Yes, I do know about this. Thanks for your recommendation.

I've not seen this new film but I knew the story. There was a documentary on the BBC a while back and we saw the 2019 mentioned above one too.

I was aware ( though not heavily detailed ) of her and the company . I watched the clip you linked and wow just wow. I may try to find it. I think I misunderstood when it said coming in March but it referred to 2019.

Thanks for sharing this.

Thanks for the recommendation. I was like you in that I assumed I wouldn't like it. I will take a second look...

I am aware of the story in general.

Every photo I have ever seen of her makes her look slightly psychotic, or something. Is that selective printing, or a generally true statement?

I’ve watched programs about her and Theranos over the years and find it somewhat fascinating. I think my wife is coming home this weekend, maybe we’ll catch it. Thanks for the rec!

I'm very aware of the story and listened to several books about it 6 or 7 years ago - Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou was the first to break the story (when it appeared in the WSJ), and I highly recommend it. The audiobook of one of the whistleblower's personal experiences (Thicker Than Water) was also good, but not as informative as the journalist's full exposure. If you're interested in reading more about the story, those are really good.

I'm unmoved to spend money on something she's involved in and may earn money from, and I'm also uninterested in her early reinvention tour to try and remake her image.

I know about her and read articles over the years. Sociopathic grifter (yes, another). Also with blood on her hands.

Thanks for the tip. I will probably wait until the films are free before watching. She turns my stomach.

She was given a very light sentence (11.25 years) and should have gotten closer to 40 years with other penalties (such as being forbidden to ever serve as a director of any public company). Absolute fraudster.

▪️https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Holmes

olychick - Would you characterize this movie as putting Holmes in a good light? I’m wondering about the ”reinvention tour” comment. I saw that she and her partner are quite unhappy with how they are portrayed, and while she invited the project it’s considered to have backfired. Also, a quick search suggests neither Holmes nor her parter are benefitting from ticket sales or royalties.

I was surprised to read that lawyer David Boies was on the board of Theranos and defended Holmes.

▪️https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Boies

With a lot of deceptive PR, marketing hype and her quasi Steve Jobs wannabe attire, she managed to hoodwink a good handful of prestigious investors —

I’d ask, ”what were they thinking?” but clearly, they were not thinking. They were captivated by the hype. For a dropout, Holmes did pretty well for herself, until she was unmasked.

Hooray for leakers, whistleblowers, free press, and the courage and morality of those few who risked a lot to reveal her deception.

" Also, a quick search suggests neither Holmes nor her parter are benefitting from ticket sales or royalties. "

They say that now, but I have my doubts. She's a grifter, and I can't believe she'd ever do anything without profiting from it in some way.

" she managed to hoodwink a good handful of prestigious investors "

When Kissinger and Shultz died, I didn't immediately think of their government positions, I thought of their buy-in to Theranos and the promotion they gave her.

I've been seeing and reading reviews and critiques and the consensus seems to be it's really, really good.

And yes I was aware of Theranos and her ultimate comeuppance from the start. Today I just saw some reporting about how she suffered SA when in college and how that may have affected her mental health, and drive to 'succeed'.

I followed Elizabeth for years and felt she was a sociopathic grifter. Her persona with the black turtleneck reminded me of another famous orange grifter. But she was smart and reeled in a bunch of important people like Kissinger and Schultz, but they were both elderly and bought into this. I'll watch the video but not the movie, although I heard it had good views.

I think some of you are missing what the film presents.

It's not a straight, conventional documentary. The primary driving force behind it, Fielder, is a comedian known for surreal, awkward and absurd situations. He thought he saw in the Theranos story the ingredients to pull together a story appearing real but unreal in many ways. A partial parody with absurdity, having both reality and unreality. Which is which?

By necessity, there is always a degree of hucksterism and bluffing bravado in the public face of new companies. How else to attract the attention of potential investors and target markets? Holmes and her company went far beyond the normal bounds of BS - the phrase "fake it before you make it" applies. This is most uncommon in the annals of Silicon Valley lore. An example of staying in mostly truthful and legally permitted territory is the constant hype and Kool Aid (all over-embellished but mostly at least half true) put out by Apple during the Steve Jobs years, and continued to an extent without him.

