Rise and fall of false leaders: Elisabeth Holmes, Bernard Madoff and more

Today’s world is full of innovations. A photograph taken every five years could show objects that did not exist before are already in disuse. Technology drives this continuous renewal, and the last few decades are full of personalities that appear out of nowhere, invent something brilliant and change the lives of millions, if not billions. From Steve Jobs to Mark Zuckerberg to Elon Musk, there is no shortage of examples.

Yet, in the mare magnum of excellence, there is a rotten but ‘embellished’ substrate for the occasion that concerns false promises, scams and convictions. Here is the rise and fall of some unscrupulous entrepreneurs.

In 2003 Elizabeth Holmes, then a 19-year-old American with great ambitions, began quietly to operate in the medical field with these purposes. She decided to found her company - originally called Real-Time Cures - to pursue a complicated goal: to design a small machine that could carry out 240 types of blood tests with the collection of a single drop via a prick on the finger. No more long needles and full test tubes, but a simple pinch on the fingertip: this was the goal of her company Theranos.

Over the years, a brilliant and ambitious mind like that of the young woman has managed to convince several American investors to focus on this revolutionary idea, which would have allowed at low cost to carry out extensive screening on the health conditions of patients (such as positivity HIV, for example).