I cannot imagine being so hostile towards curiosity. You approach this as "I already know everything there is to know, and therefore this documentary (that I haven't seen) has no value".

>she was a fraudster convicted of criminal fraud...

>a former celebrity with little self-awareness, who is incapable of seeing how absurd and ridiculous she appears now that she is no longer powerful...

As someone who has seen it, there's simply no way both of these descriptions of her are true. If you believe that she's guilty of everything she's accused of doing, she's incredibly self-aware and her entire participation in this movie is a desperate Hail Mary attempt to save face in the court of public opinion. At one point in the movie Fielder is having a conversation with another person and says something along the lines of "She's either innocent or maybe the most manipulative person in human history". The movie isn't as concerned with a true journalistic investigation of her guilt or innocence, there are better accounts of that elsewhere and plenty of people who can tell that story better than Fielder. What he seems to be most interested in is the absurd commitment to she has to her claimed innocence and how effective that is or isn't.

^ this person definitely did not see the movie and clearly does not know what they are talking about

The achiles heel of the documentaries as a form of propaganda & psyops (aka "narratives presented as reality") is that they have a profound dependence on aural cues for manipulating the audiance. It is difficult to be subtle regarding that intent when sound is involved.

So pay attention to the sound track and adjust your "suspension of disbelief" accordingly.

I do not have a background in media arts, but I personally feel that the richness of the film comes about because the filmmakers are actively inviting the user to consider the multiple layers of perspective, the things unseen both on and off camera, and how both the participants and the filmmakers are shaping the narrative being presented.

This isn't confined to "documentaries" - everything we accept as unfiltered 'facts' must be from 'a certain point of view'. Consider the Canon illustration from the article. Those present a man from different lighting, angles and perspectives. No matter how much a photographer might want to convey objective truth, a picture will always be from some perspective and lighting.

The same can be said for the news we watch. Or the history we read. Or the stories we tell each other. In 2026, we have swung too far toward the fanciful end of the spectrum of storytelling. We're now beset on all sides by BS generators (both human and artificial) and it's more important than ever to carefully handle truth in our stories.

But make no mistake - the teller of a story is absolutely crafting a reality for you. It's on you to decide whether you trust the narrator, or not.

Where would Ancient Aliens fall into this lack of understanding?

Most modern people would laugh at those who scuttled away from the Lumiere's approaching train back in 1896, but in fact they are really not that superior mentally.

This is like saying it's stunning that fish don't know they're wet, imo

Does Holmes even have a center? I think the film asks you to consider that question directly.

True, that the film does not draw that conclusion explicitly. But it is a film that asks you to draw your own conclusions.

I met and spent a lot of time messaging and hanging out irl with a person this.

Its so weird because at one point they really had me and I remarked to them that what I liked about them eas they were always up for it and openminded.

Turns out they were just telling you what you wanted to hear and reflecting your desires back at you while trying to capitalize on new business ideas and have you contribute food/supplies for their gatherings.

Well said. I agree with you.

They show Holmes reluctantly watching the movie "The Dropout" which is a dramatized version of "the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes" starring Amanda Seyfried as Holmes.

Later in "You Can See Everything" Amanda Seyfried literally becomes an important character in the documentary including voicing her opinions and impressions, arguing with and challenging Holmes' husband Billy (they have just met for the first time) and talking at length with Fielder about his opinions and impressions.

This inclusion of Seyfried in this manner ruined for me any chance of this film feeling like a "documentary." This is the point for me where the film went "off-the-rails" and begins to feel like a very confusing experiment in audience manipulation.

It suddenly feels contrived because of this.

I had the same question for the author of the article, but it's understandable that people are going to be cagey answering this question because they may not want to give away spoilers.

I'm guessing it's because she's still trying to control the narrative even though she's literally just waiting until her prison date.

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People pay magicians to be deceived for entertainment.

I didn't knew it existed before reading. Still, I have no interest in watching it.

I really don't like Fielder's previous body of work. It strikes me as unkind and mean-spirited. A body of work that's built around laughing at and looking down on ordinary people. Fundamentally evil in most of the same ways than most reality television is.

You Can see Everything, on the other hand is a masterpiece. The Wunderkind becomes a grownup and makes something serious and meaningful and important. A documentary infused with self-consciousness and introspection. Provocative, innovative and calculatedly brilliant.

Whether that happened entirely accidentally through a confluence of absurdities remains to be seen, I suppose. I am very much looking forward to seeing what Fielder does next.

