Fraud - The Theranos Illusion: Blood, Lies, and Silicon Valley

Episode Three examines the Theranos fraud, where Elizabeth Holmes convinced Silicon Valley she'd revolutionized blood testing with technology that never worked. Maxwell Slate traces how a nineteen-year-old Stanford dropout with no medical expertise built a nine billion dollar company through carefully cultivated Steve Jobs cosplay, a board of prestigious but non-expert members, and aggressive secrecy disguised as protecting trade secrets. The episode reveals how Holmes deployed non-functional technology to actual patients through Walgreens partnerships, providing inaccurate medical test results that affected healthcare decisions. The fraud succeeded for over a decade through compartmentalization, legal intimidation, and weaponizing her identity as a female founder until journalist John Carreyrou's investigation exposed the truth, leading to Holmes's conviction and eleven-year prison sentence.
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