apparently falsified reports that Ms. Holmes gave to investors from pharmaceutical companies endorsing Theranos’s technology. He said she had peddled wildly exaggerated revenue projections and had used the media to execute her fraud.

“The scheme brought her fame, it brought her honor, and it brought her adoration,” Mr. Leach said.

The defense responded by arguing that Ms. Holmes — who had encouraged comparisons of herself to Steve Jobs, including adopting a uniform of black mock turtlenecks — was a hardworking, if naïve, entrepreneur who did not succeed but did not commit any crimes.

“The villain the government just presented is actually a living, breathing human being who did her very best each and every day,” said Lance Wade, a lawyer with Williams & Connolly who represents Ms. Holmes. “Trying your hardest and coming up short is not a crime.”

Mr. Wade argued that the reality of Theranos’s failure was more complicated than the government’s presentation and that the company had built some valuable blood testing technology.

The reality of Theranos, he said, was “far more human, real and often times far more, I hate to say it, but technical and complicated and boring” than what the government presented.

The media coverage made it a challenge for prosecutors and the defense to find a jury of 12 people who had not heard about Ms. Holmes, Theranos or the trial. Many potential jurors had read “Bad Blood,” a book about Theranos written by the former Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou; had listened to “The Dropout,” a podcast about Theranos; or had seen “The Inventor,” a documentary about Theranos.

Mr. Balwani was frequently mentioned by both sides, but Ms. Holmes’s lawyers pointedly dwelled on the relationship.

“Trusting and relying on Mr. Balwani as her primary adviser was one of her mistakes,” Mr. Wade said.

Ms. Holmes’s lawyers have said in filings that Mr. Balwani emotionally and mentally abused her, and that the abuse negated her ability to intentionally deceive investors. They also said Ms. Holmes was likely to testify to this.

Such an argument is extremely rare in white-collar criminal trials, Ms. Roth said, possibly because there are so few female chief executives.

In court filings, Mr. Balwani has denied any abuse. In text messages revealed by prosecutors on Tuesday, Ms. Holmes showered Mr. Balwani with affection. In May 2015, as Theranos was dealing with questions from Mr. Carreyrou, she wrote Mr. Balwani a series of messages: “You are breeze in desert for me / My water / And ocean / Meant to be only together tiger.”

Growth Capital For Online SaaS and App Businesses | Clearco
This is how you fund your business without giving up any Equity Click Here To Learn How!!

Previous Post

We Tried 1911 Established Hard Cider. Here’s Why We Love It.

Next Post

Star Trek: Picard season 2 trailer: Q, the Borg Queen, and a totalitarian nightmare

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

dropshipping spocket

How To Start Your Drop Shipping Business With Spocket in 2022!

Groove Funnels – We All Want A Free Sales Funnel Builder

Groove Funnels – We All Want A Free Sales Funnel Builder

Remote team management: 5 challenges and solutions

Remote team management: 5 challenges and solutions

WPFunnels – A Drag & Drop WordPress Sales Funnel Builder

WPFunnels – A Drag & Drop WordPress Sales Funnel Builder

Elementor plugin

Elementor | How Do You Get Your Website Started?

Emma email campaign

Emma | Personalized Email Marketing Solutions for your Business

A calendar that is actually useful, batch deferrals, and more.

A calendar that is actually useful, batch deferrals, and more.

8 Factors To Begin Using An Online Form – Forms on Fire ?

8 Factors To Begin Using An Online Form – Forms on Fire ?

Vendasta – All in One Platform For Success

Vendasta – All in One Platform For Success

Sanebox

SaneBox | Email AI To Keep You Sane

Red Pill for Sales CRM

What is VipeCloud? Sales CRM and Marketing Suite

AppMasterWorld.com

AppMasterWorld.com is for techies, who wants to be up to date before others. We work hard to serve you first and best of all and to satisfy your hunger of Technology. I hope you will get latest business, gaming, social media news and much more. If you have difficulty in any topic or doubt in mind. Just Feel Free to ask me in comment of that topic.

Trending Now

The Premiere Place to Grow Your Business

Partner Stack-The #1 rated partner platform for SaaS

Destiny 2’s Guardian Games brings back Strike Scoring next week

Meet the BBC’s ‘undercover voters’ for the US midterms

U.S.-Made Technology Is Flowing to Russian Airlines, Despite Sanctions

Most Popular

6 Tips To Keep Your Cat Happy And Healthy

Instagram announces changes ahead of political grilling

Instagram announces changes ahead of political grilling

Kid rushes stage at The Game Awards, gets arrested

Kid rushes stage at The Game Awards, gets arrested

  • Contact Us
  • Disclaimer
  • Sitemap
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 Copyright. All rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • SOCIAL MEDIA
  • SAAS APPS
    • Marketing
    • Business
    • Creative Apps
    • Management Apps
    • Productivity Apps
    • Saas offers
  • GAMING
  • INDUSTRY

© 2021 Copyright. All rights reserved.

We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
Cookie settingsACCEPT
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT