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2016 has not been too kind to Elizabeth Holmes, the Steve-Jobs wannabe in charge of fraudulent Theranos. She has thus far been banned for 2 years from operating labs, removed from hosting fundraisers for Hillary and lost her entire net worth. And now, the Wall Street Journal has published the "tell-all" story of the whistle-blower, 26 year old Tyler Shultz, who brought the the whole Theranos farce crashing down. It's a sordid tale complete with all the expected twists and turns of a Jason Bourne thriller including intimidation, coercion and private detectives. Tyler Shultz is the grandson of George Shultz,...

After working at Theranos Inc. for eight months, Tyler Shultz decided he had seen enough. On April 11, 2014, he emailed company founder Elizabeth Holmes to complain that Theranos had doctored research and ignored failed quality-control checks. The reply was withering. Ms. Holmes forwarded the email to Theranos President Sunny Balwani, who belittled Mr. Shultz’s grasp of basic mathematics and his knowledge of laboratory science, and then took a swipe at his relationship with George Shultz, the former secretary of state and a Theranos director. “The only reason I have taken so much time away from work to address this...

Embattled Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is a victim who has been "totally attacked," venture capitalist Tim Draper told CNBC on Tuesday. Holmes has been under fire since a series of reports by The Wall Street Journal suggested the blood-testing start-up's testing devices were flawed. "Elizabeth Holmes is a great example of maybe why the women are so frustrated. She is a woman entrepreneur who built a fabulous company, did great things for consumers and she got attacked," the founding partner of Draper Associates and Draper Fisher Jurvetson said in an interview with "Closing Bell." "This is a great entrepreneur who...

Theranos Inc. allegedly voided 11.3% of all blood-test reports that the Silicon Valley laboratory firm provided to customers of Walgreens stores through a yearslong partnership between the two companies, according to legal papers the drugstore chain filed Tuesday. Theranos, whose main lab failed an inspection by U.S. regulators earlier this year, told Walgreens in June that it subsequently voided 31,000 test reports provided to the chain’s customers, Walgreens said in the public version of a sealed lawsuit.

SAN FRANCISCO – Walgreens has filed a $140 million breach of contract suit against Theranos Inc., compounding the woes of the Silicon Valley-based medical device startup. The suit was filed under seal in Delaware federal court on Tuesday. It's not clear what exactly the Illinois-headquartered pharmacy chain is alleging, but the docket describes the case as a breach of contract suit with a demand of $140 million.

SAN FRANCISCO — Embattled biotech startup Theranos Inc. has promoted senior litigation counsel David Taylor to acting general counsel. Taylor's already got a full plate. "He's got a mess on his hands," said Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro partner Robert Carey in Phoenix, one of many lawyers suing the blood diagnostics company for alleged consumer fraud. Carey's suit is one of six similar, separate suits consolidated in the Northern District of California. Aside from that litigation surplus, Theranos is being investigated for investor and consumer fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice, respectively. The...

Last year, Elizabeth Holmes topped the FORBES list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women with a net worth of $4.5 billion. Today, FORBES is lowering our estimate of her net worth to nothing. Theranos had no comment. Our estimate of Holmes’ wealth is based entirely on her 50% stake in Theranos, the blood-testing company she founded in 2003 with plans of revolutionizing the diagnostic test market. Theranos shares are not traded on any stock market; private investors purchased stakes in 2014 at a price that implied a $9 billion valuation for the company. Since then, Theranos has been hit with allegations...

The widow of a scientist who killed himself in fear he was about to lose his job at troubled bio-tech start-up Theranos has told of the company's paranoid culture. Ian Gibbons, the head scientist at the blood test company, died after taking an overdose of painkillers in May 2013 within hours of being summoned for a meeting. According to his widow, Rochelle, he had found faults in machines the company claimed would 'change the world' by being able to diagnose diseases from a single pinprick of a patient's blood. Having recently been diagnosed with cancer, he stopped going to work...

Theranos, a onetime star Silicon Valley startup focused on health technology, is closing its consumer blood-testing facilities amid its struggles with US regulators. The company, which has been seeking to disrupt the medical testing sector with new technology, said the closings will mean cutting some 340 jobs. "After many months spent assessing our strengths and addressing our weaknesses, we have moved to structure our company around the model best aligned with our core values and mission," company founder Elizabeth Holmes said in an open letter.

We confidently assume that we have the world's most entrepreneurial nation, and the proof seems overwhelming. Google, Facebook and Twitter are but three (relatively) recent startups that have become corporate titans. Before them, there were others: Microsoft, Intel and FedEx. We seem to excel at nurturing new firms. Or do we? Previous studies have shown that, despite the success of firms like Facebook, the number of startups has dropped sharply, from about 13% of all firms in the late 1980s to about 8% in 2011. Now a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research reports that the expansion...

