If you Google “Where is Elizabeth Holmes?” here’s what you get: “She is now an inmate at the all-female minimum-security prison camp in Bryan, Texas, located between Austin and Houston.”
As well she should be, her (apparently) charming penchant for antioxidant smoothies notwithstanding.
Here she is, entering the facility yesterday. Bye-bye, Elizabeth, or Liz (or whichever name you claim is the real you; you couldn’t keep it straight, so neither can we.)
How did we get to this point?
One word: Journalism.
The headline—appearing in the Wall Street Journal on October 16, 2015—was the beginning of the end: “Hot Startup Theranos Has Struggled With Its Blood-Test Technology. Silicon Valley lab Theranos, led by Elizabeth Holmes, is valued at $9 billion but isn’t using its technology for all the tests it offers.”
It took 7.5 years from that day—and really twenty, if we count from the founding of Theranos until today—but this story, which started in Holmes’s bizarrely wired and catastrophically misguided noodle has finally come to its inevitable conclusion, conveniently located in the Federal slammer.
The WSJ story’s author, John Carreyrou, had just come off of a 2015 Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism which had exposed fraud and abuse in the Medicare system. It had to have raised some eyebrows that Carreyrou now had turned his attention to the Theranos CEO, darling of Silicon Valley, and hoarse whisperer to the rich and powerful. (Yes, she faked the voice.)
Few could have predicted what came next: a devastating series of exposés that led to the revelation that Silicon Valley’s hottest biotech startup was not just dead in the water—but it had broken pesky things called laws in a sustained and elaboriate effort to obscure the facts.
Join me for a guided chronological tour of just some of John Carreyrou’s yeoman and relentless reporting, work that took Holmes’s net worth from around $4.5 billion to $0, and from a mansion in California to a prison in Texas.
The very same day Carreyrou’s first Theranos story appeared in the WSJ, a second article went live: Theranos Dials Back Lab Tests at FDA’s Behest. (Carreyrou).
From there, the events unfolded in dramatic fashion. It’s incredible to read the timeline of headlines (and some subheads)…
October 21: Theranos CEO: Company Is in a ‘Pause Period’. (Carreyrou).
October 23: Walgreens Scrutinizes Theranos Tests. Walgreens won’t open new Theranos blood-testing centers while seeking answers about the startup’s technology. (Carreyrou).
October 27: FDA Calls Theranos Vial ‘Uncleared Medical Device’. (Carreyrou).
November 5: Theranos Seeks Lab Director. Diagnostics startup Theranos is seeking a laboratory director to oversee one of its key facilities amid questions raised in laboratory circles about the qualifications of a physician who now runs the lab. (Carreyrou).
November 10: Safeway, Theranos Split After $350 Million Deal. (Carreyrou).
December 20: U.S. Probes Theranos Complaints. U.S. health regulators are investigating complaints about laboratory and research practices at Theranos by two former employees of the blood-testing startup company. (Carreyrou).
December 27: At Theranos, Strategies and Snags. At Theranos, the blood-testing ambition of founder Elizabeth Holmes has long collided with technological problems, according to former employees of the Silicon Valley startup, company emails and complaints filed with federal regulators. (Carreyrou).
January 24, 2016: Deficiencies Found at Theranos Lab. (Carreyrou, Christopher Weaver and Michael Siconolfi).
January 27: Theranos Lab Practices Said to Pose Risk to Patient Health (Carreyrou).
March 8: Theranos Ran Tests Despite Quality Problems. (Carreyrou, Weaver).
March 28: Theranos Results Could Throw Off Medical Decisions, Study Finds. (Carreyrou).
March 31: Theranos Devices Often Failed Firm’s Accuracy Checks. (Carreyrou).
April 13: U.S. Proposes Banning Theranos Founder. (Carreyrou and Weaver).
April 18: Theranos Is Subject of Criminal Probe by U.S.. (Weaver, Carreyrou and Siconolfi).
April 25: Regulators Release Lightly Redacted Theranos Letter, Inspection Report. (Carreyrou).
May 18: Theranos Voids Two Years of Edison Blood-Test Results. (Carreyrou).
June 13: Walgreen Terminates Partnership With Blood-Testing Firm Theranos.(Carreyrou).
July 8: Theranos Dealt Blow as Holmes Is Banned From Operating Labs. (Carreyrou).
July 10: Under Fire, Theranos CEO Stifled Bad News. (Carreyrou).
August 30: Theranos Walks Away From Zika Test. (Carreyrou).
October 6: Theranos Retreats From Blood Tests. In a dramatic retreat, Theranos, the company led by Elizabeth Holmes, will shut down its blood-testing facilities and shed more than 40% of its workforce as it shifts to developing products for outside labs. (Carreyrou and Weaver).
November 8: Walgreen Sues Theranos, Seeking to Recover $140 Million. (Weaver, Carreyrou, Siconolfi
November 18: Theranos Whistleblower Shook the Company—and His Family. Tyler Shultz says he wanted to shield the reputation of former Secretary of State George Shultz, a Theranos director and his grandfather. His efforts opened a family rift. (Carreyrou).
January 17, 2017: Second Theranos Lab Failed U.S. Inspection. (Weaver, Carreyrou).
March 23: Theranos Offers Shares for Promise Not to Sue the Company. [Talk about an offer you can refuse]. (Weaver, Carreyrou).
[A year with no new Carreyrou stories].
March 14, 2018: Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Charged With Fraud. (Carreyrou).
April 10: Theranos Lays Off Most of Its Remaining Workforce. (Carreyrou).
June 15: Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes and Her Ex-No. 2 Charged With Defrauding Investors. (Carreyrou).
September 5: Blood-Testing Firm Theranos to Dissolve After Fraud Scandal.(Carreyrou).
You know the rest.
Tried. Convicted. Basically unapologetic. Nevertheless profiled with kid-gloves by a credulous New York Times reporter. (We were having none of it here at Inside Medicine).
And now, at last, she’s safely behind bars. No pity for her. Endless pity for the poor children she brought into this world well after it became clear that she very well could do real time behind bars.
Watch Carreyrou recount some of the sordid details of his reporting saga here.
Read his book, Bad Blood.
Read what I wrote about this five years ago in Slate.
Lastly, join me in speculating on what job Holmes will have in prison. A CNN.com story quoted someone saying a person of her education might teach other inmates. What the hell could she teach? How to win friends and influence people by ceaselessly lying to them?
Here’s some free advice to the warden down at Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas: Don’t assign Elizabeth Holmes to the kitchen. Everything will be half-baked.
Thank you, super collection of Headline + source attribution Chronlogy. As to a possible prison job, how about drafting the disability claims of inmates, if there any takers.