--- title: Theranos-Style Fraud Has Become the Norm | daily.dev description: A review of the new documentary 'You Can See Everything' by Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder, which followed Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Billy Evans... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/theranos-style-fraud-has-become-the-norm-ro0ffoxb7 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Theranos-Style Fraud Has Become the Norm | daily.dev og:description: A review of the new documentary 'You Can See Everything' by Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder, which followed Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Billy Evans... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/theranos-style-fraud-has-become-the-norm-ro0ffoxb7 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/rO0ffoXb7.png og:image:alt: Theranos-Style Fraud Has Become the Norm og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Theranos-Style Fraud Has Become the Norm **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 2 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A review of the new documentary 'You Can See Everything' by Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder, which followed Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Billy Evans just before she began her 11-year prison sentence for defrauding Theranos investors. The piece argues that Holmes's unwavering insistence that Theranos could have delivered on its promises, despite evidence it relied on conventional analyzers rather than its own technology, reflects a broader normalization of grift in tech and business culture. It also notes that Holmes and Evans discussed launching a new venture, nicknamed Theranos 2.0, involving lasers. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Did Theranos's blood-testing device actually work as promised No. Theranos never had a device capable of running the hundreds of tests it promised on tiny blood samples; its machine could only perform a handful of basic tests, sometimes inaccurately, and the company secretly relied on conventional lab analyzers to cover the gap. _Readers tracking tech accountability stories follow fraud retrospectives like this one on daily.dev._ ### What happened to Elizabeth Holmes after the Theranos fraud conviction Elizabeth Holmes is serving an 11-year federal prison sentence for defrauding Theranos investors of hundreds of millions of dollars, a sentence she began three years before being the subject of a documentary filmed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim. Despite the conviction, she maintains Theranos could have delivered on its technological promises. _Developers curious about startup fraud fallout can keep up with cases like this on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 39 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-23). **TL;DR:** Commenters largely pushed back on the article's premise, arguing it conflates government corruption with fraud and fails to provide convincing non-governmental examples beyond Nikola, though several pointed to other cases (FTX, Terra-Luna, Builder.ai) as evidence fraud is indeed widespread. **Sentiment:** 0% positive · 25% mixed · 75% skeptical **The case for** - Some agreed fraud and inflated valuations are rampant, citing FTX, Terra-Luna, Builder.ai, and questionable AI startup ARR figures as modern parallels. - One commenter argued that tolerance for high-profile corruption without consequence signals society has become more accepting of this behavior. **The pushback** - Many felt the article was weak for framing the argument mostly around Trump-era government corruption rather than true non-governmental fraud examples. - Commenters argued government corruption and outright fraud like Theranos are different things and shouldn't be conflated. - Several noted that prior frauds like Nikola and Theranos have made due diligence more rigorous, making large-scale replication harder, undermining the 'norm' claim. - One commenter argued most people wouldn't care about another Theranos since Holmes's notoriety stemmed from her personality rather than broad financial harm. **By community** - hackernews (skeptical): Most pushed back on the article's thesis, criticizing its reliance on government/Trump examples rather than solid evidence that fraud has become normalized in tech. **Hottest debate:** Whether conflating political corruption (e.g., Trump-related dealings) with corporate fraud like Theranos is a fair or misleading comparison. **Open questions** - Is there compelling evidence that fraud rates have actually increased, beyond a handful of well-known cases? - Would the public reaction to a new Theranos-level fraud be as significant as it was the first time? **Highlights** > found the article quite weak, hurt by the East Coast media’s tendency to make everything about government & Trump. > Donald Trump has unashamedly profited from the presidency, earning more than $1.4 billion in 2025 from cryptocurrency deals. The Trump family has received significant money coming from countries that wish to bend the president’s ear on foreign policy. Donald Trump Jr. has benefited from the sudden interest in his business acumen. Months after the younger Trump’s venture-capital firm took an ownership stake in a rare-earth-magnet start-up, it was awarded a $620 million government loan. I was hoping, if this style of fraud has become the norm, that we would have more true non-governmental examples. I do not agree that it has become the norm and don’t think