Who is Elizabeth Holmes?

The rise of Theranos

Holmes dropped out of Stanford University at 19 to found Theranos in 2003. She claimed its device could run hundreds of medical tests from a few drops of blood from a finger prick. Dressed in black turtlenecks and compared to Steve Jobs, she became the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire on paper. Theranos partnered with Walgreens and attracted famous investors and board members.

The fall

1. 2015Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou reveals that Theranos’s technology doesn’t work as claimed
2. 2016Regulators sanction Theranos’s lab; partners pull out
3. 2018Theranos shuts down; Holmes is charged with fraud
4. January 2022A jury convicts her on four counts of defrauding investors
5. November 2022She is sentenced to 135 months (11 years, 3 months) in prison
6. May 2023She reports to a federal prison camp in Bryan, Texas
7. March 2026A judge reduces her sentence to 123 months

She was acquitted on charges of defrauding patients. Her former business partner and boyfriend, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, was convicted separately.

Where is she now?

As of late 2026, Holmes is at FPC Bryan in Texas. Prison records and court filings indicate she’s set to move to a halfway house in the Austin area on August 23, 2027, with a projected full release in 2030, followed by three years of supervised release. She has also asked for a presidential commutation; none had been granted at the time of writing. She has two young children with her partner, Billy Evans.

In books and on screen

• Bad Blood (2018), by John Carreyrou
• The Inventor (2019), an HBO documentary
• The Dropout (2022), a Hulu series with Amanda Seyfried as Holmes

For other people in the news, see how old Sean Hannity is. Curious how real tech companies are run? See who owns Google.