Theranos whistleblower criticizes Nathan Fielder’s documentary

Theranos whistleblower Tyler Shultz has accused director Nathan Fielder of deliberately ignoring the truth in the documentary You Can See Everything to create a more compelling film. Shultz argues that the movie omitted key facts regarding Elizabeth Holmes’ history of deception, prioritizing artistic style over a broader examination of the evidence.

Accusations of Omission

Shultz stated that the film’s central question was whether Holmes is a liar, but he contended that a more thorough review of the facts would have easily established her pattern of intentional deception. In the documentary, Fielder asks Holmes directly if she has ever told a lie, even a small fib, to which Holmes responds that she does not believe she has. Shultz argued that including instances of Holmes blatantly lying would have ruined the film, leading the production to choose to ignore the truth for the sake of interest.

“It would not have been an interesting film if he just took her to the slaughterhouse, which would have been easy to do,” Shultz said.

Reactions and Context

You Can See Everything follows Holmes in the weeks leading up to her prison sentence for defrauding investors in her blood-testing company. The film has been described by Variety as a “psychodrama circus” and by another critic as a “stupefying and glorious destabilizing hall of psychological mirrors.”

Meghan McCain, host of Citizen McCain, expressed discomfort with Holmes being portrayed as a more sympathetic figure than she is, citing the use of her children and breastfeeding in the documentary. Shultz revealed that the documentary has brought Holmes back into the zeitgeist more than Hulu’s 2022 series The Dropout, in which Amanda Seyfried played the Theranos founder.

Holmes, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur whose $9 billion blood-testing company collapsed amid revelations that its technology had never worked, was convicted of defrauding investors in 2022 and sentenced to more than 11 years in prison. Her partner, Billy Evans, who invited cameras into their family life just days before Holmes went to jail, defended his cooperation with Fielder, stating, “Judge me. Hate me. Think I'm an idiot. That's okay. Watch it and make up your own mind.”