The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley

Elizabeth Holmes leaves Stanford at nineteen and founds Theranos. The promise: hundreds of tests from a single drop of blood. The company reaches a valuation of nine billion dollars, former statesmen join the board, and the device never works. The subject is not fraud but the fact that nobody asked. The documentary's key finding is that the people in the laboratory knew about the problems, and those who said so were either fired or silenced with letters from lawyers. Two young employees who exposed the company's secrets speak in the film. The form is Alex Gibney's familiar method: interview, archive and inside sources. Theranos' own promotional recordings are used, and once the sentences Holmes repeats are placed side by side you can see they had become a script. It was made for HBO and released in 2019. The events it covers started a wide argument about the cost of asking questions inside American venture capital; Holmes was later convicted of fraud. Who it is for: viewers interested in technology and startup fraud. Who it is not for: anyone expecting an explanation of Holmes' interior; the film tries to work out what drove her and cannot answer.