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Family History
With her family's background -- [her great, great grandfather, Christian R. Holmes, was a surgeon who had Cincinnati General Hospital named after him and married the daughter of Charles Fleischmann who founded the yeast company and was her great, great, great grandfather] -- why is she so insecure? That family background was part of the con. She would be introduced and when questions were asked about her scientific knowledge or business acumen, these family members would be brought up. -
Elizabeth is born
Born in Washington D.C to Christian and Noel Holmes. Her family moved to Houston when she was young. -
Interview with Forbes - Family Friend*
Richard Fuisz, M.D, is a Georgetown-educated psychiatrist, inventor, and former CIA agent
"Noel programmed Elizabeth to be like me, invent and learn a language. I am a psychiatrist and family practitioner and would tell a father and mother not to treat their child that way. She'll be what she'll be. Don't drive her into something she doesn't want to do. She is always pulled to the side and was not naturally emotive as a child." -
High School Graduation from St. John's
Elizabeth Graduates from High School -
Elizabeth Meets Sunny** Summer 2002
"Sunny Balwani, a software engineer, now forty-nine, whom Holmes had met in Beijing the summer after her senior year of high school. At the time, he was getting an M.B.A. from Berkeley. He had worked at Lotus and at Microsoft and been a successful entrepreneur, and in 2004 he began graduate studies in computer science at Stanford." -
E. Holmes Enrolls at Stanford
She signs up for medical classes - with Dr. Phyills Gardner - and approaches her with ideas for new medical device to detect infection through the skin and administer antibiotics. Dr. Gardner assures her this is not possible. -
Balwani Meets the Parents
Holmes's parents were shocked that she was dating Balwani but got over it. As Fuisz said, "When she was 18 or 19, Balwani (who was 16 years her senior) invited her to Paris. Her parents were appalled. Why is she dating this awful old man? And he is from India! But he took them to Aspen in his jet and paid for their bills at an expensive hotel for a week in Paris and they decided he was OK." -
Theranos is Founded
E. Holmes recruits Channing Robertson - prof. of chemical engineering at Stanford // head of science dept. - to be part of her company. He agrees to be an advisor and leave his tenure professorship at Stanford. -
Period: to
Claims to be doing work for the Military & Pharmaceuticals
Using her story as proof of success, without looking at financial statements. Early investing is more about belief than understanding. Family background of business and medicine - though SHE didn't have any experience. During this time, revenue allegedly came from large pharmaceutical companies - Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline - using the tests when conducting clinical trials on new drugs, its hospital work, and the U.S. military, although Holmes would not discuss the latter. -
1st Round of Investors
Theranos raises $6 million through private investors who agree to let her retain control and put all profits back into the company. per the New Yorker article -
Ian Gibbons is Hired by Theranos
The first (and seemingly only) blood diagnostics scientist on the board on Theranos. -
Christian Holmes Works at Enron*
He took a job at enron as a VP. Once Enron collapsed he came back to DC where he said he was broke and Richard Fuisz gave him one of his houses to stay in rent free. Elizabeth was in china at the time studying mandarin and according to Fuisz she hated it there and said the people were dirty, the hotel was filthy and she wanted to come home. -
Original CFO is Fired
Henry Mosley, the original CFO of Theranos aka Real Cures, is fired when he questions the technology behind the company. *Month and date are exact -
E. Holmes and Ian Gibbons File Patent to Detect Influenza Virus
Ian Gibbons would develop these tests and ideas, Elizabeth would attach her name to the patents - he was the first scientist hired by the company and he was a blood diagnostics expert -
Sunny Becomes COO & President - Best Practices (per New Yorker Article)
Theranos kept its technology a secret because it occupied a regulatory gray area. Most other labs run blood tests on equipment bought from outside manufacturers. Before those devices can be sold, they must be approved by the F.D.A.
