Theranos: the latest news about the controversial blood-testing startup – The Verge

Sunny Balwani found guilty of defrauding Theranos investors and patients

2022-07-07T15:01:46-04:00

Sunny Balwani, former Theranos president

Ramesh Balwani, the former business partner and romantic interest of Elizabeth Holmes, defrauded investors and patients of the blood testing company Theranos, a jury found today.

Balwani, who goes by Sunny, faced 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He was found guilty of all counts and faces up to 20 years in prison for each count.

Holmes was convicted of four counts of fraud against investors in January after a months-long trial. She was found not guilty on charges of defrauding patients.

Balwani joined Theranos in 2009 as president and chief operating officer. He also supervised the company's labs. …

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Is Elizabeth Holmes’ guilty verdict a wake-up call for startups?

2022-01-07T13:25:29-05:00

After a long trial, former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes has been found guilty of four out of the 11 charges brought against her, including three counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud investors in her now-defunct blood testing company. The verdict caps a journey filled with both promises and disappointments, one that ultimately led to the downfall of what could have been one of the most successful companies, and entrepreneurs, to come out of Silicon Valley in over a decade.

While the verdict is a milestone in holding startup founders accountable for false promises, it actually further complicates the difference between fraud and th …

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Elizabeth Holmes’ verdict won’t change Silicon Valley

2022-01-05T08:30:00-05:00

There is no doubt in my mind that former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes will appeal the four charges she was convicted of: conspiracy to defraud investors and wire fraud. She still has the Silicon Valley mindset, after all: reality can be bent to your will. But what have we learned from the Theranos trial? Almost nothing.

Holmes was found guilty on four of 11 counts after about 50 hours of deliberation. Those counts could be grouped, roughly, into defrauding patients and defrauding investors. The jury found her not guilty of defrauding patients or conspiracy to defraud patients.

The easiest part of this case to prove was about money, and tha …

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Elizabeth Holmes found guilty of defrauding investors

2022-01-03T19:23:09-05:00

Elizabeth Holmes deliberately misled investors about the capabilities of the blood testing technology at Theranos and is guilty of three counts of wire fraud, a jury found today. She is also guilty of conspiracy to defraud investors with her co-defendant, Sunny Balwani.

She faces up to 20 years in prison for each of the counts. The jury found her not guilty of two counts of defrauding patients and not guilty of conspiracy to defraud patients. The jury did not return a verdict on three more counts of defrauding investors.

Holmes was the founder and CEO of Theranos, a company that promised to revolutionize blood testing by developing a devic …

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How bad were Elizabeth Holmes’ 1AM emails?

2021-09-17T19:57:55-04:00

Today, we had the first direct link between the problems in Theranos' labs and Elizabeth Holmes. Former manager of assay systems Surekha Gangakhedkar's job was preparing blood tests for use in patients. The system was unreliable; describing herself as "stressed and unhappy and concerned with the way the launch was going," Gangakhedkar quit.

Gangakhedkar met with Holmes to explain why she was resigning: she didn't think the Edisons were good enough for patient use. Holmes told her Theranos had "promised to deliver to the customers and didn't have much of a choice," except to go ahead with the launch, Gangakhedkar testified.

"I was worried ab …

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How do you cross-examine a whistleblower?

2021-09-15T22:03:48-04:00

Erika Cheung, who took the stand yesterday for her direct testimony, which continued today, is known for being one of John Carreyrou's sources for his blockbuster article about Theranos. You know, the article that's part of the reason we are now witnessing US v. Elizabeth Holmes. (Holmes is on trial for several counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.)

Cheung is, famously, one of the people who blew the whistle on Holmes. She's even given a TED talk about it. The other major source for Carreyrou was her friend, Tyler Shultz, who also worked at Theranos and was the grandson of one of the board members. He is expected to tes …

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The Holmes trial gets into the Excel nitty-gritty

2021-09-14T20:00:00-04:00

It was around the time that the defense counsel referred to "deferred revenue" that I began to feel genuinely bad for the members of the jury in the wire fraud trial of Elizabeth Holmes.

Tuesday's testimony involved the nuances of accounting, how quality control works in labs, and way too many Excel spreadsheets. I get it - you have to show the financials to show that Theranos was in a tricky financial position. And you have to show how the labs were failing in order to establish that they were failing and that Holmes knew it. But go through this too fast, and you risk confusing people.

Every scam is, at bottom, about the same thing: getti …

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Fraud, or just a failure? Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes’s trial opening arguments

2021-09-08T19:40:39-04:00

Elizabeth Holmes, outside the courtroom | David Odisho / Getty

Would you rather be a failure or a fraud? Judging by the opening statements in Elizabeth Holmes' wire fraud trial, those seem to be Holmes' options.

Here's Robert Leach, assistant U.S. attorney, who is prosecuting the case against Holmes: "This is a case about fraud, about lying and cheating to get money," Leach says. "That's a crime on Main Street and a crime in Silicon Valley." But according to Lance Wade, Holmes' attorney, Holmes is just another failed startup leader: "In the end, Theranos failed. And Ms. Holmes walked away with nothing. But failure is not a crime."

"Out of time and out of money, Elizabeth Holmes decided to lie."

Now, b …

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Theranos’ greatest invention was Elizabeth Holmes

2021-09-08T08:00:00-04:00

When I say "Elizabeth Holmes," a character probably comes to mind: wispy bleach-blonde hair, black turtleneck, thin, white, unusually low voice, unblinking gaze. In most of her magazine covers, she's holding a tiny vial meant to contain the "few drops of blood" needed for her company's finger-prick blood tests.

"When I finally connected with what Elizabeth fundamentally is, I realized that I could have just as well been looking into the eyes of a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates," Theranos advisor Channing Robertson, a Stanford chemical engineering professor, told Fortune in 2014. "She has sometimes been called another Steve Jobs, but I think th …

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Elizabeth Holmes’ defense likely includes testimony accusing her ex-partner of abuse

2021-08-28T16:45:11-04:00

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes leaves the Robert F. Peckham Federal Building with her defense team in downtown San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday, May 4, 2021. | Photo by Nhat V. Meyer/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images

With just a few days left until Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes faces criminal fraud charges at trial, newly unsealed court documents (via NPR) reveal evidence that her lawyers may cite in her defense.

If you don't remember the details from the scandal as described in a book, documentary, and more than one podcast series, Theranos told investors it developed revolutionary blood test technology capable of amazing results based on just a few small drops. Theranos had been valued at as much as $9 billion before reports exposed its inaccurate results and use of modified machines by other companies to perform crucial testing instead of its own …

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