Holmes was all pretense. All sizzle, no meat. A fake and a charlatan. Prison is the right place for her. No lessons were learned from her conduct (that I've seen or heard people talk about) because phonies and their con games are always around in life. She was just another.

Most people know right from wrong and try not to get too close to the line. She didn't and got away with her charade for awhile.

^^^ Yes, and she got a very light sentence. She should be locked up, many rights forfeited, for 40 years.

Other massive fraudsters and cons should join her. I can think of at least ONE 😡

I did not see film. Did you, EF?

No. One of my kids did. My comments about the movie were what they told me, my comments about Silicon Valley are from having spent my career in Silicon Valley with startups and established companies.

I really loved the way Nathan Fielder ( I was not familiar with him) approached this. He did initially have to reluctantly agree to share some profits with them, but in the end, that agreement was cancelled and they are not profiting. I don’t want to say too much, because you can all draw your own conclusions, but it appeared he did not set out to prove she’s a monster, nor to paint her sympathetically. I think it is a brilliant film

I just saw this:

John Carreyrou, the journalist who exposed Theranos in a series of Wall Street Journal articles, said “You Can See Everything” is a “great film” in a post on X, writing in another, “#BestPicture, IMO.” Carreyrou detailed his reaction to the documentary in a New York Times article, suggesting that if Holmes expected Fielder to make a documentary that made her look sympathetic, she made a “colossal mistake.” In another post on X, Carreyrou pushed back against viewers who find Holmes to be “unknowable” or “ambiguous,” noting she went after himself and Theranos whistleblowers “with everything she had,” saying she ran a “ruthless cover-up of a breathtaking fraud, and she was at the controls.”

Sociopath or psychopath.

Not a nice person. Not a good person. Elizabeth Holmes is always going to be who she has been revealed to be.

I love how she imitated Steve Jobs with the black turtleneck at every appearance and also deepened her voice, as I recall. I don't know the reason for that. But I guess the turtleneck worked for Jobs, so hey, why not. ...

"I did not see film. Did you, EF?"

"No. One of my kids did. My comments about the movie were what they told me,"

So you have no PERSONAL experience with this film but commented anyway?

Hmm, I sense a double standard here.

@Ally De "Every photo I have ever seen of her makes her look slightly psychotic, or something. Is that selective printing, or a generally true statement?"

It's definitely something that is really hard to define. She has an unblinking stare that seems to disarm people - Fielder has a moment with that in the film, and there is also a really, really interesting scene where he has her view the old "Who's on first" comedy bit by Abbott and Costello and then talks to her about what it means. Fascinating!

I don't think Fieldman tried to portray her in any specific way and I think he succeeded, because I still feel confused by her as a person and how he feels about her. He could have tried to garner sympathy because of her leaving her 2 small children behind when she went to prison, but he didn't do that either.

I saw a discussion about an interview with Fielder (talk about second, third and fourth hand!) where he supposedly said that after three years of working on this, he still doesn’t really know who she is. This would lead to those blurred lines, though I suspect ”parody” is too strong of a word.

This kid is smarter, more observant, and more insightful about human behavior (and humor) than you and your 4 closest friends put together.

My kid described the humor as something in the Andy Kaufman and even a bit like early Steve Martin - abstract and bizarre. Experimental, sometimes awkward and unconventional, not always clear.

The principals didn't realize that he had their number and understood them perhaps better than they understood themselves. He was subtly rejecting their comments and ridiculing them.

You obviously missed these aspects of it too, so you resort to insulting me.

My comment only is to point out that YOU have no problem commenting on things with which you have no first hand personal experience, but denigrate women here when we comment on parenting and dismiss us because we haven't raised children. It doesn't mean your kid doesn't have good insight, it just means it's not yours.

Next time there's a thread about parenting, I'm going to post the perspective of one of my wonderful friends or relatives who have raised children and I guess I can expect you to give those comments the same weight you expect us to give yours?

You are dismissed.

Wired Magazine

BLOOD FEUD

How Elizabeth Holmes Tricked WIRED—and Everyone Else

WIRED was the first magazine to cover Theranos and its enticing billionaire founder. There were warning signs even then.