Theranos manufactures its own testing equipment, the F.D.A. doesn’t need to approve it, as long as the company doesn’t sell it or move it out of its labs. The company has long resisted discussing how its technology works...to avoid tipping off potential competitors. -
Walgreens approaches Theranos about a Partnership
Walgreens wants Theranos to run its wellness clinics. Theranos is also considering a partnership with Safeway. These partnerships meant that she had to create a machine that could perform more than one test.
*year exact -
Christian, E. Holmes brother, Joins the Company
Christian, a Duke graduate & former management consultant joined the company in 2011 and is now the director of product management.
“You’ve got to be able to scale this. If we can’t, we’ll get killed.” -
Walgreens Deadlines & Safeway Concerns
The CMO of Safeway was concerned that the beta tests Theranos was running on their employees weren't accurate. Theranos continues to miss deadlines for their Walgreens roll out.
*Year exact -
E. Holmes Meets George Shultz - circa 2011 (exact date unknown)
A 10 min. meeting turns into 2 hrs - Shultz joined the board. He met with E. H weekly.
He intros her to other board members: Bill Frist, a cardiac surgeon & former Sen. Rep. Majority Leader; Henry Kissinger, the former Sec. of State; Sam Nunn, a former Dem. senator & chairman of the Armed Services Committee; William J. Perry, the former Defense Secretary; and Richard Kovacevich, a former C.E.O. and chairman of Wells Fargo. All receive stock options from the company, & other compensation. -
David Boies becomes legal counsel for Theranos
After being promised stock options, and additional compensation, legal powerhouse David Boies signs on to be legal counsel. -
Uncle Dies of Skin Cancer
The cancer metastasized and he dies quickly - she doesn't get to say goodbye. She claims this was the Inspo from Theranos, but apparently he died 18 months before her 2014 TED talk - long after she created the company. Apparently, she wasn't even that close to him.... **death date of uncle is not exact
https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/03/226938/who-elizabeth-holmes-uncle-died-cancer-true-story -
Military Concerns Squashed by Board Member General Mattis
Lieutenant Colonel David Shoemaker raises concerns about Theranos' regulatory strategy to the FDA, when Holmes approached him about a military partnership. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Mattis defended Holmes and ultimately agreed to a more restricted experiment. *Year exact -
Ian Gibbons Loses Traction at the Company
Understood a lot, and helped a lot of people work through the data and tests - he lost his office in 2012, he was no longer involved in decision making - he alerted that things weren't working.
Theranos tries to gag order Ian from testifying in a patent lawsuit, which would alert people to the fact that E. Holmes wasn't an inventor. -
Ian Gibbons Kills Himself
Fear of being fired, with no idea what do to next, Ian takes his own life. Company doesn't reach out - except to ask for the confidential documents that he had. -
Walgreens & Theranos Partnership - Running out of Money & Time
Theranos announced a “long-term partnership” with Walgreens that will eventually est. its wellness centers in most of the 8300 Walgreens stores. The Walgreens in Palo Alto has one, as do forty Walgreens pharmacies in Phoenix.** (not true) Walgreens never looked inside the machine. Patient samples were sent to Palo Alto. This partnership allowed them to raise $400 mill in additional funding including Rupert Murdoch, Betsy Devos, Walton Family, owner of the Patriots. -
Employees: NDA & Key Strokes
Everything that people type is being watched - Sunny responding to emails that he wasn't cc'd on. Employees weren't supposed to tell their spouses what they were doing. Teams were siloed - they weren't allowed to talk to each other. Since people weren't allowed to talk to one another, they didn't know what was going on... -
Growing Concern for her Social Life
“My wife and I feel that one of our jobs is to bring her out,” George Shultz told me. They invite her to the theatre, and this year threw her a thirtieth-birthday party at their home, which was attended by her parents, her brother, Balwani, Robertson, and several members of the board and their spouses. Henry Kissinger and his wife, Nancy, have tried, without success, to fix her up on dates. Her mother told me, “As a parent, I do hope that at some point she will have time for herself.” -
The Cover of Fortune Magazine
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Theranos Moves to Stanford Research Park
The company employs over 800 people and is valued at $10 billion **exact date is off - just the FALL of 2014 -
New Yorker Article By Ken Auletta
For many years it has operated with a stealth common to many Silicon Valley startups...valued...at more than $9 billion, comparable to the 2 major diagnostic labs. Holmes owns more than 50% of the company; she was profiled last spring in Fortune and subsequently featured in Forbes as “the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world.”
