Continously lied about Theranos' technology, in self-denial, and tried to cover up the truth

• Less concern for patients.
• Advanced her own interests and personal brand by misleading investors and other corporations about the state of Theranos' technology and sales.
• These falsehood lured new partners.
• Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) charged her with widespread fraud, accusing her of exaggeration and lying about her technology.
• In denial of the fact that her technology did not perform as promised.
• Convinced Rupert Murdoch to stop a journal reporter from publishing the truth by claiming he and the whistle-blower had gathered false information that would damage Theranos' reputation.
• Holmes lied to investors, health partners, regulators and employees (many whistleblowers were legally harassed) about Theranos' testing capabilities.
• However, the clearest victims are the patients that received false test results

Theranos technology had errors and no responsibility was taken

• Achieved US$9 billion valuation with over US$700 millions (apparently, a total of US$1.4 billion investment raised) of invested capital, hyping and selling a technology built on concocted precision of erratic test results.
• Its proprietary Edison machines frequently failed quality control checks and produced widely varying results.
• The most alarming and significant aspect of these findings is the potential risk and harm the company may have caused to thousands of people whose treatments were based on the hit-or-miss results conducted by its labs.
• These bad tests could have resulted in possible misdiagnoses and ensuring incorrect treatments of patients by medical practitioners.
• Was negligent for failing to notify patients who may have received inaccurate test results.

Paid more attention to creating hype instead of reseach and development

• Elizabeth worshipped Steve Jobs and Apple where she was found saying its blood-testing device would be the 'iPod of healthcare'.
• She graced the covers of magazines, TV shows, key-note-speaker at various tech conferences, and TED talks.
• As she flew the world in a private jet, Elizabeth was a marketing genius, a masterful fundraiser, and very astute at building strategic business alliances.
• Instead of focusing on their scientific research and development, Elizabeth focused on hype-marketing.

Staff and board of directors were inexperienced

• Inspection tests conducted by the Federal Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) discovered that Theranos' labs were run by inexperienced people where their results produced were inaccurate.
• Elizabeth misleadingly attracted high-profile investors and assembled a Who's Who of Board Directors (included two former Secretaries of State - Henry Kissinger & George Shultz, two former United States Senators, and Gen. Jim Mattis, Secretary of Defense) who are all knowledgeable and competent in their fields but not in biotechnology or healthcare.
• The Board Members did not have sufficient deep knowledge base to understand and interrogate Elizabeth's technological product or R & D carried out by her team.
• It is the role of the Board to truly understand their company's product, scrutinize and ask difficult questions, since Elizabeth (a charming college dropout) claimed Theranos could revolutionize the healthcare industry with its ability to perform 240 common blood diagnostic tests with a single drop of blood.
• Although USPTO database showed that Theranos as the assignee name for 86 issued patents, patented ideas did not necessarily translate into commercially viable qualified products.

Employees' loyalty were demanded, if not, there would be harsh consequences

• Elizabeth and her CEO Sunny Balwani both demanded absolute loyalty from their employees where she could turn on them instantly in a flash if she sensed they were not.
• For example, she used the fact that "inappropriate sexual material" was found on a terminated employee's work laptop as a public justification to fire the employee.

Theranos lab practices were awful.

• Theranos was slammed by the government for quality control, unlicensed personnel reviewed and released patient test results.
• Facilities did not have filtration systems, they lacked of proper equipment, their work benches were not cleaned and they practiced wrong testing procedures.

Their technology failed to attract top-tier health investors.

• The very first person Holmes went to with a startup idea - Stanford medical professor Phyllis Gardner - was suspicious of her approach.
• Ultimately, the Theranos "technology" failed to attract top-tier health investors. And, its board was crammed with big name statesmen from the Cold War (George Shultz, Henry Kissinger), instead of health experts. At least the miniLab was an improvement over early prototype.