In case you have never heard of her, Elizabeth Holmes is what the world considered the STEM Belle of Silicon Valley towing not just the footprint of Steve Jobs, but his dressing as well.
The Founder of Theranos, now a defunct health-focused tech startup that proposed changing diagnostic healthcare across the United States, is now facing a trial that is of immense interest to all the investors who funded the idea to the tune of $9 billion, all of which has now come to naught. The interest in Theranos shot Elizabeth to the top of Forbes as one of the wealthiest women in America before it was later revised to $0.
Holmes’ grand idea, which she began at a novel 19 and dropped out of Stanford to pursue, was to revolutionize the diagnosis of disease early before it ever occurred through a drop of blood. The idea, so fascinating, swept investors off their feet and they fell over each other just to get a piece of the pie, and they thought they did until the bubble burst.
An insider, Esther Cheung who used to work at the facility broke through the facade that was obtainable at the laboratories, a far cry from the touted claims by Elizabeth on many, many stages across the United States, proving it to be just not accurate! Everything simply went downhill from there, multiple lawsuits, investor withdrawals, and so on.
So what is this a case of, exquisite delusion or creative genius?
Let’s face it, inventors in times past faced a lot of ridicule going after novel ideas that seemed almost impossible but are the norms of today. Is there really any idea that is impossible, is Elizabeth clawing at shadows? Of course, Elizabeth has been accused of overarching the capabilities of the company’s testing machine, fraudulently so.
There are so many lives at risk maybe even much more dollars at stake, but doesn’t the idea of predicting your likely illness not make you wonder why we are not asking Elizabeth what the missing puzzle piece is and why she claims she is not guilty? She has stated people are fighting against her innovative devices because they just cannot conceive her idea just yet.
It is often said that you can fool a few people at most, but you can’t fool everyone all at the same time, so how did Elizabeth do it? That is what the U.S Federal Court will have to figure out. A jury of seven men and five women with five possible alternatives will have to decide.