It really sounds like you would consider most people to be monsters. That is, the vast majority of us participate in exploitation to some degree and rationalize that exploitation as necessary, acceptable, minimal or merely something we cannot change.

That's an arguable position, but the problem with it is that it lacks any kind of gradient. Is the person who stole someone else's lunch from the fridge at work (an unfathomable act, to me) a monster in the same way that any person in federal prison is?

The film is relevant: initially, Amanda felt like a proxy for us, the viewers, someone to point out the abnormality in what we have seen. But then, she showed her unwillingness to even confront the possibility the miniseries was exploitative. She displayed a voyeuristic enthusiasm for more information and involvement. She blended into the film at that point, no longer our proxy as unsullied observer. But, can we really not think of a time we reacted defensively instead of with considered reason? Can we not think of a time we dove into a lurid topic that was fully irrelevant to our lives?

There are a number of cases where people involved in monstrous gang violence appear to show genuine rehabilitation. They devote significant effort toward encouraging others to avoid the mistakes they made. Do they do that because they are no longer monsters, or do they do it because it's one of the few acceptable choices available to someone in their position? I'm not sure we can reliably know.

What actions make Nathan and Amanda monstrous to you?

This.

Accountability.

I think it’s incredibly bad faith to knee-jerk respond that people unwilling to reveal the surprises that made the film enjoyable to them are LLMs or shills.

That said, this contains a decent spoiler-included summary of what happens in the film, if you can tolerate or filter the ads: https://www.slashfilm.com/2287438/you-can-see-everything-end...

No.

Almost everything you'd want to say about it would spoil something interesting about the film. (This is not hearsay. I've seen it and I can't think about how to say anything meaningful about it without spoiling it.)

Reading reviews about almost any movie is like this. But, I expect the comments on HN to be more genuine than I’m witnessing in this thread.

It almost as if the comment section is filled with HN-trained LLM-backed bots intentionally being absurdly vague; just like the trailer last month was.

I am seriously concerned this is all some sort of ingenious marketing ploy to get people to watch the movie instead of just saying, “I genuinely don’t give a shit about Holmes any more now than I did a decade ago.”

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> It wasn't about Theranos though, but the person behind it.

But the legally proven history of all the things she did (and still refuses to admit!) give a very clear picture of who Holmes is, a much more accurate picture than you get from hearing her lie and dodge questions.

> It's post-postmodern performance art.

Well at least now I know it's not going to be funny, and is way too long.

Unfortunately, it has such a limited release that most people who want to watch it outside North America won't be able to. No one has been able to explain why it has had such a limited release.

The article makes it clear that most people didn’t get out of the movie what the author got out of it

Nah, that would never work.

If you’re watching this film, you likely already know who Elizabeth Holmes is. There isn’t going to be any Sixth Sense style plot twists.

> most people just have a very hard time declaring “this person is worth 0 additional seconds of my time” and actually following through.

I think that's what "setting boundaries" is about: Standing your own ground, and decide: "Not worth my time and energy.", yet still believe in the good in people. I think even bad people have something good in them. It's just not healthy to figure it out for me, once the manipulative (or bad) habits have surfaced.

> I’ve been around a lot of bullshitters my whole life, and my immediate reaction is to go “this person is full of shit, not worthy of my attention, kthxbye”

That's easy enough with a bullshitter in your private life.

A professional bullshitter is a different thing and you might not always have the luxury of just walking away and never encountering that person again (or the problems they create).

I think this can go too far in the opposite direction. Sometimes an entirely foreign concept sounds like bullshit at first contact. Or someone speaking a bit incoherently–good people can get confused or get struck by a thunderbolt of stupidity from time to time.

So ceteris paribus, yes, cut off bullshitters. But context matters. If a friend of a good friend is striking me as stupid, I'm going to make damn sure that's what's happening versus me misunderstanding them (or catching them at a bad moment).

> But I’ve noticed that most people when faced with the same person can’t help but try and figure out what makes them tick, or their redeeming qualities, or if even anything can be redeemed. It seems to be a social equivalent of “nerd sniping”; most people just have a very hard time declaring “this person is worth 0 additional seconds of my time” and actually following through.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone put this into words.

Thank you. A very compelling thought.

> or their redeeming qualities

I can't stand this. Most people who suck aren't an onion. They just suck. Or there is a nice layer under that, and then beneath that a core of suck.

I think its because the constant bullshitting is behaviour that is so foreign to us, we feel a curiosity about it, a need to understand it.

