Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes shed her signature black turtleneck and low-octave voice as she broke her silence in her first interview since her January 2022 fraud conviction.
The one-time Silicon Valley wunderkind, 41, appears on the cover of People Magazine this week in a camel-colored sweater and jeans, having spoken to the outlet from Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas, where she’s currently serving a nine-year sentence — reduced from 11 years in July 2023 due to good behavior.
“I’m not the same person I was back then,” Holmes said of founding her startup in 2003, with the promise of offering wide-ranging diagnostic results through shockingly minimal bloodwork.
“It’s surreal. People who have never met me believe so strongly about me. They don’t understand who I am,” she said. “It forces you to spend a lot of time questioning belief and hoping the truth will prevail. I am walking by faith, and ultimately, the truth. But it’s been hell and torture to be here.”
It was just over a decade ago, in 2014, that Holmes made history as America’s youngest self-made billionaire. The following year, The Wall Street Journal published an exposé questioning the legitimacy of the blood-testing technology that earned Theranos its $9 billion valuation.
The exposé marked the beginning of the end for Theranos, as multiple whistleblowers came forward with claims of secrets and deceit. Years of investigations culminated in a nearly four-month trial, in which a jury found Holmes guilty of defrauding investors and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Today, the Stanford dropout maintains that she’s innocent — just as she did when she pleaded not guilty. Still, she concedes there are things that she “would have done differently,” and is still processing the downfall that led to her lockup.
“First it was about accepting it happened. Then it was about forgiving myself for my own part,” she told People. “[But] I refused to plead guilty to crimes I did not commit. Theranos failed. But failure is not fraud.”
Holmes — a mom of two with her husband, Evans Hotel Group heir Billy Evans — is now focused on doing good while behind bars, teaching French to fellow inmates, counseling rape survivors and helping women prepare for release as she works as a law and reentry clerk.
“I’m trying to grow, as every moment matters,” she said. “And if one person’s life can be touched trying to help them in a crisis, it matters.”
In this Nov. 2, 2015 file photo, Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of Theranos, speaks at the Fortune Global Forum in San Francisco. (Jeff Chiu/AP)
Currently scheduled for release in April 2032, Holmes says that post-prison she hopes to fight for criminal justice reform and even recently drafted a bill to reinforce the presumption of innocence and advocate for incarcerated people.
“This will be my life’s work,” said an emotional Holmes. “Human beings are not made to be in cells.”
Despite being viewed as a con-artist, Holmes also says she’s planning to return to the healthcare tech industry and is currently drafting patents while behind bars.
“There is not a day I have not continued to work on my research and inventions,” she told the magazine. “I remain completely committed to my dream of making affordable healthcare solutions available to everyone.”