Theranos whistleblower Tyler Shultz warns that the AI boom is ‘a great opportunity to go deceive people’

“You Can See Everything,” the documentary capturing disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes’ final weeks before prison, is sparking national conversation as it becomes one of the highest-grossing documentaries of all time. The film, directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, intentionally refuses to characterize Holmes as a master manipulator or victim, instead highlighting her uncanny, almost hypnotic knack for making people pity her, even when they’re well aware of her crimes.

Tyler Shultz didn’t need to see “You Can See Everything” to make up his mind about Holmes. Shultz, whose first job out of college was at Theranos, was a key whistleblower who exposed the company’s dangerously inaccurate blood testing devices, which made their way into Walgreens stores and delivered faulty results to real patients. (Theranos reached a peak valuation of around $10 billion despite its technology never actually working — the company only used its own machines for a fraction of tests, instead outsourcing others to third-party equipment.)

There is little reason to keep talking about Holmes — her case is closed, and she’s in federal prison — but her con-artistry has fascinated the media (myself included) for the last decade.

In fact, as Shultz says 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.”

But the cautionary tale of Theranos takes on a new significance as we enter the peak of the AI era, when companies that have never turned a profit 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 notable investor and board member himself.

“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 often came from individual investors like the DeVos and Walton families, rather than venture firms. Theranos did not share scientific information or evidence that its machines worked with potential investors, citing concerns about revealing trade secrets, which warded off many top venture capitalists in Silicon Valley.

At the time when Theranos’ fraud was uncovered, it was seen as a shrill wake-up call for investors that they need to prioritize due diligence. But in the AI era, Shultz worries that investors may forget these lessons.

“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 first question posed by “You Can See Everything” lies in the premise of the movie itself. Why would a mother of two young children choose to invite a film crew to follow her final days with her family before surrendering to serve a prison sentence of over eleven years? The film poses questions that seem inscrutable, but this one seems pretty clear. She wants people to pity her, because this pity could be more useful for her future endeavors than hate or mockery.

In the film, we see Holmes and her partner, hotel heir Billy Evans, working on Haemanthus, a diagnostics company that they call “Theranos 2.0,” which has reportedly raised about $20 million in funding.

“You Can See Everything” doesn’t make Holmes look good, but it also glosses over the more heinous crimes of Theranos, like giving dangerously faulty medical information to real patients, or even its targeted harassment of Shultz himself when he was attempting to sound the alarm about his former employer. In the cultural zeitgeist, Holmes remains more of a joke 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.”

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