> I’ve been around a lot of bullshitters my whole life, and my immediate reaction is to go “this person is full of shit, not worthy of my attention, kthxbye”

I have something like that, but not (just?) for people. When I read (or listen to) something I very often fairly quickly recognize meta signs of bs and go 'kthxbye'. I call it bullshit filter and I am often surprised that some, even fairly intelligent, people can have suprinsingly weak one. As for morbid curiosity towards bs, I have very little. I'm even afraid that being too curious about it might be detrimental so I'm keeping my distance even when I engage somewhat.

I've only met one constant bullshitter in my life and unfortunately I worked with him so couldn't just leave. The thing that blew my mind was that nobody else seemed to care, at all. I get that it takes a significant amount of social capital to call out a bullshitter, especially at work... but still.. you don't have to believe them. Very weird.

Few counterpoints:

Most people, even toxic people, do have positive qualities.

At the most basic strategic level, it’s vital to recognize this so that we don’t fall for such people in the future. It’s sooooo easy to say “well so and so can’t be too toxic… I mean, they volunteer at the soup kitchen on weekends” or whatever. That’s part of how they (intentionally or unintentionally) lure you in. All very valuable for engineer-types, who may tend to be very literal in actions and their interpretations of others’ actions.

At a more nuanced strategic level, it’s good to recognize that since all people are a mix of positive and negative traits, How can we coexist with such people in cases when we can’t avoid it? It’s simplistic to say “just avoid toxic people” — it’s a good “north star” but is often impossible or impractical. e.g. it’s convenient to say “just cut toxic family members out of your life” and sometimes it’s the right call, but I’ve heard people toss that phrase around like it’s nothing and wow it’s heartbreakingly glib.

I think it’s also valuable for introspective purposes. It’s very easy to fall into the mindset of “well, I’m a good person because of X, Y, and Z” while blinding ourselves to negative ways in which we affect others.

Finally, yeah, sure — I admit it. I like a puzzle. Specifically the puzzle of figuring out if these people believe their own bullshit!

(For the record, I thought this movie was incredible, though HN’s collective “meh” on this thread was expected)

That's a strategy when it's personal. But it's catastrophic when Bullshiter Mode doesn't just define a person, it defines an entire industry - arguably the politics and economics of entire countries - and the only way to give it zero attention is to go fully off-grid and live like a hermit.

Holmes is interesting because she's not a freak or a one-off. She's pretty much a generic tech startup CEO billionaire wannabe, finance industry person, and/or familiar political archetype - arguably more extreme than most, but there's nothing truly exotic about the DNA here.

I'll avoid naming specific names here so that the reader can (probably rightly) project this onto whoever they want instead of rejecting it for naming their idol but... This is the problem I have with listening to the public "opinions" of major CEOs in general:

Their statements are usually made in service of a goal, not earnestly-held good-faith opinions. Even if someone is "very intelligent", what makes you think they are giving you access to the fruit of that intelligence? How do you know they aren't using their intelligence to try and manifest an outcome that would be beneficial to themselves, completely divorced from what anyone with their level of access to information could possibly believe (much less someone intelligent)? Sure, they'll tell you some truth if they happen to believe that doing that will reward them. But they'll also tell you that they're deeply committed to your local city when they have a meeting to discuss tax incentives for moving their HQ later that same day or that their plant has a sterling safety record while deliberately burying records of payouts for injuries. The only real difference between this and someone like Holmes is that they have a better level of skill in forecasting consequences.

What this ultimately means is: There is often little value in listening because you end up having to estimate the truth from less-manipulative sources yourself. And if you're going to spend the time and energy to do that anyway, you can skip straight to this step.

> most people just have a very hard time declaring “this person is worth 0 additional seconds of my time”

You have to admit that shutting people out is still a defense mechanism that can backfire.

You're not immune from a skilled sociopath for doing this. They know what you're doing. The moment you turn your back is when they know they can blindside you.

It's the moment they start talking behind your back, shutting you out of conversations, undermining your work, etc. You're a lot more vulnerable when you're out of the loop. You can't assume you're stronger or smarter for trying to take the "high road". There is no high road with these people. They'll ruin everything in any way possible. They have their bases covered.

