Great frauds in history: Theranos and the millennial Madoff

Matthew Partridge explains the scam behind Theranos, a fake blood-testing company that raised $700m from investors.

Theranos was a technology firm founded by Elizabeth Holmes in 2003. Holmes dropped out of Stanford University to pursue her dream of devising a medical device that could perform blood tests using much smaller samples than other devices needed, cutting costs and reducing the need for painful needles. Another supposed benefit of the device she invented (named the "Edison") was that it was physically much smaller than standard machines, removing the need for samples to be sent to a central laboratory.

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri