Holmes is a con artist and former entrepreneur. In 2003, Holmes started Theranos, a now-defunct health technology company.
The company skyrocketed in valuation after they claimed to have revolutionized blood testing by developing methods to test blood from just a fingerpick quantity of blood.
Holmes also claimed to get the test results in no time and this gave her immense success. By 2015, she was named the youngest and wealthiest self-made female American billionaire.
In 2016, revelations of potential fraud about Theranos’s claims started to surface. Several journalistic and regulatory investigations revealed that she was misleading the investors and the government.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Theranos and Holmes with deceiving investors by “massive fraud” through false claims about the blood-testing technology.