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DEBRIEFWritten and voiced by AI from the episode's audio
This Hard Fork episode assembles three journalists who covered Elizabeth Holmes at different stages of her life—Caitlin Roper who interviewed her for Wired in 2013, John Carreyrou who broke the Theranos fraud story for the Wall Street Journal, and Erin Griffith who covered her trial—to discuss a new documentary by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim. The film captures Holmes at her most intimate and vulnerable moments in the month before she begins her 11-year prison sentence. The panel explores how Holmes presents herself in the film, whether she is genuinely remorseful or strategically manipulative, and why her story continues to captivate the public over a decade after her fall. They debate whether Holmes is a product of Silicon Valley's "fake it till you make it" culture gone too far, discuss the role gender played in both her rise and our fascination with her fall, and examine her pattern of intense romantic and business partnerships that mirror her relationship with Sunny Balwani. The conversation reveals the tension between feeling sympathy for Holmes as a person facing prison and simultaneously recognizing her calculated attempts to evade responsibility.
🎧 AI Debrief
Show notes
This week, there’s a new blockbuster Elizabeth Holmes documentary out, and we’ve assembled an expert panel to discuss the movie and what Holmes means to the tech world of today. Max Read is joined by John Carreyrou, who, through his investigative reporting for The Wall Street Journal and his book “Bad Blood,” revealed the fraud at the heart of Theranos; Erin Griffith, a tech reporter who extensively covered Holmes’s trail; and Caitlin Roper, the New York Times executive producer who wrote the first-ever magazine piece about Holmes for Wired back in 2013.
We end with a rundown of what else is happening in tech news this week.
Panelists:
• Erin Griffith, a tech reporter for The New York Times. • John Carreyrou, author of “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup” and an investigative reporter for The New York Times’s business section. • Caitlin Roper runs film, TV and books at The New York Times.
Additional Reading:
• ‘You Can See Everything’ Review: The Slippery Mind of Elizabeth Holmes • Elizabeth Holmes’s Partner Has a New Blood-Testing Start-Up • Elizabeth Holmes to Transfer to Halfway House in August 2027 • F.B.I. Arrests OpenAI Employee Accused of Planting Bug in Office
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