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This week, Hulu’s The Dropout premiered. This adaptation of Elizabeth Homes’s story features Amanda Seyfried as Holmes and actor Naveen Andrews playing Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the Theranos founder’s much older ex-boyfriend. Holmes hired Balwani as the president of her company and then the COO before its very public crash.
The big promise of Theranos was that the new technology the company was allegedly developing would revolutionize blood testing in the medical industry. They raised billions of dollars and got a whole lot of hype. The only problem was none of the technology worked and they had to tell increasingly elaborate lies to cover their tracks.
Though many people focus on Holmes and her iconic black turtleneck, Balwani has as much to do with this story. Here’s what you need to know about him
Where is Sunny Balwani from?
Balwani was born in Pakistan and moved with his family to India before eventually immigrating to the U.S. He studied information systems at the University of Texas at Austin and eventually created a company called CommerceBid. Before that he worked for Microsoft.
How did Sunny Balwani get rich?
Commercebid was purchased by another business development software company called Commerce One, and in 2000 Balwani sold his shares of the latter and increased his wealth by $40 million. Commerce One then went out of business.
How did Sunny Balwani meet Elizabeth Holmes?
Balwani is 19 years older than Holmes and met her when she was only 18, at a Mandarin summer program in China shortly before she entered Stanford as an undergrad. They had started a romantic relationship by the time Theranos was founded in 2003.
In her trial, Holmes made a number of accusations against Balwani, including sexual abuse. She claims he told her he wanted to “kill the person” she was and make turn her into a “new Elizabeth.” He has vehemntly denied all of these allegations.
How long was Sunny Balwani president of Theranos?
He joined the company in 2009 and left the company in 2016 after a damning series of reports from John Carreyrou in The Wall Street Journal started to dismantle the reality of the Theranos operations, beginning in 2015. Balwani has no background in biology or medicine, but he invested $12 million in the company around the time he joined, when the company was struggling for funding. As president and then COO, he was known for firing people and lashing out when the tests in the laboratory failed, one former employee told CBS.
Carreyou’s reports and eventual 2018 book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup alleged that Theranos lied about their Edison device providing accurate results, giving misleading tests to investors and using machines that were already commercially available for most of their testing.
What charges is Sunny Balwani facing?
In March 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed civil charges against Balwani, as well as Holmes and Theranos, for “massive fraud.” They were accused of stealing $700 million in investments based on “false statements about the company’s technology, business, and financial performance.”
In June of that year, the former couple were both indicted on nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. They were tried separately and Holmes settled one of her cases for $500,000; in January 2022, she was found guilty on four counts of defrauding investors, and could face 20 years in prison. She did not blame Balwani, or claim he forced her to make false statements to investors.
Where is Sunny Balwani now?
No one is sure, exactly; he is supposed to start his trial in early March. His trial could change the final sentence of Holmes, who is currently out on bail.
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