HBO debuted its documentary on Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes this week, but the drama surrounding the Stanford dropout and her now-defunct blood-testing startup has yet to play out in a California courtroom.
Theranos was founded in 2003 but did not attract significant attention until a decade later. That’s when Holmes’s company began touting technology that supposedly eliminated the need for large needles for a wide array of blood tests. The ostensibly revolutionary tech company subsequently achieved a $9 billion valuation and recruited a board with luminaries including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
The story of Theranos and Holmes has provided fodder for a podcast, a book that reads like a true-crime thriller, and now the HBO documentary. There’s even a dramatized version coming out starring Jennifer Lawrence as Holmes, who dropped out of Stanford at the age of 19 to start Theranos. But the real-life story that will play out if, and when, the fraud case goes to trial, could be even more compelling.
“If you make a deal and your client gets 10 years in prison, that’s not much of a deal,” Henning said, pointing out that Holmes has an able team of lawyers from the white shoe law firm Williams & Connolly who may be prepared to litigate the case. In order to convict Holmes of fraud, prosecutors would either have to show that she knew Theranos blood tests didn’t work or that she buried her head in the sand to ignore signs that the devices were a sham .