Theranos

When I look out my office window in Palo Alto, California, I can stare at the next potentially big fraud: Theranos. As I watched the construction of the company’s impressive new headquarters in 2014, I thought Theranos would become another iconic Silicon Valley firm. I had no idea that the shiny glass and steel facade was possibly hiding a labyrinth of secrets, lies and half-truths.

In 2003, Elizabeth Holmes, then 19, dropped out of Stanford University to begin Theranos and develop an innovative blood-testing device that she said would give quicker results using just one drop of a patient’s blood.

On Oct. 15, 2015, Holmes, Theranos’ chairman and CEO, appeared on the CNBC program, “Mad Money,” with Jim Cramer to defend her company from a scathing Wall Street Journal article published that day. (See Theranos CEO fires back at WSJ: I was shocked, by Abigail Stevenson, CNBC, Oct. 15, 2015.)