Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes convicted of fraud - BBC News

and we'd like to see a world in which every person gets access to this type of basic [Music] testing Elizabeth Holmes had a vision that turned her into a billionaire that she could create a machine that she called the Edison that could detect hundreds of diseases with just a few drops of blood the pitch convinced some very important [Music] people this used to be the very plush and very expensive head offices of Theos and the Great and the good came here even Joe Biden when he was vice president came to California and heaped praise on

the Company Success seemed inevitable well this is my certificate for Theos showing my shares and it was actually signed by Elizabeth Holmes a sad bit of history but history nevertheless e Lea was a secretary in Silicon Valley she heard about this amazing new company my boss had indicated that it was going to be in his words the next apple and that I should get as many shares as I could and so I did it was six figures which was a large amount for me SOS went bankrupt following a series of reports in the Wall Street

Journal questioning the accuracy of its tests as well as its business practices what e didn't know was that the dream Elizabeth Holmes was selling was a nightmare the technology didn't work but investors like eileene had no idea Elizabeth was in stealth mode so that we had no idea whether it was going well or was on the brink of collapse the retail giant Walgreens had a contract with fonos to diagnose patients with its machines however the rept heard that Theos wasn't using its Edison machines but was instead using openly available diagnostic equipment the court also heard

that some patients had been misdiagnosed I just really resent that somebody would would make such a massive fraud especially when so many people told her this isn't working Elizabeth Holmes has argued at trial that she had always attempted to create a genuine product that worked and that she never intended to commit fraud what happened behind those closed doors has led to a lot of introspection here in Silicon Valley but there's still a culture of Faking it till you make it here and until that changes people worry that what happened in Theos could happen again