These sorts of people push people's buttons and lie and get what they want and then they wind up in civil or criminal litigation. They think this is just another people problem that they can lie and manipulate their way through, but the judge sees these kinds of people all day in their courtroom because they often wind up getting sued or prosecuted. They finally meet someone who doesn't expect them to be a normal "good person" and they face the first real consequences they can't just power through.

note, especially in cases like Holmes et al., how these people are full of shit for the sake of being full of shit. they are not just deceptive for their own sake but for the "et al."s sake, too, often enough just being the one thrown or throwing themselves under the bus to distract from or obscure what's going on "generally" or "currently, specifically" in that industry or it's supply chain and derivatives. you can spin up the whole story within the bigger picture, including "corona mass testing & sites cough cough, vaccines & boosters cough cough" and so on or look at the finer details of Holmes et al. endeavor itself and what derivatives the details "enabled" ...

it's hard to see through at first, but toxic relationships often actively obfuscate the toxicity of the social circle the partner is a--often seemingly lesser--part of ... but that's child play and toxicity or even betrayal on these levels is only "hard" if one loses more than a good conscious decade. in professional lives however, that harm is pretty much irreversible, within a single project's time frame, ... what's lost, practically non-retrievable, non-compensable ...

That whole Holmes story felt dodgy from the start. What she was gunning for was partially (recursively) done elsewhere, successfully. Then the whole Corona bit broke out and I still find myself wondering what the fuck ... but that might be a residue non-actual-conspiratorial-they-are-hiding-aliens kind of thought process that still wants to write one or the other post-they-don't-have-the-capacity-to-tap-everyone's-phone-calls and tor-exit-nodes-are-definitely-mostly-owned-by-the-same-privacy-loving-folks-who-maintain-those-8mil-lines-of-linux-and-other-distros story ...

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I don't know of any worthy documentary, but I have read the book "Bad Blood" [0], which I thought was thorough, well written and, to me, an excellent read.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Blood:_Secrets_and_Lies_in...

> Tyler Shultz went to work at Theranos right out of Stanford and soon noticed that things weren't as they seemed. Lots of other employees knew there was something fishy going on, but Tyler was one of a tiny handful able to resist the mesmerizing and intimidating Elizabeth Holmes and speak out about the fraud that was putting patients at risk.

https://www.thesocialradars.com/transcripts/TSR-S4-Tyler-Shu...

https://www.thesocialradars.com/transcripts/TSR-S4-Tyler-Shu...

This hasn't been mentioned, it's the only one which is a documentary, like the one being discussed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inventor:_Out_for_Blood_in...

There's a miniseries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dropout

“Bad Blood” by the journalist who broke the story while Theranos was peaking

There a podcast that covers the trial - https://abcaudio.com/podcasts/the-dropout/

Try the book: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

Why is this downvoted? Who are these weirdos? This is a good question.

> are running some well-known big companies.

Or religions, or religious-like communities.

Has the public at large "seen" those people though? They tend to want to stay out of the limelight, for obvious reasons.

And whole countries.

And the rest are in DC.

I've worked for someone very like her.

It's worse than reckless. They make not-knowing part of their operating model.

And they make sure nobody else with power and influence does too much knowing either. Silos, stay in your lane, don't ask questions about how your department's KPIs mesh with the next one over, or what conclusions might be inferred.

It's above reckless, in other legal systems there is a level above gross and reckless negligence where the prosecution argues not only they should have known, in fact they did know and chose to proceed anyway.

Not at all, though she does talk slightly less like that now.

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I don’t think an accusation of ‘apologia’ is justified here. If some particular cognitive process generates deception genuine to the deceiver, that does not make the deception acceptable.

There’s a story in the movie about a magician performing a trick, but where there is no trick. The magician really does the thing he appears to do. I think that’s more where GP’s question lies, i.e.: Is her unusual processing of the world an elaborate conscious construction, or is it automatic, and to what degree?

That isn’t a direct determination about her merit or culpability.

For a lot of people, they wouldn't say it's a hit piece on her; more on someone near to her. I also wouldn't call it a documentary fully. It really is hard to watch the movie, and come to any solid conclusions. I'd like to say also I'm not questioning her guilt, and specifically called out that that's not what the provocation is about in the movie. So apologia may be the wrong term her? It's more about how can you understand someone and the motives of their actions.

While not criminal like Homes this seems to describe a lot of the most currently vaunted tech CEOs

Musk, Altman and Zuckerberg all are able to somehow ignore the harm they cause and have an amazing ability to justify it in pursuit of some “greater good”.

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I try, but it's much harder these days if you don't rehearse your pitches. Maybe I'm cursed?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO8V72pDw1o

> My name is Nathan Fielder, and I graduated from one of Canada's top business schools with really good grades.

It's the opening line of the directors previous TV shows

He rehearsed it.

Do you know Abbott and Costello?

