Theranos: a tall tale to make your blood run cold

Pants on fire: Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has been convicted of knowingly defrauding investors. Picture: STEPHEN LAM/REUTERS

The US government built a solid case against Holmes, 37, for knowingly defrauding her investors. The jury agreed, and she faces 20 years in jail on each of the four counts. It was considered a huge medical and engineering breakthrough and led to deals with US pharmacy giants Walgreens and Safeway, as well as interest from the US military in using the machines in Afghanistan and on medical evacuation helicopters.

For most of the 15 years Theranos operated, it used modified third-party analytics machines, which it hid from investors and board members by claiming that this was some kind of trade secret. With an audacious defence strategy, she claimed she was abused and controlled by Theranos’s COO, Ramesh"Sunny" Balwani, who was also her longtime boyfriend, which the two kept secret for a decade.

But in 2015 The Wall Street Journal’s John Carreyrou reported that there were problems with Theranos’s technology — and the great con began unravelling. His book, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, is essential for those interested in this sordid tale, as is ABC’s excellent podcast The Dropout.

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