The rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes, who started Theranos when she was 19 and became the world's youngest female billionaire before it all came crashing down

Elizabeth Holmes

These days, blood-testing startup Theranos is on its last legs.

But in 2014, the billion-dollar company and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, were on top of the world. Back then, Theranos was a revolutionary idea thought up by a woman hailed as a genius who styled herself as a female Steve Jobs. Holmes was the world's youngest female self-made billionaire, and Theranos was one Silicon Valley's unicorn startups.

Then it all came crashing down.

The shortcomings and inaccuracies of Theranos's technology were exposed, along with the role Holmes played in covering it all up. Theranos and Holmes were charged with massive fraud, and the company was forced to close its labs and testing centers.

On Friday, June 15th, Theranos announced Holmes was stepping down as CEO, and the Justice Department announced a grand jury had indicted Holmes and former Theranos president and COO Sunny Balwani for "alleged wire fraud schemes."

This is how Holmes went from precocious child to ambitious Stanford dropout to embattled startup founder charged with fraud.

Elizabeth Holmes was born on February 3, 1984 in Washington, D.C. Her mom, Noel, was a Congressional committee staffer, and her dad, Christian Holmes, worked for Enron before moving to government agencies like USAID.

Source: Elizabeth Holmes/Twitter, CNN, Vanity Fair

Holmes' family moved when she was young, from Washington, D.C. to Houston.

Source: Fortune

When she was 7, Holmes tried to invent her own time machine, filling up an entire notebook with detailed engineering drawings.

At the age of 9, Holmes told relatives she wanted to be a billionaire when she grew up. Her relatives described her as saying it with the "utmost seriousness and determination."

That same year, Holmes wrote a letter to her father: "What I really want out of life is to discover something new, something that mankind didn't know was possible to do."

Source: CBS News, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

See the rest of the story at Business Insider