Elizabeth Holmes' trial to dissect downfall of a tech star

Just six years ago, Elizabeth Holmes seemed destined to fulfill her dream of becoming Silicon Valley's next superstar. She was the subject of business magazine cover stories describing her as the youngest self-made female billionaire in history, former President Bill Clinton was reverently quizzing her about her thoughts on technology, and then Vice President Joe Biden was hailing her ideas as an inspiration.

Now Holmes is about to head into a San Jose, California, courtroom to defend herself against criminal allegations depicting her as the devious mastermind of a fraud that duped wealthy investors, former U.S. government officials and patients whose lives were endangered by a blood-testing technology that never came close to fulfilling her bold promises.

If convicted by a jury in a trial that begins Wednesday, Holmes could be sentenced to 20 years in prison — a stunning reversal of fortune for an entrepreneur whose wealth once was pegged at $4.5 billion. That amount represented her 50% stake in Theranos, a Palo Alto, California, biotech startup she founded in 2003 after dropping out of Stanford University at the age of 19.

Besides rehashing Holmes' stunning rise and fall, the three-month trial may also shine a light on how style sometimes overshadows substance in Silicon Valley, which prides itself on an ethos of logic, data and science over emotion.

Holmes' saga has peeled back the curtain on a “fake it until you make it" strategy that's been adopted by other ambitious startups who believe that with just need a little more time to perfect their promised breakthroughs they can join the hallowed ranks of Apple, Google, Facebook and other tech pioneers that sprang up in the 50-mile corridor from San Francisco to San Jose.

“I came away thinking she was just a zealot who really believed her technology would really...