Elizabeth Holmes, biotech entrepreneur and one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, was the featured speaker at Pepperdine University’s commencement ceremony. Thirty-one-year-old Holmes dropped out of Stanford at the age of 19 in order to launch Theranos, a health technology company. She is noted as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire.
Holmes is working to improve the way blood testing is completed worldwide. Her company has developed ways to conduct hundreds of tests with one drop of blood, helping make health evaluation quick, easy and inexpensive.
The ceremony took place at the Malibu campus on Saturday, May 2.
“There are no shortcuts. You have to work smarter and harder than everyone else,” Holmes told the graduating class, according to a release sent from Pepperdine University.