The board...is stocked with prominent former government officials, including George P. Shultz, Henry Kissinger...." -
Quest Refutes Theranos Claims
A rep from quest said in the New Yorker article: "argues that finger-stick blood tests aren’t reliable for clinical diagnostic tests; because the blood isn’t drawn from a vein, the sample can be contaminated by lanced capillaries or damaged tissue" -
Tyler Shultz Quits** I believe it is late 2014
Tyler, George Shultz grandson, quits in 2014. Shortly after, his grandfather confronts him, telling him that his is wrong. Later, reporter John Carreyrou from WSJ reaches out to him. Despite heavy NDAs, Tyler agrees to talk. Whistle blowing on the situation. -
E. Holmes Lobbys Arizona to order Blood Tests w/o Prescription
The Floor is so amped on her, claiming that there isn't a question they could ask that she hasn't asked many times. When Doctors called Theranos to ask questions, the lab wouldn't give them any answer. Theranos started giving out gift cards to get free labs done, and offering gift cards. -
Walgreens Runs into Major Problems *dates are not exact
Finger prick tests are completely phased out, the inexperienced technicians at Theranos have to run these test, by diluting them. The employees realize that there are a lot of errors here, but no one is doing anything about it. -
Boies Threatens Erica Cheung
Theranos lawyer David Boies sends a threatening letter to Erica Cheung - you need to provide us with these documents or we are going to sue you. -
WSJ Article is Published by John Carreyrou
The damaging article, revealing the truth about Theranos - that it used 3rd party machines & faked test results - is published. Tyler Shultz contributed to the article. Realization that fraud is allowed to thrive in Silicon Valley.
Same day she is being inducted to the Harvard Medical School Board... -
E. Holmes Speaks at WSJ Conference in Laguna Beach
She was booked to be on the panel, she showed up and CONTINUED to lie. Claims they never used commercial lab equipment. -
Fortune Writes a Retraction by Robert Parloff
E. Holmes reaches out and asks him to eliminate the phrasing (she deliberately mislead me). Parloff receives a letter from Boies - with a note at the end that allegedly E. H didn't know he was doing a cover story on her at the time of the interview. The interview lasted 4 days - he met her family, 5 board members and took over 1000 photos in different locations. -
Sunny Leaves Theranos **June 2016
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Theranos Value = Less Than Zero
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Elizabeth Holmes & Sunny are formally Charged
S.E.C. announced that Holmes and Sunny Balwani have been charged with “massive fraud” for raising more than $700 million from investors in a years-long scheme “in which they exaggerated or made false statements about the company’s technology, business, and financial performance.”
“Theranos’s proprietary analyzer could complete only a small number of tests, and the company conducted the vast majority of patient tests on modified and industry-standard commercial analyzers manufactured by others.” -
Charged by the DOJ **date maybe off my a few days
Sunny and Elizabeth are with nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. -
Theranos is Officially Shut Down
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Default on 100 Million Dollar Loan
She defaulted on a 100 million loan with Fortress Investment Group and finally shut down the company. The company negotiated a settlement with Fortress, which would then own the company’s intellectual property and allow Theranos to distribute its remaining cash — some $5 million — to unsecured creditors. “Because the company’s cash is not nearly sufficient to pay all of the creditors in full, there will be no distribution to shareholders” -
Elizabeth Shows up to Court NOT in a turtleneck
The fact that people care is absurd
