How Elizabeth Holmes Soured the Media on Silicon Valley
The New York Times
Testimony in the fraud trial of Ms. Holmes, the founder of the blood testing start-up Theranos, shows how much coverage of the tech industry has changed over the years.
SAN JOSE, Calif. — At the height of her acclaim in 2015, Elizabeth Holmes, the entrepreneur who founded the blood testing start-up Theranos, was named Glamour’s “Woman of the Year.” Time put her on its list of 100 luminaries. And she graced the covers of Fortune, Forbes, Inc. and T Magazine.
Theranos collapsed in scandal three years later, failing in its mission to revolutionize the health care industry. But it did change the world in another way: It helped sour the media on Silicon Valley.
That point was brought home on Thursday when Roger Parloff, a journalist who penned the Fortune cover story on Ms. Holmes and Theranos in 2014, testified in a federal courtroom in San Jose, Calif., where Ms. Holmes is on trial for 12 counts of fraud. Mr. Parloff said Ms. Holmes had made misrepresentations to him, including the volume and types of tests that Theranos could do, as well as its work with the military and pharmaceutical companies.
