The ex-superstar of Silicon Valley, accused of having damaged investors and patients by believing they would revolutionize blood test technology, testified to the bar and attempted to convince the jurors of his good Faith.
by
Since the opening of his trial, September 8, Elizabeth Holmes arrives every morning at the Federal Court of San José (California), supervised by his mother and her husband, Billy Evans, the son of a magnat of the San Diego’s hotels, each holding a hand. Tuesday, November 23 was no exception.
If it were one of the most important days for the outcome of a case that could argue up to twenty years in prison, the former boss of Theranos did not show anything . Impassable, it has moved to safety control along the file from journalists, aligned for hours by order of arrival. There are only thirty places in the courtroom and the trial is not broadcast on television.
Elizabeth Holmes, 37 years old, is accused of having damaged investors and patients by believing that Theranos, his start-up founded in 2003, had found a method that would revolutionize blood tests. In a silicon Valley exuberance, Theranos had been valued up to $ 9 billion in 2014 without having ever demonstrated results. Grouped by the flight of its reputation, Elisabeth Holmes dressed like Steve Jobs, in black-collar, and allowed that she had invented “the iPod health care”: a small camera called “Edison”, allegedly Capable of making more than 200 different tests, from a simple drop of blood. Declared in bankruptcy in 2018, Theranos became the symbol of the Hubris of the Silicon Valley.
Smiling and sure of her
Tuesday, Elizabeth Holmes intervened for the third time before the court. The days before, she had rather marked points, telling her journey from a hurried girl, so motivated by her project to “democratize health” that she had left her chemist engineering studies in Stanford in the second year. Sure of her, sometimes smiling, she had firmly responded to the question at the center of the trial: what was she knew of the poor performance of the technology she was worthy of the merits to investors. “Were you convinced that Theranos had developed a technology that could perform any blood test?”, Asked him on Friday, one of his lawyers. “I was there,” she assured.
The audience of Tuesday was much less favorable. The ex-superstar of the Silicon Valley, which must answer eleven charges for fraud, recognized that it personally included the logo of the Pfizer and Schering-Plow giants on the brochures sent to potential investors. That, without their agreement, while they did not validate its technology. She stated that her intention was not to induce anyone. “I would like to have acted differently,” she confessed.
You have 48.94% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.