Holmes wanted to be a billionaire since childhood. Her parents were from wealth, with medical and military folk. Holmes attended Houston’s most prestigious private school. She spoke her way into Stanford’s Mandarin program, while still in high school. Parents insisted on living a purposeful life.
Worked in lab during school year. Freshman internship at Genome Institute of Singapore: nasal swabs and syringes. There had to be a better way.
Fall Sophomore Year. Wrote patent application for arm patch that diagnoses and treats medical conditions. Associate Dean of Engineering school impressed with her inventiveness and motivation: go out and pursue your dream!
You’d hate to be the one calling bullshit on something that might work. Princeton’s Engineering School was also accepting of leaves of absence. However, Dean Bogucki’s emails hinted that people come back anyway. In the grand scheme of things, taking time off college to pursue a dream isn’t that consequential - if your family has the means to let you do it. I doubt Holmes burned bridges on her way out of Stanford.
Holmes raised ~$6m from VCs through family connections. TheraPatch: adhesive patch with microneedles and chip to control drug dosage; transmis readings to patient’s doctor. Theranos pivots to just the diagnostics. Instead of a patch, they’d build a handheld device. The revenue would come from licensing tech to pharma to help catch adverse drug reactions during clinical trials.
As far as pivots go, this one isn’t bad. For a moment, I can see sense in narrowing down the market and technical focus.
Ah, the transformative experience abroad.