A New Film Revisits Holmes’ Fraud and Who Profited
WHO:
Los Angeles Times - Holmes was once described as the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire, with an estimated fortune of $4.5 billion.
Los Angeles Times - Holmes and Evans have a son, William, and a daughter, Invicta; the article identified their ages as 5 and 3, respectively.
Fortune - Communication professor Nick Brody described Holmes as “a prolific liar”; a U.K. study defined prolific liars as people who reported telling five or more lies a day.
Fortune - Nathan Fielder said he and director Lance Oppenheim sometimes completely disagreed about what scenes meant. “I really am struggling to this day to understand exactly what I experienced,” Fielder said.
Fortune - Nick Brody, a communication studies professor at the University of Puget Sound who teaches about lying and deception, described Holmes in a video as “a prolific liar.”
Fortune - Deception researcher Timothy Levine developed the “truth-default theory,” which holds that people tend to presume others are honest.
Fortune - Matthew Herper of Stat said the film treats Holmes’ past “misstatements” as “more debatable than they were.”
Slate - Elizabeth Holmes was Theranos’ disgraced CEO, convicted of defrauding investors with false promises about blood-testing technology; the article says she was convicted in 2022.
Slate - Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim made *You Can See Everything*; A24 financed and distributed it. Fielder lived with Holmes, her partner Billy Evans, and their two children for part of filming.
Slate - Theranos whistleblower Tyler Shultz called the film “a piece of art with the intent of creating ambiguity.” Journalist John Carreyrou described the Theranos saga as “a ruthless cover-up of a breathtaking fraud, and she was at the controls.”
Los Angeles Times - Holmes and former Theranos president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani were ordered to pay restitution jointly. Holmes and Evans have two children; Holmes told *People* they were not legally married.
Los Angeles Times - Evans is an heir to a wealthy San Diego hotel family and founded biotech startup Haemanthus. Evans Hotels said he was neither an employee nor a shareholder in the company.
WHAT:
Fortune - Holmes argued that Theranos’s technology “can” run any test meant the device was capable of doing so; Fielder said most people would understand “can” to mean it could do so at that time.
Fortune - Researchers at Harvard and Wharton have identified “paltering”—using a truthful statement to create a false impression—as a distinct form of deception.
Fortune - Holmes and Evans disputed a quotation in a 2023 New York Times profile; the newspaper stood by its reporting.
Fortune - Holmes’s conviction on investor-fraud charges was upheld by an appeals court.
Fast Company - Theranos’s board included three former cabinet secretaries, two former senators, a retired Navy admiral and a retired Marine general, according to Fortune’s 2014 description.
Fast Company - The author said Apply’s teams are about half people and half agents, and every deliverable has a named human owner.
Fortune - Holmes’ Theranos conviction comprised four counts of defrauding investors and conspiracy; the jury acquitted her on charges related to patients.
Fortune - The 174-minute film earned an estimated $15 million from 855 theaters in its opening weekend, its article said, marking the biggest debut for a nonmusic documentary since *Fahrenheit 9/11* in 2004.
Fortune - Tesla said production of its Roadster would not begin until 2028; its website said the flying version was not approved for public-road use.
Slate - The film follows Holmes for about a month before she entered prison. In it, she tells Fielder she has never lied and denies deceiving him.
Slate - The article says Theranos’ technology failed to deliver on its promises and that the company used other companies’ machines to conduct tests.
Slate - The film depicts Holmes and Evans at a rented beach home said to cost about $28,000 per month; the article says they flew by private jet to begin her prison sentence, contrary to the film’s implication that they drove from California to Texas.
Los Angeles Times - A reenactment depicts Evans requesting a share of documentary profits. Fielder says A24 agreed to a profit-sharing arrangement, but the film does not disclose its terms. A title card says Evans ultimately declined compensation.
Los Angeles Times - A federal judge ordered Holmes and Balwani to pay more than $452 million in restitution; an appeals court upheld the order. Holmes says she has no money and owes hundreds of millions of dollars.
