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Hard Fork

Why No One Can Look Away From Elizabeth Holmes

October 16, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

For more than a decade, Elizabeth Holmes has occupied a singular place in the American imagination—a founder who promised to revolutionize blood testing, raised nearly a billion dollars, and was eventually convicted of defrauding investors and patients. But a new documentary by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, You Can See Everything, has revived the question that has always lingered beneath the surface of her story: Who is Elizabeth Holmes, really? The film, shot secretly in the 34 days before she reported to federal prison, offers an unprecedented, intimate look at Holmes with her partner Billy Evans and their two children. But as three journalists who covered Holmes at different stages of her career explain, the documentary raises as many questions as it answers—about performance, manipulation, and the strange persistence of a figure who refuses to disappear.

The Three Eras of Elizabeth Holmes

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:36) **Why Elizabeth Holmes Still Captivates** - Host Max Reed introduces the episode’s core question: why can’t we look away from Elizabeth Holmes, and what does a new Nathan Fielder documentary reveal about her?
  • 2 (02:55) **First Encounter: Caitlin Roper’s 2013 Interview** - Roper, then a Wired editor, describes being the first magazine journalist to interview Holmes at Theranos, drawn by her biotech pitch and rarity as a female founder.
  • 3 (06:57) **The Downfall: John Carreyrou’s Investigation** - Carreyrou explains how a 2014 New Yorker profile sparked his skepticism, leading him to uncover the fraud that brought down Theranos.
  • 4 (09:40) **The Trial: Aaron Griffith’s Front-Row View** - Griffith recounts the surreal four-month trial in San Jose, where journalists shared hallways with Holmes’ family, including her partner Billy Evans.
  • 5 (12:15) **Reacting to the Documentary Trailer** - The journalists share their initial reactions to the secret project, ranging from exhaustion to curiosity about the filmmakers’ motives.
  • 6 (15:33) **Is the Documentary’s Portrayal Authentic?** - The panel debates whether the film captures the “real” Elizabeth Holmes or just another performance, with Carreyrou noting two distinct sides to her personality.
  • 7 (21:54) **Brazen Lies and Manufactured Tears** - Carreyrou identifies a key scene where Holmes blames her “entourage” for pushing her into the spotlight, calling it a brazen lie that contradicts trial evidence.

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Guests on this episode

Aaron Griffith

Show Notes

This week, there’s a new blockbuster Elizabeth Holmes documentary out, and we’ve assembled an expert panel to discuss the movie and what Holmes means to the tech world of today. Max Read is joined by John Carreyrou, who, through his investigative reporting for The Wall Street Journal and his book “Bad Blood,” revealed the fraud at the heart of Theranos; Erin Griffith, a tech reporter who extensively covered Holmes’s trail; and Caitlin Roper, the New York Times executive producer who wrote the first-ever magazine piece about Holmes for Wired back in 2013.

We end with a rundown of what else is happening in tech news this week.

Panelists:

  • Erin Griffith, a tech reporter for The New York Times.
  • John Carreyrou, author of “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup” and an investigative reporter for The New York Times’s business section.
  • Caitlin Roper runs film, TV and books at The New York Times.

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