Theranos Whistleblower Warns AI Boom Offers New Avenue for Deception

Documentary “You Can See Everything” Reignites Debate Over Holmes and Investor Vigilance

Directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, “You Can See Everything” has become one of the highest‑grossing documentaries ever, sparking a national conversation about Elizabeth Holmes and the lessons of corporate fraud. The film deliberately avoids labeling Holmes as either a master manipulator or a victim, instead emphasizing her uncanny ability to elicit pity even from those fully aware of her crimes.

Theranos Whistleblower Tyler Shultz Draws Parallels to Today’s AI Boom

Tyler Shultz, whose first job out of college was at Theranos, was the key whistleblower who exposed the company’s dangerously inaccurate blood‑testing devices. Those devices were deployed in Walgreens stores and delivered faulty results to real patients. Theranos peaked at a valuation of roughly $10 billion, yet its technology never actually worked; the firm used its own machines for only a fraction of tests, outsourcing the rest to third‑party equipment.

Tyler Shultz told 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.”

Shultz’s grandfather, former U.S. Secretary of State and Treasury George Shultz, was himself a notable investor and board member, underscoring the family’s long‑standing ties to high‑stakes finance.

Shultz told SF Standard, “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.”

He added, “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.”

Theranos’s capital came largely from individual investors such as the DeVos and Walton families, not from traditional venture firms. The company refused to share scientific evidence of its machines’ efficacy with potential backers, citing trade‑secret concerns, a stance that deterred many top Silicon Valley investors.

When Theranos’s fraud was finally uncovered, it served as a stark wake‑up call for investors to prioritize due diligence. Yet Shultz fears that the current AI frenzy, where unprofitable companies command trillion‑dollar valuations, may cause those lessons to fade.

Why AI Could Become a New Playground for Deception

Shultz warned, “A huge danger with AI is that I think it is really hard to do due diligence on it. 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.”

He draws a direct line from Holmes’s fundraising tactics to today’s AI hype, arguing that the ease of obscuring the underlying technology mirrors the secrecy that once shielded Theranos.

Holmes’s Second Act and Ongoing Concerns

The documentary poses a puzzling question: why would a mother of two invite a film crew to document her final days before beginning an eleven‑year prison term? The answer, many observers argue, is that Holmes seeks pity, a sentiment she believes could be more useful for future endeavors than scorn.

In the film, Holmes appears alongside her partner, hotel heir Billy Evans, working on Haemanthus, a diagnostics venture they dub “Theranos 2.0.” The new company has reportedly raised about $20 million in funding, suggesting that Holmes is already laying the groundwork for a comeback.

While “You Can See Everything” does not sugarcoat Holmes’s image, it downplays the most egregious crimes of Theranos, such as providing dangerously faulty medical information to patients and orchestrating targeted harassment against Shultz when he tried to sound the alarm.

Shultz expressed unease, “I have this feeling of unease about what might come next. She’s certainly preparing and beginning her second act, and I don’t know exactly where it’s going to go.”

For Shultz, the cultural tendency to treat Holmes as a punchline rather than a persona non grata is unsettling, especially as she moves forward with a new venture that could again attract unsuspecting investors.