> her account by reaching out to "people pretty high up with X"

Is it manipulation to show particular positions and connect with X/republicans? Because in the movie he is reaching out to X support with legal power of attorney, and it was also shown as another sign of overcontrol from him

It’s rational to lack principles?

That motivation makes her MAGA. No different then other MAGAs.

Disagree. He has indeed pardoned many criminals, but none who was even remotely as bad as she is.

Because most of the world is

That's fine, but that leaves two legitimate options:

1) Warn readers there are "spoilers ahead" and then proceed to actually say something.

2) Withhold from writing a totally vacuous post and write about something else instead.

As it is this reads like an Onion article titled "Man, that twist at the end of Empire Strikes Back was totally crazy!"

> the filmmakers very clearly have higher ambitions than simply informing

I’d expect nothing less from Nathan Fielder. With his involvement, anything less than surprising weirdness taken to extremes would be a disappointment.

I have revisited this thread, after having originally left despairing of the weird conversation. Thanks so much for clarifying what's going on! I hadn't followed this film and assumed people were afraid of being picked off the streets by the government if they spoke articulately about it. It's the "spoilers" problem then--online people who aren't used to how creative works are discussed thinking they have to use tradecraft. Ze beef iz in ze butchers!

? That’s the point of film - to compel a perspective.

Actually came here to "attack" that point. It's a view of reality that requires a conceptual bias-free media as reference for any commentary, and bias-free media is a tautology.

Compelling a perspective is the only thing cinematography / photography is doing. Bias equals point of view. There can't be any unbiased point of view because they're the same thing.

There's a conversation on education to be had here.

I appreciate this point of view, but I think people who are religiously adhering to "spoilers" to censor aesthetic discussion need to be honest about highlighting what they are doing. A proper discussion about this would have been explicit about what was being discussed. We are not children.

Average is not the same as prominent, female CEOs face more scrutiny of their performance. I posted a link to a study on another comment.

Is the bias always in the same direction regardless of which laws are broken?

Care to share your data?

I did look up the numbers actually. On average women get lighter sentences for fraud, not exceptionally rare at all more like 30% shorter sentences. But on the other hand prominent women (CEOs) are much highly scrutinized, especially their departures so average and prominent here are not the same.

https://www.russellreynolds.com/en/about/newsroom/women-ceos...

I don't care either way, but I do wonder how those stats look if you focus on powerful women, rather than all women.

Well, yes. But not here. I don't think he'd go in and troll the real Elizabeth Holmes when he has the chance to do real journalism.

Admittedly seeing him at first made me think "wow that lady sounds exactly like Holmes". Then I realized it was supposed to be her and thought "wow, they did an amazing job casting her".

Then I realized it was her, at which point it was immediately clear this was a serious endeavor and not something Fielder typically does.

(the GP comment is making a joke; go take a look at the first teaser for You Can See Everything)

It’s this year’s most memed trailer. It’s also where the wide eyed Elizabeth meme comes from.

It's half of the trailer's dialogue

Is the text of the trailer. More or less.

Re-read it in Elizabeth Holmes voice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGJSRFWALTI

> A non zero amount of people here would do exactly what Holmes did for money.

To go even further, "fake it til you make it" used to be a mantra lots of startup founders followed, and the whole story about how reddit got started with puppet-accounts to make it look busy when it was just three guys in a bedroom, was hailed as a successful strategy for growing startups.

Saw it on Friday in Berkeley, and: yes, there was absolutely audience participation, and there were moments where I had to restrain myself from joining in.

I'm thoroughly baffled by this story. Digger was non-stop laughs when I saw it. The End of Oak Street I don't remember as well, but I'm pretty sure there were some moments that got big laughs.

I had this experience watching Eddington. My adult son and I were laughing all the way through and the packed audience was totally silent. Very strange experience.

Hi! I grew up in Seattle, lived in SF just prior to the pandemic, and have since lived in Portland.

While I understand the stereotype of these places lends itself to that view, I have never, ever seen this type of behavior displayed in a movie theater, from blockbuster showings to small, art-house stuff that touches on controversial issues you think people would be vocal about.

Please stereotype less.

That’s wild to me, I grew up going to movies… everyone is pretty much silent.

It doesn’t occur to me as to why I would want to do that…

That was a different film called NAZA at the Venice Film Festival.

thank you for sharing your perspective. I'm still eager to see the film, though I expected this sort of angle.

