Whistleblower Reacts to Elizabeth Holmes Documentary

Tyler Shultz, a former employee of Theranos and a key whistleblower, expressed surprise at the portrayal of Elizabeth Holmes in the documentary You Can See Everything. Shultz, who helped expose the fraudulent activities of Theranos, shared his thoughts on CBS Mornings.

“The Elizabeth that I knew completely commanded a room, even if that room was full of secretaries of state, secretaries of defense, generals, senators. She would own a room,” he stated, noting the confidence Holmes exhibited in the past. “The woman that I saw onscreen looked, frankly, like a broken woman.”

Shultz criticized the documentary’s depiction of Theranos’ technology when Holmes presented a device purported to be Theranos’ blood-testing mechanism. He claimed that the device shown was not the one used during his time at the company.

“She brings out the Theranos device, and she lays it across the table and all of its components, so you know you can see everything,” said Shultz. “But my problem was: that was not the device that I worked with 12 hours a day. That was not the device that we hid from regulators. That was not the device that failed quality controls. That was not the device that we used to knowingly give patients incorrect medical information.”

The documentary explores Holmes’ perspective following her conviction in 2022 for defrauding investors. Holmes never acknowledged wrongdoing despite the scandal, maintaining her innocence in the film. At the time, Holmes resided in San Diego with her partner Billy Evans and their two children, while preparing for her 11-year prison sentence.

Holmes faced convictions over claims that Theranos could perform comprehensive analyses on small blood samples collected from a fingertip, a promise that proved false. Theranos failed to deliver on its revolutionary diagnostic technology, leading Holmes to become a subject of scrutiny over how she fooled investors and the public.

“She knows that she did something wrong,” Shultz said. “She knows that she was lying, because she created this whole web of lies that you would not have needed to create if you actually believed the lies.”

Shultz joined Theranos as an intern in 2013, under the influence of his grandfather, George Shultz, a former U.S. Secretary of State and company board member. He left the company in 2014 and contributed to investigations by The Wall Street Journal and regulatory agencies.

Shultz previously appeared in the 2016 HBO documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, detailing Theranos’ fall. You Can See Everything premiered Friday, earning $15 million at the box office during its opening weekend, marking a successful launch for documentary films.