In the extreme cases of the world's worst leaders, Elizabeth Holmes stands out significantly in the scale and recent reach of her massive scam. The story of Elezabth and her company Thernos is intertwined. His company, Thernos, was once valued at $9 billion and had a bright future that guaranteed it enormous attention and wealth, but it was later discovered to be a massive scam. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Elizabeth Anne Holmes dreamed from an early age that she would one day become a prosperous entrepreneur. Famously, at a very young age, she responded to her family's questions about her future with elaborate answers such as "I want to be a millionaire." She was never told that she couldn't accomplish what she wanted. Some say his ambition came from his parents Christian and Noel Holmes. If we go back to Elizabeth's family, we reach Marshal Davout, one of Napoleon's main field generals. Along the timeline comes a Hungarian immigrant named Charles Louis Fleischman. Born in 1800, he was the founder of a famous yeast company, Fleischmann Yeast, which would turn the family into one of the richest families of the 20th century. His great-great-grandfather was a Danish doctor named Christian Holmes, who later created the Cincinnati medical school and Cincinnati General Hospital. Christian used his already wealthy family connections to gather business and political connections to make all his ambitions a reality. Elizabeth's mother, Noel, was a West Point graduate who later worked at the Pentagon in the 1970s and later on Capitol Hill as a congressional committee staffer, foreign policy and defense aide. Even with an impressive past, the family was not perfect, many family members struggled with alcoholism and personal problems. Elizabeth's father, Christian Rasmus Holmes IV or Chris for short, worked in numerous executive positions in counties as part of government agencies such as the State Department. He wanted Elizabeth to restore the family's ambition. He would teach her about the family's past, for better or for worse. Chris would always blame his father and grandfather for the recklessness and weakening of the family fortune. Elizabeth Anne Holmes was born on February 3, 1984 in Washington DC. Throughout her childhood she was a lanky girl with big blue eyes and a creative mind. She has always been labeled as extremely competitive but never separated from the popular crowd. He bounced around prestigious schools across the United States as his parents moved for jobs. She struggled with eating disorders as she tried to fit in with her peers, but always maintained her focus in school. Elizabeth was an honor student, studying late into the night and getting little rest. Elizabeth's father arranged for a tutor to come every Saturday to teach her Mandarin. She later became fluent enough to be the only non-college student to attend a special Stanford Mandarin program which later sent her on a four-week program to Beijing. Elizabeth says she is interested in computer programming and is starting her first business selling C++ compilers to Chinese universities. Elizabeth knew what her ultimate goal was: to become an entrepreneur. He decided to join Stanford to pursue a degree in Biochemistry. Elizabeth knew that Stanford would be right for her because she wanted nothing less than the best education possible. She wanted to be heardfrom the best professors and colleagues who thought the same way and who shared his ambitions. In his non-academic life he traveled a lot. Her mother Noel would take young Elizabeth and her younger siblings to Boca Raton, Florida. Where the uncles had a luxury condominium. During her final years of high school she dated the son of a beloved orthopedic surgeon. The couple would fly around the country attending elaborate events. The house she grew up in was covered in photographs of her father as he oversaw humanitarian efforts and struggling countries around the world. This is in his attempt to discipline Elizabeth on the importance of living a purposeful life and not just chasing financial gain. Since her interest was in biochemical engineering, she had to create something that would not only make her money but change the industry itself. In the spring of 2002 Elizabeth was accepted to Stanford University as a prestigious Presidents Scholar who received a scholarship for an intellectual interest of her choice. This was a high point in Elizabeth's life and would set the stage for everything to come. Very early in his time at Stanford he met Professor Robertson, head of Stanford's chemical engineering department. The two made a connection with Elizabeth later helping him in his research lab. He was impressed enough to recommend her for his Ph.D. students working on research projects. “I had never met a student like this before out of the thousands of students I had spoken to” Roberson knew he was special and contained a high degree of determination. Shortly after Elizabeth founded her company under the name Real-Time cures, Professor Robertson joined the board and other students from the school became the first workers. Elizabeth subsequently changed the name to “Theranos, a combination of the words Therapy and Diagnosis”. Elizabeth was able to unite massive support from several prominent people with deep pockets. Money began to flow into the new startup and so Elizabeth continued to experiment with new ideas. She applied for various patents with some of them until she realized what the industry actually needed. “A cartridge-reader system that merged the fields of microfluidics and biochemistry. The patient pricked her finger to take a small sample of blood and put it into a cartridge that looked like a thick credit card. The cartridge would be inserted into a larger machine called a reader.” This would have been an industry-wide game changer if it could be brought to market. Patients would be able to immediately send their results to their doctor wherever they want. The entire project had enormous potential and in response the Thernos team dropped everything and focused solely on this project. The team began to grow and make significant progress by adding different elements to the company such as marketing and human resources. Elizabeth developed an obsession with progress and implemented a higher standard of standards than normal for the company. This may be due to his personal way of approaching work; no sleep, coffee during the day and endless hours before reaching the end of a task. “One evening when Elizabeth came to his workspace. She was frustrated with the pace of their progress and wanted to run the engineering department twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, to accelerate development. Ed thought it was a terrible idea. His team was working long hours as it was.” Here it became the first of Thernos's problems that, since they had never been corrected, would transform.