It's a passive-aggressive artistic approach. In this case, Holmes already has a tainted reputation. Show a bunch of awkward scenes of her, reinforcing the slander. But in the end, present no real conclusions or positions that could be criticized. "We're leaving it up to the viewer".

But they're riding the mob's wave, and exploiting her. Making everyone dumber.

your parent comment just wanted to get a shot of serotonin by chiming and showing off that they've read (or are merely aware of) the book

Incredibly different? It defies credulity?

If you're going into a Nathan Fielder documentary expecting a funnel of factual information, you must not know who that is.

It's the whole style of Nathan Fielder too but Herzog wouldn't ask so many yes-no questions... and then Holmes just dodging them. I don't know, I don't remember etc. It's not just answers but the questions too.

> In that counter-factual do you propose that she/her company actually/eventually develops what they said they did? So a fake-it-until-you-make-it gone right?

No, I mean the fraud continuing, and how much of a culture of knowingly cheerleading and gaslighting fraud exists in a forum such as this. Is it the majority, or is it a loud minority.

From Theranos to meme coins and NFTs, there is a long history of shilling for outright fraud here.

>> It's a well-known problem with access journalism.

Yes, CNBC is a prime example :-)

Having followed your comments here for years, I was shocked to read that you got Theranos tests. From the get-go, long before the WSJ exposé, it was apparent to me this was a complete fraud. I based my thinking on long experience (38 years) drawing blood for tests.

I agree energetically that this is how it turned out.

However, the prosecution did bring charges for both against Holmes, harm caused to patients by Theranos, and the defauding of investors. She was only convicted of defauding investors, by a jury of her peers.

Sunny Balwani was convicted of defrauding patients and Theranos did settle a class-action lawsuit against them.

I do believe the publicity around Holmes in part was about distancing the investors (the list you provided) from any kind of responsibility or PR blowback.

Anyway, the game is rigged, I just think it's important to see how it is rigged. I don't like to shed doubt on jury decisions, it really is the best thing we have. Prosecution motivation can be swayed, defense can be under/over funded, but a jury of your peers, while imperfect, really is the best way to make these decisions.

I also don't know what legally an investor can be held accountable for.

This cuts to the heart of it. Elizabeth Holmes' real crime, the reason she was actually punished (insofar as anyone in her position ever gets punished), is that she both embarrassed and defrauded many wealthy and influential individuals.

> They "were all deceived", in other words none of them ever checked

While I agree to the larger point you are making, I am hard pressed to understand what they could have done. Its not like they were not involved at all, there are plethora of accounts of these people receiving reports which just lied. They were blocked from access to the actual equipment for "security reasons" so they couldn't get a third party assessment done. At some point you have to believe your business partner will not outright lie because otherwise how do you do business with them. Life cannot run on cryptographic proofs.

Well then, I suppose we should all just let her off the hook.

What Merck did was rookie numbers, what about Genghis Khan?

Whataboutism aside, "having too few lobbyists and FDA insiders" isn't going to save a product that doesn't work and that doctors stop relying on. Once people were shown behind the curtain, it was game over.

Ian Gibbons, Theranos chief scientist was facing a deposition that threatened to expose the company technology issues. Under pressure, and fearful of losing his job, he attempted suicide and died a week later. When his grieving wife contacted Theranos, rather than receiving Holmes condolences, she received a demand for the return of company property and confidential materials...

The number is much higer, the 834,233 is not the total number of incorrect results. It is the number Theranos formally invalidated or revised. Theranos performed many tests using conventional laboratory equipment rather than its proprietary Edison machines. The company initially voided results from Edison devices and subsequently corrected other results. But conventional equipment did not guarantee accurate results, because Theranos also had problems with its laboratory procedures.

In November 2021, a woman named Erin Tompkins testified in Elizabeth Holmes's trial that Theranos had given her a false-positive HIV result in 2015

> I see a lot of arguments that she was only doing “fake it till you make it” like every other startup from people who don’t understand what that phrases means (it means you present yourself as a bigger, more established company to overcome resistance to being a small startup, not that you literally fake that your product works)

Not disagreeing with the rest of your comment, but regarding this tangent: haven't there been a ton of (say) "AI" companies that quietly used humans in the background and gave the impression AI was doing the work, because their vision was that that was the future?

Not that I think that would excuse this case in any way regardless - just mentioning because of the drawn comparison.

> They lived in a social media bubble where all CEOs were evil criminals doing frauds all the time and therefore the only reason Holmes could be singled out and treated differently was due to her gender.

They’re also unfamiliar with FDA-regulated spaces where it’s not unheard of for VPs and C-suite types to receive fines and jail time and bans from the industry.

