The Theranos scandal: the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes

Brut America

She styled herself as the female Steve Jobs, becoming one of the youngest self-made woman billionaires. Now, she faces up to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of fraud.  This is the story of Elizabeth Holmes.

Transcript

00:00To the young women in the room here, do everything you can to be the best in science and math and engineering.

00:30I was at a point where another few classes in chemical engineering was not necessary

00:53for what I wanted to do.

01:11I started to get really interested at a really early age in this concept that building a

01:16business could be a vehicle for making a change in the world and for doing good.

01:45The question was, as a 19-year-old, how do you go about the process of convincing people

01:49that you know what you're doing and that you can pull it off?

01:53The first piece is realizing that it's not necessarily about age.

01:57And people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and Larry Ellison and others have demonstrated

02:05that.

02:34Stanford and Silicon Valley, I think, in so many ways are synonymous and the people

02:39who come here from all over the world, they have different backgrounds, but they have

02:43so much in common in that they share a dream and they share a goal to be part of something

02:49that makes a difference in the world.

03:19And I think money and fame are motivating factors, for sure.

03:32For someone building a company in Silicon Valley, hoping to make it a multibillion-dollar

03:36company like she did, I have no doubt that she was attracted by what goes with that status,

03:43which is the money, the fame, the celebrity.

04:09It's about technology.

04:10It's about people.

04:11It's about the conviction and dedication that an entrepreneur has in going into it to make

04:19something work, no matter what.

05:04It's our actions that will determine this new stereotype around women being the best

05:15in science and technology and engineering.

05:34Elizabeth Holmes, former CEO and founder of Theranos, along with her COO, Sunny Balwani,

05:40are facing conspiracy and wire fraud charges.

05:44In her view, a lot of the men that had come before her, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Larry

06:01Page, et cetera, had also faked it until they made it earlier in their careers.

06:08And therefore, she felt justified in doing so.

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