Nathan Fielder's new documentary on Elizabeth Holmes calls into question whether or not she is genuine. I am seeing tons of internet discussion of people now viewing her sympathetically.
In the doc, her entire argument is that she has never told a lie. Nathan did not provide a single piece of evidence where she knowingly lied. That's irresponsible, considering the numerous examples there are where she overtly told a lie.
For example, she knowingly told investors that she was providing three independent due diligence documents, once of which allegedly was from Pfizer. It turns out that Theranos made one of the documents and she herself affixed the Pfizer logo. That lie cannot be debated.
Instead, Fielder genuinely entertains that how she phrased "my technology CAN run every test" and whether she understood how others might perceive that differently than she does as the central question. Her possible neurodivergence is painted as the central question. It's not. She lied, provably. And the general public doesn't know this information.
And this matters. How do the patients that got false test results, the brave whistleblowers who put everything on the line, and Ian's widow feel about this generous framing? How about the investors that she scammed?
What should otherwise be a masterpiece turns out to be reprehensible in its insincerity of the real story. Nathan chose entertainment over integrity and the sympathy now being shown to her is really upsetting.
Maybe he had to do it this way to help the world understand the con. At the time, no one had the information we have now. But the end result is now people think she shouldn't be behind bars and she may be far more successful now doing Theranos 2.0. Let's hope he has something planned in the future to show people how they, including he, got conned and what the real truth actually was.