In Silicon Valley, Criminal Prosecutors See No Evil

The Elizabeth Holmes fraud trial is set to be a major spectacle, but tech executives generally get a pass when it comes to wrongdoing.

SAN FRANCISCO — The coronavirus pandemic has helped Silicon Valley companies in many ways, from bringing them hordes of new customers to weakening the competition to juicing the bottom line. Here’s a less obvious benefit: the threat of criminal prosecution has nearly disappeared. That fact is obscured by the case against Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the defunct blood-testing company Theranos and the most prominent executive to face criminal fraud charges in the history of Silicon Valley. Her trial, with opening statements set to begin on Wednesday, raises issues of deception, gender, transparency, out-of-control hype and the sartorial influence of the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, whose style Ms. Holmes mimicked.