Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of blood-testing startup Theranos, is the subject of a new documentary from comedian Nathan Fielder and filmmaker Lance Oppenheim.
You Can See Everything is in theaters now after being made largely in secret over nearly four years. The movie has already won widespread acclaim, with some critics calling it one of the year’s best movies.
It is also a box office hit. The film took in about $15 million from 855 theaters in its opening weekend, according to studio estimates reported Sunday by Variety. That is the second-best opening for a non-music documentary, behind “Fahrenheit 9/11” in 2004. The movie expands nationwide Oct. 23.
Holmes founded Theranos at 19 and became a celebrated Silicon Valley entrepreneur by claiming the company had developed technology capable of performing a wide range of medical tests using a small amount of blood.
But the technology did not live up to her claims, and in 2022, Holmes was convicted of defrauding Theranos investors. She is serving a federal prison sentence.
Filming for the documentary began 34 days before Holmes was due to report to prison, with Fielder moving into her home to capture an unusually intimate look at her life. Here’s a look at Holmes’s rise and fall.
Who is Elizabeth Holmes?
Holmes founded Theranos in 2003 and served as the company’s CEO. Her pitch helped turn her into one of Silicon Valley’s most prominent young entrepreneurs. Forbes estimated her net worth at $4.5 billion in 2014, thenrevised it to $0 in 2016 as Theranos unraveled.
Theranos raised more than $900 million from investors, including media mogul Rupert Murdoch, software billionaire Larry Ellison and the Walton family behind Walmart. The company planned to set up “mini-labs” in Walgreens and Safeway stores, where its small Edison device would provide faster, less invasive blood testing.
Evidence presented at her trial showed that the company’s blood-testing technology produced misleading results and that Theranos used conventional laboratory machines for testing that its own technology could not reliably perform.
In 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Holmes, Theranos and Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, Holmes’s former romantic partner, who served as the company’s president and chief operating officer, with raising more than $700 million from investors through what the agency described as a years-long fraud involving false or exaggerated statements about the company’s technology, business and financial performance.
Holmes settled the SEC’s civil charges without admitting or denying the allegations. She agreed to pay a $500,000 penalty, relinquish voting control of Theranos, return millions of shares and accept a 10-year ban on serving as an officer or director of a public company.
Amanda Seyfried portrayed Holmes in the 2022 Hulu limited series The Dropout, for which she won an Emmy.
What was Elizabeth Holmes convicted of?
A federal jury convicted Holmes in 2022 of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud against Theranos investors and three counts of wire fraud against individual investors. The wire transfers involved in those counts totaled more than $140 million, according to the Justice Department.
Holmes was not convicted of defrauding Theranos patients. The jury acquitted her of a patient-related fraud conspiracy charge and three charges involving individual patients. Jurors could not reach verdicts on three additional investor-related charges.
In November 2022, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila sentenced Holmes to 135 months — 11 years and three months — in federal prison, followed by three years of supervision.
Balwani was separately convicted on all 12 criminal charges against him and sentenced to nearly 13 years in federal prison.
Where is Elizabeth Holmes now?
Holmes began serving her sentence in May 2023 at a federal prison in Texas, but she is scheduled to move to a halfway house next year.
Holmes has been approved for placement at the Austin Transitional Center in Del Valle, Texas, on Aug. 23, 2027, according to a Department of Justice notification obtained by ABC News.
Her original sentence of 11 years and three months has also been reduced to 10 years and three months. She is now scheduled for release on Feb. 22, 2030. The revised release date reflects a retroactive change to federal sentencing guidelines as well as time earned under the First Step Act.
A federal appeals court rejected Holmes’s attempt to overturn her conviction in February 2025 and upheld an order requiring her and former Theranos executive Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani to pay $452 million in restitution.
Holmes told People in 2025 that Evans and their children visit her in prison twice a week. “It kills me to put my family through pain the way I do,” she said. “But when I look back on my life, and these angels that have come into it, I can get through anything. It makes me want to fight for all of it.”
