Elizabeth Holmes has had a rough go of it the past couple years. She’s an American entrepreneur and investor, and the founder and CEO of Theranos, a privately held blood test company based in Palo Alto, California. Theranos and Holmes have both made recent news for allegedly committing “massive fraud.” In 2015, Forbes named Holmes the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world due to a $9 billion valuation of Theranos. The next year when the alleged fraud reports were made, Forbes revised her net value, “From $4.5 Billion to Nothing.”
Elizabeth Holmes Net Worth: $0
Nothing to see hear. When Forbes says you’re worth nothing, everyone listens, including Holmes’ bank account. From billions to a goose egg is absolutely brutal. Let’s see how it all went down.
1984-2003
Elizabeth Holmes was born in February 1984 in Washington, D.C. Holmes studied Mandarin as a child and completed three years of summer language classes at Stanford University before graduating St. John’s School in Houston. During high school, Holmes was interested in computer programming and started her first business selling C++ compilers to Chinese universities. In 2001, Holmes applied to Stanford University and was named a President’s Scholar, which came with a stipend to use on a research project. She studied chemical engineering and used the stipend to work in a lab with Ph.D. candidates and Channing Robertson, dean at the engineering school.
2004-2012
In March 2004, she dropped out of Stanford’s School of Engineering and used her tuition money to fund a consumer healthcare technology company. This company later became Theranos (combination of “Therapy” and “Diagnosis”), whose goal was to make health information accessible to all people at any time so that risk of disease and health conditions could be detected early on. Holmes started with her first office in the basement of a college house, one employee, and rented lab space. By December 2004, she had raised $6 million from venture capitalists. The company’s first revenue came from contracts Holmes established with pharmaceutical companies to conduct testing and other clinical trials. By the end of 2010, Holmes had more than $92 million in venture capital for Theranos.
2013-2015
Holmes operated Theranos in stealth mode without press releases or a company website until September 2013 when the company announced a partnership with Walgreens to make in-store blood sample collection centers. Media attention increased in 2014 as she was on the cover of Fortune, Forbes, T: The New York Times Style Magazine and Inc., who considered her “The Next Steve Jobs”. Forbes recognized Holmes as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire and ranked her #110 on the Forbes 400 in 2014. Theranos was valued at $9 billion and with 50% stake in the company, Holmes was supposedly worth $4.5 billion. By the end of 2014, she had 18 U.S. patents and 66 foreign patents in her name.
2016-Present
It all started with a report from The Wall Street Journal in October 2015 that stated the Edison blood-testing device by Theranos might provide inaccurate results. This triggered multiple investigations into Theranos and their business processes, and over the next few years, Walgreens discontinued their partnership with the company, several class action fraud lawsuits were filed against the company, and 99% of shareholders exchanged their shares for preferred stock. On March 14, 2018, Holmes settled an Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit alleging fraud by making false or misleading statements about Theranos’ technology and business. The terms of the settlement included surrendering voting control of Theranos, a ban on holding an officer position in a public company for 10 years, and a $500,000 fine.