> People who get inaccurate diagnostics get scared.

That's only true if those people always follow up with a second test using traditional means. If they don't follow-up and instead immediately go past diagnostics into some sort of action, then it could be catastrophic in a manner exceeding being scared.

Now you can argue that if the patient is working with any medical practitioner worth their salt, that med will surely ask for a second test. But is it obvious that that will always be the case?

Not if they get told they are clear. Then their cancer gets worse and before anyone realises it’s untreatable. Downplaying faked test results is disturbing.

They get scared but if the doc believes the test results, they get more invasive (prostate biopsy, breast biopsy, etc) testing which is painful and traumatizing for the patients. They may not die but they don’t deserve this.

it doesn't matter if they're an early stage company or not. also they were a fraud company.

Sure hope nobody started emergency chemo based on a faulty test

All tests do have error rates and all doctors know this very closely because they look at results every day.

However saying “all tests have error rates, therefore all tests with error rates are equally bad” is a completely wrong takeaway. One of the things Theranos was doing was using traditional equipment to run the tests as a smokescreen for the fact that they didn’t have any working technology. So the results should have been similar to anyone else running them when that was the case.

But there is a problem that when a company is saying they’re doing one thing or using one technology but your actual tests could be run on unknown combinations of unknown lab hardware depending on the day and the whims of a CEO trying to defraud investors, you don’t know what kind of results you’re going to get.

Real labs have established controls and ship reference ranges for their test results because they control their processes. If Theranos was doing who knows what to keep the test results flowing to keep the illusion up for the primary purpose of satisfying investors, that’s not what you want to see out of your test lab.

> Google tells me the FIT test for cancer has a false negative rate of between 8% and 26%. That appears to be likely worse than the Theranos numbers you cited here.

You’re looking at the wrong thing. The Theranos number above is for tests they determined had to be voided because they weren’t run properly due to procedural errors they identified. Their own incompetence or fraud. And those are just the ones they admitted to!

The false negative rate for the test you Googled is a false negative rate, which is a simple fact that tests can’t reliably diagnose everything even when run properly. Tests look for markers in samples as a proxy for a condition, and those markers aren’t always present at levels that meet the thresholds even if the condition exists. Even when run absolutely perfectly, a test like that will have false negative rates.

The part you’re missing is that the Theranos voided and invalidated tests were due to problems on top of the normal test variation rates because they were from Theranos doing things wrong, which is directly downstream of Holmes manipulating investors.

Only 11% of errors were reported, there were probably many more.

Also, the standard for tests in the medical world is usually much higher than 11%, except for things that are life threatening for which no better test exists.

Wont there be any overlaps? I tend to think, that great documentaries follow from greatly researched books. The later usually have more space to explore and can in depth, the documentaries to try to condense.

The thing where he said he'd gone through a break-up seemed like it could have been misleading (I don't actually know about his personal life)

People who commit fraud on this scale are simply those who start at this scale. Not always the super wealthy but often the super wealthy and sometimes those with social ties to the super wealthy.

They usually steal the weed and shrooms out of your backpack because you weren't using them at the moment.

Generational wealth is often squandered within a couple generations. The first generation can often times keep it together, but the generation after that and beyond have no connection to the origins. If Elizabeth Holmes’s parents were upset at their loss of wealth, it’s because they had no special abilities that would make them good capital allocators.

It’s quite interesting and can be both. Many well-of friends have a period of rejecting their heritage and end up abusing all kinds of things, only to later fall back into the lane so to speak. Some lose it completely tho.

Most people (including rich ones) who had any scientific knowledge passed on investment/partnership. Humanity has developed ways to evaluate ideas without all of the contextual noise people are referencing in this thread. They’re just effortful and sometimes awkward, so too many people of all types just don’t.

I think particularly in the case of investors it's that they're pretty comfortable with founders that straddle the fine line between bullish and bullshit, because the ones who back up their claims that seem too good to be true make them money, and the ones who don't are priced in. And some who make them lots of money tell a lot of "white lies" on the way. FOMO is a way of missing red flags too.

Holmes' mistake was to massively overdo the "fake it til you make it" in a regulated industry where the implications of the lies appal people, as well as to have a product that was never going to work so the lies were more "this car definitely isn't just rolling down the hill" than "the person at the wheel is only for regulatory reasons". If she'd settled for fantasy metrics and self dealing in a real estate play rather than faking medical tests she'd have investors lining up to fund her second venture...

