March 22nd in Chicago.
Veteran filmmaker Alex Gibney wrote and directed this film about the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes and her company Theranos. Holmes dropped out of Stanford to work to start a healthcare company. Her goal was to take a small amount of blood and determine all sorts of ailments. Skeptics said it couldn't be done with a such a small amount but Holmes forged and picked up investors along the way. If her theory did work, it could revolutionize healthcare.
By 2010, Holmes and her business partner/lover Ramesh Balwani had over $92 million in venture capital. By 2013, Theranos partnered with Walgreen's and would end up being worth up to $10 billion. Despite all of the hype and list of high profile endorsers it was all a lie. The "Edison," the machine that was supposed to analyze the blood, never worked and Theranos faked any previous results. In 2015, Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou began sniffing around Theranos and with the help of whistleblowers, blew the lid of Theranos.
Gibney does a nice job of building the narrative. He was able to use actual company footage as well as interviews with the whistleblowers, high profile endorsers and employees. He also digs into the Silicon Valley culture of "fake it until you make it." The film received a 77% Rotten Tomatoes rating. This is a really good film that upset me that this stuff goes on. Holmes' trial is set for summer of 2020. If she's found guilty, and I hope she is, it will be interesting to see how hard the sentencing is since she's a woman.
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