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.