I'm more intrigued by how she managed to keep customers and at least some of her employees believing and how often that mask slipped.

I think there was an internet meme somewhere, that suggested something along the lines of: if you consider pain to be an essential learning signal, and that beyond a certain level of wealth, you can more or less eliminate pain, then the cognitive effects of such wealth is like being kicked in the head by a horse on a daily basis.

> Many rich people are really gullible to direct bold face lies.

I agree with this point. I think that in the investment world, many VCs investing in deep tech are not deeply familiar with the underlying technology. They often say they are betting on the founders, which can inadvertently encourage this behavior, since founders know that their investors are unlikely to scrutinize the technical details too closely.

I agree. I should have said shrooms!

What does that have to do with what parent is referring to?

I meant the general industry of flashy looking "health tech" devices, though perhaps it's unfair to link theranos in with some of the more consumer targeted products. but people really want to believe that silicon valley style technology can come in and solve long-standing medical issues, especially around diagnostics, and I've seen a lot of scammy products go by.

prosecuted and indicted for both, convicted by jury for only latter

>I followed the trial, what information is unavailable from that?

Did you follow the trial, or did you read reports from people who followed the trial?

I cannot say what was missing from the trial because I do not know what was presented there in detail. Most of those claiming utter certainty, know as little as I do.

> what they were trying to do isn't biologically or physically possible.

I can easily accept that it is beyond our technical means, but I don't accept that it is physically impossible.

If we stipulated that there was a technology that could create an accurate record of a drop of blood at an atomic level, with all structures and bonds intact.

If it were impossible to derivevthe required information from that data, I would agree that it is impossible.

That is an enormous amount of data. Millions of blood cells. Even if you had a single red blood cell there may be sufficient information in it to determine a white blood cell count through data analysis and the fact that they share an environment.

Of course it isn't possible with current technology. That is true of all technologies before they are invented.

It just seems like every claim it is impossible is just a claim that they can't imagine how it would be done. Almost every invention has a crowd claiming it can't be done.

The only real question is do they have a technolocal advance to get past those hurdles. I would guess that they didn't or it wasn't developed quick enough. That is a reasonable point of challenge.

Going straight to it can't be done so it's fraud puts you among those who claimed powered flight was a fraud, as well as the internet, the telephone, transplants, overnight delivery, and today AI.

Acquitted on a legal technicality, then, not in the court of accountability and consequences.

It actually does. You can judge her, but she is not guilty. The more we as a society decide the justice system is just an arbitrary way of deciding who gets punished and not _the_ way of deciding if a person is or is not a criminal the more we slide towards oblivion.

If a person is found not guilty, they are not guilty. To argue otherwise is to undermine the core institution of western civilization.

Holmes and Theranos leadership did more than defraud investors. They knowingly ran unreliable tests on actual patients. People were told they were miscarrying when they weren't, or that they had HIV when they didn't. And they drove an employee, Ian Gibbons, to suicide, then threatened his widow with a lawsuit when she talked to reporters about it.

That’s true but not relevant. I have absolutely no sympathy for the rubes who thought FTX was a good place to put their money, but that doesn’t make the fraud any more OK.

The people that invested their money did not make these decisions. The people running the fund did. You're victim blaming. Most people don't get a very wide choice where their money goes outside the couple of options the fund managers present. I'd also venture most people do not even look at what stocks are in the fund. They'll look at the past earnings and check the box.

Apologies! I'll add more words next time. I was actually just getting out of the movie when I saw this and should have taken more time to write a proper comment. Thanks for the reminder.

It does, but that's an interesting psychological effect all by itself, where if someone keeps hearing the same -- valid! -- point over and over again, they start to discount its value.

Richard Feynman called it "normalization of deviance", but there's other names for it as well depending on the details.

I'm sure everyone has heard some variation of this before, especially in the work place.

I once got angrily shouted at by a customer because I turned up as a consultant and apparently I told them exactly what the last five consultants had said!

Well, yes, of course. It's the solution to their problem.

I regularly face variants of this at work.

"Yeah, yeah, backups are important, stop talking about it already."

"Yes, but they're still not happening and they still remain the top priority and it is madness to start a project to reformat the SAN array until backups are working!"

"That's what you said last week! You always say that!"

Etc...

There's a point where people lean into it and become purposefully contrary, making their refusal to change their opinion a permanent part of their identity as a person.

Ye but I was saying more along the lines of I’ve already been spoiled on the plotline of what happened to Holmes. Idk if seeing the movie will be any different. Might be who knows