On Monday, after a three-month trial and 50 hours of deliberations, a jury found Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and former CEO of Theranos, guilty on four counts of fraud for making false claims to investors. Holmes was found not guilty on four charges related to lying to patients by providing them with faulty test results. The jury also deadlocked on three charges, for which the judge declared a mistrial.
The verdict--barring an appeal--brings the final chapter in what was one of Silicon Valley's iconic fairy tales. Holmes, a Stanford dropout who fancied herself in the mold of Steve Jobs, started a medical device company that promised the ability to run hundreds of tests from just a single drop of blood. It was--literally--too good to be true, but that didn't stop plenty of high-profile investors from pouring money into the company, which was valued at $9 billion at one point.
Holmes' strategy was to "fake it 'till you make it," except, there was never going to be a point at which Theranos would make what it promised. Holmes may have well believed it would, which is essentially her only defense for making false promises, but her revolutionary idea was a fairy tale only in the sense that it was made up. It wasn't real.
The most interesting thing as I've followed the trial is that Holmes isn't as unique as most people would like to think. Whenever we see a high-profile person convicted of fraud, it's easy to think they were an especially diabolical person. The thing is, the...
Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe LLP advises Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) investors that the firm is investigating potential legal claims arising from alleged false and misleading statements about the co...