What’s the Deal With Billy Evans? A Spoiler-Filled Guide to ‘You Can See Everything’
October 23, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readThe new documentary You Can See Everything spends three hours inside the world of Elizabeth Holmes, but the person who dominates the screen is not the disgraced Theranos founder. It is her partner, Billy Evans — sniffling, gun-toting, obsessively invested in how to make scrambled eggs, and apparently the driving force behind a new blood-testing startup eerily reminiscent of the one that sent Holmes to prison. The film left viewers with a puzzle: who is this guy, what does he want, and what is really going on between the two of them?
The Partner Who Wouldn't Go Away
New York Times finance reporter Rob Copeland had already encountered Billy Evans long before the documentary aired. While reporting last year, he heard that Evans was starting a blood-testing company called Hemanthes (named after a flower also known as the blood lily). The idea: test pet blood for about a dollar a test, bypassing expensive vet visits. Copeland assumed he was being pranked. "I thought, seriously, be more creative than Elizabeth Holmes is doing it all over again," he said on the podcast Hard Fork.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:31) **Introduction: The Mystery of Billy Evans** - Host Max Reed sets up the episode's focus: exploring the new documentary "You Can See Everything" and its breakout character, Elizabeth Holmes's partner Billy Evans, by talking to reporters who've covered them.
- 2 (02:12) **Rob Copeland's Surprising Encounter with Billy Evans** - Copeland describes how he discovered and reported on Evans's new blood-testing startup, Himanthus, and the surreal experience of interviewing him.
- 3 (05:10) **The "Real Company" Debate and Investor Reactions** - The panel discusses the legitimacy of Himanthus, its funding, and the unusual public silence from investors who passed on the deal.
- 4 (10:44) **The Legal and Operational Timeline of Himanthus** - The conversation clarifies when Evans's company actually started and whether Holmes's involvement violates her sentencing terms.
- 5 (11:46) **Decoding the Holmes-Evans Relationship** - The reporters analyze the nature of the relationship, from the letters Evans wrote to court to the egg-cooking scene in the documentary.
- 6 (15:13) **Could Himanthus Attract "Troll Investments"?** - The panel explores whether a convicted fraudster's partner could raise serious venture capital in the current tech climate.
- 7 (19:03) **The Political Makeover and the Twitter Mystery** - The discussion shifts to the film's political themes and the game of identifying who is running Holmes's Twitter account.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
This week, we focus on Billy Evans, the breakout character of the documentary “You Can See Everything,” and his Theranos-esque new blood-testing start-up. Rob Copeland, a New York Times finance reporter, and Erin Griffith, a tech reporter, join Max Read to discuss what Evans is like when the cameras are off, whether his start-up is a real company and how Silicon Valley is reacting to the film. Then, we break down CoreWeave’s debt, a possible SpaceX-Tesla merger and Joel Kaplan’s Meta exit. Finally, a returning guest: John Carreyrou joins us to answer listener questions about Elizabeth Holmes.
Guests:
- Erin Griffith, a technology reporter at The New York Times
- Rob Copeland, a finance reporter at The New York Times
- John Carreyrou, an investigative reporter at The New York Times and author of “Bad Blood”
Additional Reading:
- Elizabeth Holmes’s Partner Has a New Blood-Testing Start-Up
- The Elizabeth Holmes Documentary, Through the Eyes of the Reporter Who Exposed Her
- Weak Links Start to Show in A.I. Borrowing
- SpaceX and Tesla Explore Merger to Create a De Facto Elon Inc.
- Meta’s Global Policy Chief to Leave After 15 Years
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