Photo courtesy of The Boston Globe
Once the darling of Silicon Valley, Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the failed startup Theranos, is currently facing 11 counts of fraud and conspiracy. Her trial is expected to get a ruling sometime after December 17. The public first grew suspicious of Holmes in 2015, when journalist John Carreyrou published a scathing article in the Wall Street Journal exposing the illegitimacy of Theranos’s supposedly revolutionary technologies. Six years later, Holmes faces up to twenty years in prison.
Holmes, now 37, dropped out of Stanford at 19 to start her company on the basis of a major advancement in medical technology — the ability to conduct crucial medical tests, including those for cancer and cholesterol, simply by pricking a patient’s finger. There was just one problem: the technology didn’t work. Still, Holmes raised $9 billion in funding, which made her, at one point, the youngest female self-made billionaire in history. Reportedly, she spent over a decade building her company in secret, without any product release, while simultaneously growing a mountain of funding. In 2015, whistleblowers leaked the technological failings of her products.
Regardless of the results of the current trial, Holmes’s story already has, and will continue to, demonize women working in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).
Women make up just 28% of the workforce in the STEM industry, and at higher-level corporate positions, that percentage is even lower. Female-led companies are less likely to receive funding, good press, and early market success. Holmes built her brand on being a successful woman in this industry despite these obstacles. She frequently tweeted affirmations such as #Ilooklikeanengineer, discussed feminist issues, and considered herself an advocate for women in her field. She was once considered the next Steve Jobs — turtlenecks, deep blunt voice and all. So what does Holmes’s career, which, for many female-identifying individuals in STEM, was a roadmap for success, come to mean if she is guilty of the fraud she stands accused of? Is the wide press coverage of her accused shortcomings as a business person in part a consequence of her sex?
Widespread cases of white-collar crime are nothing new in STEM. From cases like Josh Tetrick’s sales inflation to Ronny Abovitz’s over-evaluation, it would seem that Theranos isn’t the only music man on the block. And, indeed, many believe that the widespread backlash against Holmes, which has spurred millions in profit for media corporations, is in part a result of sexism. In Holmes’s statements this week, she accused her ex-partner, former Theranos CEO Ramesh Balwani, a man 20 years her senior, of domestic abuse and framing her for fraud, a fraud she claims he committed. The response to her closing statements from major news conglomerates ranged from smug disbelief to outright sexism and victim-shaming. Whether Balwani is actually guilty of these crimes is unclear, but the backlash against Holmes echoes backlash used to silence victims who come forward in cases of domestic violence. Regardless of the verdict in Holmes’s case, the brutal media rhetoric she faces serves to discourage women from being leaders in the STEM field and coming forward about situations of abuse.
When a movement, like ‘women in STEM,’ has so few icons, the downfall of one can hold back so many others . We, as a society, are just now recognizing the fraught relationship that public women have always had with the American press. From Britney Spears to Monica Lewinsky, the media has a long track record of ruining women’s lives over mistakes considered commonplace for men. While the implications of Holmes’s mistakes may be greater, so is what she represents. She is a woman who achieved early success in a field that is the backbone of innovation the world over. So when she brutally and publically fell, she served as a warning for women trying to make it in the valley – this is what a mistake will cost.
