SAN JOSE (CBS SF) — Like many people she came into contact with during her heyday as the darling of Silicon Valley, Tyler Shultz was at first mesmerized by Elizabeth Holmes, but soon realized something wasn’t quite right with Theranos and her claims about the company’s allegedly revolutionary blood-testing technology.
On Monday, a jury of eight men and four women split on two of the major federal fraud counts filed against Holmes, ruling she defrauded investors of millions of dollars but did not mislead patients and doctors as to the accuracy of her failed startup Theranos’ blood testing technology. She also was found guilty of three counts of wire fraud.
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It was a stunning conclusion to the high-flying career of a woman who was once called the next Steve Jobs. Holmes was the subject of business magazine cover stories describing her as the youngest self-made female billionaire in history.
“Elizabeth is a very, very charismatic person,” Shultz said in an interview with the CBS Morning News Tuesday. “When she speaks to you, she makes you feel like you are the most important person in her world in that moment. She almost has this reality distortion field around her that people can just get sucked into.”
Her tumble from grace and tech stardom began shortly after a series of articles critical of Theranos was published by Wall Street reporter John Carreyrou in 2018. Schultz became a valuable confidential source for that reporting.
Shultz was an employee at Theranos...
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