Los Angeles Times - *You Can See Everything* grossed $15.6 million in its opening weekend and more than $20 million in its first five days; the figures are ticket sales, not profits.
Los Angeles Times - Haemanthus is developing laser-based biological-sample analysis technology. It reportedly raised as much as $20 million and had not released a product.
WHERE:
Los Angeles Times - Holmes and Evans lived with their children in a rented beachfront home in Del Mar, California, before she entered prison. Holmes is serving her sentence in a federal prison in Texas.
Los Angeles Times - Holmes and Balwani’s restitution order was issued by a federal judge; the article identifies the court appearance shown in the documentary but not its location.
WHEN:
Fortune - Holmes is scheduled to move to a Texas halfway house in August 2027.
Slate - The film’s premise places filming during roughly the month before Holmes entered prison.
Los Angeles Times - The film was secretly premiered at the Telluride Film Festival; Fielder discussed it at a subsequent Q&A. The article says the restitution order was upheld by an appeals court and cites Holmes’ statement to *People* about her marital status.
WHY:
Fortune - Brody said language’s arbitrary meanings can create opportunities to deceive; he described “truth-default theory” as people’s tendency to presume others are honest.
Fast Company - The article says Theranos’s board members, Holmes’s Steve Jobs comparisons and other signals lent the company credibility, but did not establish that its product worked.
Los Angeles Times - Fielder objected to paying the subjects because it could cast doubt on their motives and suggest they influenced the finished film. He said the negotiations might reveal how Holmes and Evans operated.
Slate - The article says Holmes’ access to the filmmakers may have been intended to rehabilitate her public image; it also notes that attention can benefit her even without direct payment.
HOW:
Fast Company - The author recommends asking agencies to demonstrate AI products on real data and workflows, including failures; identify a person accountable for claims; and explain where human assistance is required.
Fast Company - The article describes “normalization of deviance,” a term sociologist Diane Vaughan used for small departures from safety standards becoming accepted over time.
Slate - Theranos’ blood tests were sometimes performed using other companies’ machines rather than Theranos technology.
Los Angeles Times - The restitution judgment makes Holmes and Balwani jointly responsible, so the same losses cannot be collected twice. The government can seek payment from assets belonging to Holmes.
Los Angeles Times - Evans said Holmes earns 30 cents an hour in prison; he said he has his own business.
(UPDATED October 27, 2026 11:04 UTC)
A documentary about convicted Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is drawing attention for its intimate access to her family and its portrayal of her claims about the failed blood-testing technology. In *You Can See Everything*, filmmaker Nathan Fielder spends time with Holmes, her partner Billy Evans and their children before she entered prison, while Holmes insists she never lied and Fielder says he still struggles to understand what he experienced. The film opened to more than $20 million in ticket sales in its first five days, as an appeals court upheld Holmes’ conviction and a restitution order requiring her and former Theranos president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani to pay more than $452 million jointly.
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(UPDATED October 27, 2026 03:07 UTC)
A documentary follows convicted Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in the month before she entered prison, where she tells filmmaker Nathan Fielder she has never lied and denies deceiving him, despite her conviction for defrauding investors with false promises about blood-testing technology. The film, made by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, opened to about $15.6 million in ticket sales, while critics and a Theranos whistleblower have questioned how it portrays Holmes’ past and whether her access to the filmmakers could help rehabilitate her image. Holmes and former Theranos president Sunny Balwani were ordered to pay more than $452 million in restitution, and Holmes is scheduled to move to a Texas halfway house in August 2027.
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(UPDATED October 27, 2026 02:16 UTC)
A new documentary, *You Can See Everything*, follows Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes in the month before she entered prison, with filmmaker Nathan Fielder living alongside Holmes, her partner Billy Evans and their children. Holmes, convicted of defrauding investors after Theranos failed to deliver on its blood-testing promises, tells Fielder she never lied, while the film also depicts negotiations over profits that Evans ultimately declined. Holmes and former Theranos president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani are jointly responsible for more than $452 million in restitution, and the documentary took in $15.6 million during its opening weekend.