“ELIZABETH HOLMES, THE disgraced founder of the fraud-ridden blood-test company Theranos, made her national press debut in The Wall Street Journal in 2013. The article—“A Drop of Blood, an Instant Diagnosis”—wasn’t a science story, or even a business story. It ran in the Opinion section, by a writer on the Journal’s editorial board named Joseph Rago, winner of a Pulitzer Prize for critiques of the Affordable Care Act.

He wrote that he was impressed by the prospect of individuals having more direct control of their health care; no less an eminence than former secretary of state George Shultz, a Theranos board member, had told Rago that Holmes was the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.

By 2014, Holmes was the youngest woman billionaire ever, and the mid-2010s were electric with tech-industry success stories—the iPhone, Tesla, Airbnb, Twitter. I was an editor at WIRED back then, and Theranos-as-presented felt very WIRED. It looked like evidence that a Silicon Valley approach to innovation would work in every industry, including medicine. And at the magazine that first published the idea of the “quantified self,” Theranos’ pitch validated the notion that individuals could take charge ”

Excerpt From

“How Elizabeth Holmes Tricked WIRED—and Everyone Else”

Adam Rogers

WIRED

https://apple.news/AwgktUs6RRP2bV0Njar9hpQ

This material may be protected by copyright.

▪️https://apple.news/AwgktUs6RRP2bV0Njar9hpQ

Thanks, @petalique. I feel a bit obsessed to learn more about this, now that I am aware of it (decades behind, lol). In the HBO show, I was struck by the man who wrote for Fortune about her early on...as the fraud unfolded and he became aware, I felt so sad for him (I don't recall his name). At one point, when interviewed in the HBO show, he kind of choked up like he was going to cry. I couldn't figure out if it was because he's helped promote her, or if he was just so disappointed in her or that the technology didn't work, or what.

@salonva the HBO special I linked above came out in 2019 which is why that trailer mentions that year. (That's how far behind I am about this story, lol). I just linked it because it gives really necessary background to fully understand what's going on in the new documentary You Can See Everything.

Interesting, Oly. I missed that. Let me know if you find a link. She is interesting — bold, unapologetic deceit.

@petalique - His name is Roger Parloff and the story he wrote was in 2014 (that's how even further behind I am about this story) - here's a link but there is a paywall. Might be available for free through your library if you're interested. https://fortune.com/2014/06/12/theranos-blood-holmes/

I just saw this article in the NYT about the opening of the movie...for any of you who may be on the fence about seeing it.

"Nathan Fielder’s confounding documentary on Elizabeth Holmes, “You Can See Everything,” that has captured the cultural zeitgeist. Released on 855 screens, with over 2,000 sold-out shows, the nearly three-hour documentary follows Ms. Holmes, both a month before entering federal prison for crimes related to her medical technology company, Theranos, and two years into her sentence. It grossed an estimated $15 million from Friday through Sunday, making it one of the largest openings this century for a movie debuting on fewer than 1,000 screens. It will expand to wide release next weekend.

...it’s the highest grossing nonmusical documentary to hit the big screen since Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” from 2004. Reviews have been rapturous, with critics calling it “unmissable” and “off the charts bonkers.” Prognosticators are already imagining a world where it lands a best-picture nomination, which would be a first for a documentary..."

You Can See Everything (no paywall)

An excellent thorough overview of the damage this willful liar caused

I wouldn’t spend one second watching that intrinsically evil person. Every single penny should go to charities that care about people .

https://www.aetv.com/articles/elizabeth-holmes-theranos-victims

Thanks Oly. I swear in nearly every photo I have seen of her she looks like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

▪️ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can_See_Everything

Enlightening.

▪️https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nj963-FoACI&pp=ygU3aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20vbmo5NjMtRm9BQ0k_c2k9R2l1VzA3MjFoZTJQT1hXNQ%3D%3D

The WSJ did a nice review of the movie today.

One tidbit sure to move a lot of you - her boyfriend is currently working on a new medical testing business. 😄🙄 Wonder if he'll have trouble getting capital. 🤣

I haven't seen it yet but am looking forward to it. I like Nathan Fielder. If you are unfamiliar with his work, there are episodes of Nathan for You that you can see on Youtube.