In 2001, Elizabeth Holmes entered Stanford University as a chemical engineering major, dreaming of becoming the first female high-tech startup billionaire. In the summer after her freshman year, she attended a university program in China. There she met 37-year-old Sunny Balwani, who epitomized her aspirations, having cashed out a high-tech firm he started during the dot.com bubble for $40 million. They began a lengthy romantic relationship. Holmes had a life-long phobia of needles and imagined revolutionizing the blood-testing industry. Instead of using a syringe to draw blood from veins sufficient to fill several threeinch vials, she envisioned a process that involved only a few drops of blood taken from a finger prick filling one to three half-inch “nanovials.” She wanted the results to be available in virtually real-time and the cost to be only a fraction of the usual charge.

Questions

1. How do you rate the governance provided by the board of directors? Explain. 

2. Discuss whether the investors and Walgreens exercised good judgment in their decision making. 

3. For years Holmes and others lied about Theranos’ technological capabilities. How did they get away with it?