this article does much to make the case. > — [whimsicalism on hackernews · 6 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50142046) > Agreed. Even the non-governmental example in the article - Nikola Corporation - was uncovered as a fraud more than six years ago. And the governmental examples as described aren't even fraud, they're corruption. Even in this day and age of somewhat exorbitant company valuations, it's infinitely more difficult to replicate the kind of fraud of Nikola or Theranos. If only because of those companies setting a precedent for abject fraudulence and making basic due diligence that much more of a necessity/expectation. A company like Instinct wouldn't manage to get away with its current valuation if their technology wasn't front-and-center for everyone to see and use. Time will tell - for all we know there's currently a large company more fraudulent than either of those, and we'll only find out in the future - but trying to paint it as the norm isn't based in any recent real-world examples. > — [danielklnstein on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50142133) > A good argument could be made that precisely because it happens in government and those people aren’t booted out post-haste, then society is apparently a lot more OK with this style of behavior than before. I think Nixon’s watergate is a good comparison. It wasn’t nothing, but how many larger scams and scandals has Trump and family been through with apparent electoral acceptance? And if it is so. How big a reaction would you get from the population if another Theranos happened? I don’t think people would care, really. Shrug and move on. > — [pseudony on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50142178) > This is the point though. Trump's approval ratings prove his base does not give a single flying fuck about his grift and corruption. They admire it. Now you've got a third of the country who are just totally ok with fraud if its perpetrated by someone on their team. Nearly all tech billionaires are on their team. > — [jeremyjh on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50142264) > Most of the population wouldn't care about another Theranos because it wouldn't have any impact on them. People only cared about the first Theranos because Elizabeth Holmes was such a bizarre character. The fraud and business failure didn't have any broader impact on the financial system. And while knowingly giving unsuspecting patients inaccurate blood test lab results was inexcusable and deserving of severe punishment, in the end no one died. > — [nradov on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50142465) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50141206) · 57 points · 39 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Hyperscale Normalization](https://daily.dev/posts/hyperscale-normalization-xkcxgya93) · Where's Your Ed At · 9 upvotes · 1 comments - [‘Industry’ season 4 captures tech fraud better than any show on TV right now](https://daily.dev/posts/industry-season-4-captures-tech-fraud-better-than-any-show-on-tv-right-now-yc8ybs11c) · TechCrunch · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Concerns Were Raised](https://daily.dev/posts/concerns-were-raised-qgolqvskd) · ITNEXT · 4 upvotes · 1 comments - [Jane Street Hit with Terra $40B Insider Trading Suit](https://daily.dev/posts/jane-street-hit-with-terra-40b-insider-trading-suit-xi7pj0r4r) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#startup](https://daily.dev/tags/startup) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/theranos-style-fraud-has-become-the-norm-ro0ffoxb7) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Theranos-Style Fraud Has Become the Norm","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/theranos-style-fraud-has-become-the-norm-ro0ffoxb7","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/theranos-style-fraud-has-become-the-norm-ro0ffoxb7"},"datePublished":"2026-10-18T15:38:04.651Z","dateModified":"2026-10-23T09:20:47.689Z","description":"A review of the new documentary 'You Can See Everything' by Lance Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder, which followed Elizabeth Holmes and her partner Billy Evans...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/262f7fe260b4ae237df69354d33d5019?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/262f7fe260b4ae237df69354d33d5019?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Hacker News","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Hacker News","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/hn","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/theranos-style-fraud-has-become-the-norm-ro0ffoxb7","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"startup","timeRequired":"PT2M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hacker News","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/hn"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Theranos-Style Fraud Has Become the Norm"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/theranos-style-fraud-has-become-the-norm-ro0ffoxb7#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Did Theranos's blood-testing device actually work as promised","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"No. Theranos never had a device capable of running the hundreds of tests it promised on tiny blood samples; its machine could only perform a handful of basic tests, sometimes inaccurately, and the company secretly relied on conventional lab analyzers to cover the gap. 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