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Disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who was once hailed as one of Silicon Valley's most exciting young entrepreneurs, has had her spectacular demise become the subject of a documentary, with the trailer leaving people stunned.
The billionaire healthcare mogul procured billions of dollars in investments from some of the world’s wealthiest investors with the purported aim of revolutionizing healthcare.
However, the monumental collapse of her company eventually saw Holmes convicted of defrauding investors, and she was consequently sentenced to over 11 years in prison.
Now, her extraordinary rise and fall is back in the spotlight thanks to a new documentary, You Can See Everything, which captures Holmes during the final weeks before she reported to prison for her 11-year stretch.
The film premiered as a surprise inclusion at the Telluride Film Festival, with viewers given another look at the woman behind one of the biggest scandals in modern Silicon Valley history.
Holmes was found guilty in January 2022 of four charges relating to wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud against Theranos investors.
During her highly publicized trial, prosecutors argued that she deliberately misrepresented the capabilities of the company's technology and its financial position to secure hundreds of millions of dollars in investment.
Among many of the wealthy investors who put money into Theranos were media billionaire Rupert Murdoch and members of the Walton family.
According to the US Department of Justice, Holmes and former Theranos executive Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani deliberately misled investors about whether the company's technology could actually deliver accurate medical test results.
Her defence also pointed towards Balwani, her ex-romantic partner and business associate, arguing that he had played an influential role in the company's operations and decisions.
A jury ultimately convicted Holmes on four charges connected to investors, although she was acquitted of several separate allegations concerning patients.
The now-disgraced Theranos founder was sentenced to over 11 years in federal prison in November 2022, with the documentary capturing the months leading up to her reporting to prison in May 2023.
Balwani was prosecuted separately and was also convicted of fraud offences. He received a sentence of almost 13 years in prison.
Holmes founded Theranos in 2003, with her company promising to transform blood testing. They claimed that its technology could conduct a huge number of medical tests using only a tiny amount of blood collected through a finger prick.
By 2014, Theranos was reportedly valued at around $9 billion, while Holmes was being described as the world's youngest self-made female billionaire.
But questions about whether the technology actually worked began to emerge, including from renowned figures in the same field, such as Dr Jeffrey Flier, the former dean of Harvard Medical School, who met Holmes in 2015.
“I knew she'd had this brilliant idea and that she had managed to convince all these investors and scientists,” he claimed.
However, after speaking to Holmes about the technology, Flier began to have doubts about both Holmes and the efficacy of the concept: “She was self-assured, but when I asked her several questions about her technology, she didn't look like she understood,” Flier said.
In 2015, concerns about Theranos' flagship Edison technology became increasingly public after a whistleblower raised questions about the company's claims.
The Wall Street Journal subsequently published a series of reports alleging that Theranos was not carrying out the vast majority of its tests using its own technology.
Instead, the reports claimed that conventional machines made by other manufacturers were being used, while concerns were also raised about the reliability of some test results.
The revelations proved devastating for the company, with Holmes being arrested in 2018, despite denying any wrongdoing.
