Former Theranos COO Sunny Balwani has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for his role in the blood testing startup fraud. Balwani was in a relationship with Elizabeth Holmes, the Theranos founder who has been handed a 11-year sentence in a separate trial. In her testimony, Holmes claimed that her ex-boyfriend Balwani abused her and manipulated her into lying to investors. She described Balwani as a controlling force at Theranos – her startup which she claimed was perfecting a device that could carry out a wide range of tests with just a few drops of blood. But the technology never worked and the claims were false.
Holmes was convicted in January for defrauding investors. Sunny Balwani, meanwhile, has been sentenced to 13 years in prison, then 3 years of supervised release for his role in what prosecutors argued was a massive fraud perpetuated on Theranos investors and patients.
Despite the ruling, many questions still remain about Balwani’s role in the spectacular rise and fall of Theranos. Indeed, not much is known about Balwani himself, who dated Holmes for most of the company’s run, according to several reports. Here is what we do know about Sunny Balwani, the 57-year-old former chief operating officer of Theranos.
From Pakistan to India
Sunny Balwani was born Ramesh Balwani in Sindh, Pakistan in 1965. He studied for some time at the prestigious boarding school Aitchison College in Lahore. Balwani’s family later moved to India “because being a Hindu in a mostly all-Muslim country of Pakistan was very difficult,” as per Balwani's personal lawyer, who was quoted by ABC News.
Balwani and his family then immigrated to the United States, where he studied computer science from the University of Texas. Balwani joined the university in 1987 but left before getting his degree. He eventually received a bachelor's degree in information systems in 1997.
A dot-com millionaire
Balwani’s early career was in software – he worked for Lotus Software and Microsoft. According to the New York Times, at Microsoft, he sold the company’s products to other firms. It was while working at Microsoft that he met Keiko Fujimoto, the Japanese artist he went on to marry. They divorced in 2002.
Balwani joined a start-up called CommerceBid.com as president in 1999, when the dot-com boom was at its height. He sold his shares in the company shortly before the dot-com bubble burst and exited with a cool $40 million. This was in 2000.
Balwani later went back to school and received a Master of Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley in 2003. He also spent four years at Stanford but dropped out in 2008.
From Ramesh to Sunny
In many ways, Sunny Balwani cuts a mysterious figure. For example, we do not know why and when he changed his name from Ramesh to Sunny. According to the New York Times investigation, Balwani’s name was still Ramesh on his divorce papers from a Japanese artist in 2002.
By 2012, he was co-authoring patents at Theranos as Sunny.
Meeting Elizabeth Holmes and joining Theranos
Sunny Balwani joined Theranos in 2009 as the COO and president of the now-defunct startup. He dated founder Elizabeth Holmes for most of the company’s run, although the two reportedly kept their relationship a secret from employees and investors.
According to Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by investigative reporter John Carreyrou, who first broke the story on the Theranos scam, Balwani met Holmes when she was 18 and he was 37. The two met on a trip to China in 2002 and their relationship reportedly started out at platonic, with Balwani acting as a mentor to Holmes.
By 2005, however, the two were living together. The couple did not publicly acknowledge their relationship until 2017, according to The Cut. That is when Holmes admitted to the SEC that she had kept her relationship with Balwani a secret from investors. The two broke up in 2016, shortly after things started going downhill for Theranos.
‘The Enforcer’
Sunny Balwani joined Theranos in 2009 despite having no background in laboratory science. He was in-charge of the day-to-day company management, but his management style was criticised by former employees.
One former Theranos employee claimed that Balwani’s nickname in office was “The Enforcer”, according to The Cut. Meanwhile, former Theranos vice president Anthony Nugent testified that, “the atmosphere of the place became caustic” under Balwani’s leadership. Balwani frequently used technical terms incorrectly, further showing his inexperience with working in a lab.
"He oversaw the lab operations from a business perspective," Balwani’s lawyer Jeffrey Coppersmith said. "He wasn't a lab scientist ... and he knew that, and that's why he hired PhDs and MDs to make sure the lab was running scientifically."
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