"You Can See Everything," the documentary that captures the final weeks of disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes before she entered prison, has become one of the highest-grossing documentaries of all time and is generating nationwide discussion. Directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, the film deliberately avoids portraying Holmes as either a master manipulator or a victim. Instead, it focuses on her eerie, almost hypnotic ability to elicit pity from people—even those fully aware of her crimes.

Tyler Shultz didn't need to watch "You Can See Everything" to form his opinion of Holmes. Shultz, whose first job after college was at Theranos, became a key whistleblower who exposed the company's dangerously flawed blood testing devices. These devices were deployed in Walgreens stores and produced inaccurate results for real patients. (Theranos reached a peak valuation of approximately $10 billion despite its technology never functioning properly—the company used its own machines for only a small fraction of tests, outsourcing the rest to third-party equipment.)

There's little justification for continuing to discuss Holmes—her case is resolved, and she's serving time in federal prison—yet her con artistry has captivated the media (myself included) for the past decade. As Shultz noted in an interview with The San Francisco Standard, "the only reason we're talking about Elizabeth Holmes right now is because she wants us to be talking about Elizabeth Holmes right now."

However, the Theranos cautionary tale gains new relevance as we enter the height of the AI era, when companies that have never achieved profitability are raising capital at trillion-dollar valuations. "I think the days of having a thirty-minute coffee with someone and sending them $100,000 should be over. Elizabeth took that model and scaled it to $100 million," Shultz told SF Standard. His grandfather, former U.S. Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury George Shultz, was a prominent investor and board member. "I believe that what [Holmes] did was raise the biggest angel round of funding of all time, but even at the smaller levels, I think investors need to recognize that when they put that type of money in someone's hands, they are giving them tremendous power," he added.

Theranos' funding typically came from individual investors like the DeVos and Walton families rather than venture capital firms. The company refused to share scientific information or evidence that its machines worked with potential investors, citing trade secret concerns—a stance that deterred many top venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. When Theranos' fraud was exposed, it served as a stark warning to investors about the importance of due diligence. But in the AI era, Shultz worries these lessons may be forgotten. "A huge danger with AI is that I think it is really hard to do due diligence on it," he said. "It's really hard to tell the difference between what is something truly unique and new versus like, a ChatGPT wrapper… If you want to deceive people, I think this is a great opportunity to go deceive people."

The central question posed by "You Can See Everything" lies in the film's very premise: why would a mother of two young children choose to invite a camera crew to document her final days with her family before surrendering to serve a prison sentence exceeding eleven years? The film raises questions that seem unanswerable, but this one appears fairly straightforward. She wants people to pity her, because pity may prove more beneficial for her future endeavors than hatred or ridicule. In the film, we observe Holmes and her partner, hotel heir Billy Evans, working on Haemanthus, a diagnostics company they refer to as "Theranos 2.0," which has reportedly raised approximately $20 million in funding.

"You Can See Everything" doesn't portray Holmes favorably, but it also downplays Theranos' more egregious offenses—such as providing dangerously inaccurate medical information to real patients, or its targeted harassment of Shultz himself when he attempted to raise alarms about his former employer. In the cultural conversation, Holmes remains more of a punchline than a persona non grata. "I have this feeling of unease about what might come next," Shultz said. "She's certainly preparing and beginning her second act, and I don't know exactly where it's going to go."