A screening of the film prompted an MIT Technology Review reporter to revisit what reporting cannot verify.
A new documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, titled You Can See Everything, follows the disgraced Theranos founder at home with her partner and two young children. Filmmakers Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim began shooting about a month before Holmes reported to prison in May 2023. An MIT Technology Review reporter who attended a screening described the film as intimate and unsettling.
Holmes dropped out of Stanford University in 2003 at age 19 to run Theranos, a diagnostics company she founded. She claimed the company could run more than 100 tests on a few drops of blood, and Theranos reached a $9 billion valuation in 2014. A Wall Street Journal investigation in 2015 raised questions about the tests, and Holmes began serving an 11-year sentence in May 2023.
For builders and operators, the Theranos case remains a reference point for verifying claims about measurement and diagnostics. Holmes raised hundreds of millions of dollars before outside investigators examined how her device performed. Teams that evaluate vendors today should demand raw validation data rather than demos and reference customers.
The film arrives more than a decade after the Wall Street Journal investigation that first challenged Theranos. The documentary renews attention on how diagnostics startups disclose test accuracy. Operators should track whether regulators and buyers tighten validation requirements for blood-based tests.
What matters
- Filmmakers documented Elizabeth Holmes at home in 2023, about a month before she reported to prison.
- Operators inherit the same verification gap that let Theranos claim 100 tests on a few drops of blood.
- Watch for scrutiny of blood-testing claims and lab validation data as the film reaches wider audiences.
Why it matters
Watch for scrutiny of blood-testing claims and lab validation data as the film reaches wider audiences.
This GenAI News article was prepared in original wording using reporting and materials published by MIT Technology Review AI. Source reference: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/10/23/1147610/biotech-you-can-see-everything-theranos-holmes/.
Drafted by the GenAI News review pipeline.