I think her end product was too clearly defined for anything she was doing to be passed as progress. I don't think you could make the case for her.

You can make a case that partial self driving is a route to FSD, the ISS is en route to Mars and (you can make a potentially slightly less compelling case) LLMs are on the way to AGI.

No one can make a case that lady was en route to the tech she promised

I think she thought it was going to work for a while. The problem was when she got to the point of realizing it wouldn't and had the chance to stop there, she doubled down. That's why she's in prison today.

Elizabeth Holmes screwed up by telling the wrong lies and also having the wrong chromosomes. She should've called some cave rescuers pedophiles, then maybe people would've respected her.

There is a line. Forging documents is one of them.

Holmes, Balwani and co lied about their current technology, which is a step beyond making overly optimistic future projections. They claimed to have their own technology when they were actually using their competitor’s machines with diluted blood samples.