Elizabeth Holmes.Photo: HBO
Elizabeth Holmesfirst rose to prominence in 2014 as the CEO of healthcare start-up Theranos, but the entrepreneur became infamous about 20 months later, after being charged with an “elaborate years-long” fraud having duped millions.
Ahead of the release of HBO documentaryThe Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valleyon Sunday, which traces the rise and fall of the one-time Silicon Valley darling, it was revealed that Holmes, 35, is currently engaged.
Vanity Fairwas the first to break the news, reporting in a February story that Holmes is currently living in San Francisco, and “engaged to a younger hospitality heir, who also works in tech” and graduated from M.I.T.
TheDaily Mailwent on to report that Holmes’ fiancé is William “Billy” Evans, 27, whose grandparents founded theEvans Hotel Group— which currently owns three major resorts in California.
According to the outlet, Evans graduated from college with a Bachelor’s Degree in Science and Economics, and has subsequently worked at LinkedIn and California-based companyLuminar Technologies.
Here’s everything you need to know about Holmes, her elaborate scheme, and what’s next for her.
Holmes’s early beginnings
Holmes was born in Washington D.C. to father Christian Holmes, an Enron executive and mother Noel Anne Daoust, who worked as a Congressional committee staffer. The family later relocated to Houston, Texas where Holmes showed early signs of academic prowess.
Her short-lived career at Stanford
Holmes applied and was accepted to Stanford University in 2001, where she studied chemical engineering. Early on, she claims she started thinking bigger and about founding her own business. “At a relatively early age I began to believe that building a business was perhaps the greatest opportunity for making an impact,” she toldFortunein 2014. “Because it’s a tool for making a change in the world.”
In 2003, the semester after doing a summer stint at the Genome Institute of Singapore, where she was involved in work to develop systems to detect SARS, Holmes dropped out of Stanford to found Theranos.
Elizabeth Holmes.David Orrell/CNBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images
Founding Theranos
“[She said] I want to create a whole new technology, and one that is aimed at helping humanity at all levels regardless of geography or ethnicity or age or gender,'” Robertson recalled, and later joined Theranos as a paid consultant and gave up his tenured position at Stanford to do so.
Elizabeth Holmes.HBO
Her VIP circle of trust
“She’s incredibly passionate,” former Theranos employee Anna Arriola said on“The Dropout” podcast. “She’s very energetic, very expressive with their hands and has a very unique, distinctive voice that you kind of just get drawn into what she is conveying and her conviction it really, really shines through,” she said.
Those tactics helped persuade a group of impressively high-profile individuals to join Holmes’s cause. In 2014 at the height of Holmes’s buzz and estimated wealth, the Theranos board included: former U.S. Secretary of State, Treasury, and Labor George Shultz; former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry; former Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger.
In addition to those heavy-hitters, at the height of its Silicon Valley popularity Theranos had raised anestimated $724 millionin funding from a who’s who of investors like Oracle’s Larry Ellison, and a rumored $100 million from Rupert Murdoch. These were historical numbers for a start-up, and in the fall of 2014, Holmes was named one ofForbes’s richest women in Americaand her start-up was valued at $9 billion.
Flaws in the armor
Despite Holmes’ charisma, the product she peddled never actually worked.
Wall Street Journalreporter John Carreyrou, who would go on to write a tell-all about Holmes and Theranos in his bookBad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, was thefirst to expose the flaws in the Theranoscompany. In a nutshell, he concluded that the product Holmes was selling — a minimally-invasive blood test that could perform a variety of tests with minor amounts of blood on a machine she called The Edison — did not work and the company was using outside technology and other subterfuge to fake positive test results.
What’s next?
The pair were charged with nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in June 2018. Holmes could have faced 20 years in prison, but she and Theranos settled with the SEC, while Balwani is awaiting trial in San Jose. Holmes will pay a $500,000 fine as part of the settlement arrangement and be barred from serving as a director or officer of a public company for 10 years. She has not admitted or denied wrongdoing in settling.
A movie adaptation of Holmes’s story is currently in the works with Adam McKay (Vice,The Big Short) attached to direct andJennifer Lawrenceto star.
While Holmes has kept her relationship with her new fiancé relatively quiet, afterVanity Fairfirst reported on her engagment last month, reporter Nick Bilton went on toshare screenshots of the happy couplefrom their private social media pages.
“For everyone asking about Holmes’s social media. It’s private. But here are a few screenshots of her and her fiancé we found online. (I personally find it crazy that she’s being charged with 11 felony counts, thousands of people’s lives were harmed, and she’s as happy as can be.)” he wrote, alongside 4 photos of the couple.
In one of the shots, a selfie which showed the pair kissing, Evans wrote, “Happy bday to my best friend. The last year has been the best I’ve ever had.”
According to theDaily Mail, the pair also attended Burning Man last year and enjoy spending time with Holmes’ dog, Balto.
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valleyis currently streaming on HBO.
source: people.com