Entrepreneurs who obtain the two-year visas will be able to develop new technological enterprises in Israel and their visas will be extended if they decide to establish start-up companies in Israel. If you’re planning on creating the next Waze, the next Trusteer, or the next XtremIO, the government doesn’t care if you’re Jewish, Israeli or have even visited the Holy Land. It wants you to set up shop right here. The Economy Ministry on Thursday announced plans to issue “innovation visas” for foreign entrepreneurs to come work in Israel. Entrepreneurs who obtain the two-year visas “will be able to develop...

Fifteen years ago, Fort Bonifacio in the Philippines was a former military base still dotted with barracks built in World War II. Thanks to an aggressive privatization and conversion program, Bonifacio Global City — as the base is known today — is a modern, bustling financial district lined with blocks of skyscrapers, shopping malls, and luxury condos. The Southeast Asia city’s rapid growth echoes the story of the so-called “unicorns” — technology start-ups that rapidly grew to a billion-dollar valuation and beyond. So far, 2015 has produced 30 unicorns. But as start-ups mature, the grow-at-all-cost narrative will be replaced by...

Move over, Silicon Valley. America has a new startup capital, according to a non-profit organization that studies startup trends throughout the U.S. So which city is currently home to the most startup activity in the U.S.?That honor goes to Austin, Texas. The rankings were compiled as part of the Kauffman Index, an in-depth measure of startup activity issued each year by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.Silicon Valley, which was #1 last year, fell all the way to #3 in the 2015 rankings. Miami now finds itself in the #2 spot in the Kauffman Index: The rate of new entrepreneurs,...

Anyone who spends time in or around the state of New York and has access to a television is familiar with the nearly endless advertisements which clutter the airwaves touting the accomplishments of Governor Andrew Cuomo. It’s a rather strange phenomena considering the fact that he’s not up for election again until 2018, assuming he even bothers to run at all. One of his greatest “accomplishments” in turning around the dismal prospects of the state is the START-UP NY program which was ostensibly designed to attract businesses to the state, promote the creation of new businesses and boost employment....

San Diego Sand Castles offers three-hour classes that teach customers how to build the perfect sand castle on a San Diego beachIf you’ve walked by Dog Beach in Del Mar recently, you may have noticed some better-than-average sand castles. That’s thanks to a new startup offering a unique service that’s becoming one of the most sought-after attractions in San Diego. San Diego Sand Castles is the one and only local company that teaches customers how to make eye-catching sand castles on the beach. The company is less than two years old, but it’s already reached the number one spot on...

SUNNYVALE -- A prominent Silicon Valley clean-energy startup has been ordered to pay back wages and penalties for bringing in workers from Mexico and paying them about $2.66 an hour in pesos, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Tuesday. Sunnyvale-based Bloom Energy, which makes fuel cells and sells energy to clients including AT&T, Adobe, Coca-Cola, eBay, Google and Wal-Mart, was ordered by a judge to pay $31,922 in back wages and an equal amount in damages to 14 welders who were brought in to work alongside domestic workers refurbishing power generators. It followed a federal investigation that inspected records from...

San Francisco: A new study showing that immigrants founded one quarter of U.S. technology start-up companies could fuel calls to relax immigration rules ahead of next month's U.S. presidential elections, where the economy and immigration are key issues. The study "America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Then and Now," shows that 24.3 percent of engineering and technology start-up companies have at least one immigrant founder serving in a key role. Indian-born entrepreneurs, representing 33 percent of the companies, dominated the group. The study paid particular attention to Silicon Valley, where it analyzed 335 engineering and technology start-ups. It found 43.9 percent were...

LOS ANGELES -- A tiny San Jose solar company named SoloPower will flip the switch on production at a U.S. factory Thursday, a major step toward allowing it to tap a $197 million government loan guarantee awarded under the same controversial program that supported failed panel maker Solyndra. SoloPower has initiated a strategy to differentiate it from struggling commodity players in the solar panel industry. Still, there are several similarities between SoloPower and Fremont-based Solyndra -- which became a lightning rod in the U.S. Presidential campaign this year after taking in more than $500 million in government loans and then...

How can the next presidential get the American job machine functioning again? One way is establish a policy environment that incentivizes business startups, which have fallen hard under the current administration. President Obama tells small-business owners they "didn't build" their companies. But they know better. And they are also aware of the important role they play in employment. Small businesses employ about half of all U.S. workers and they create the majority - by some estimates 80% or more - of the new jobs. Rather than trying to convince entrepreneurs they're not responsible for their own success, Obama should be...

I caught a segment on the Phoenix local news about the Grand Opening of Barista Café, which welcomes its first patrons this upcoming Sunday. I wondered why the opening of yet another coffee shop would generate such buzz. As it turns out, Barista Café is not the usual coffee shop. Its competition is not Starbucks or Peets or Coffee Beanery. No, it’s targeting the market served by such franchises as Hooters, Twin Peaks and Tilted Kilt (which also got its start in Arizona). That’s because Barista Café is a “bikini” coffee shop, one of the nation’s first, if not the...