Convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes says she wasn’t lying: do her victims believe her? – The Saturday Story

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Manveen Rana (1:39)

From The Times and The Sunday Times, this is The Story on Saturday. I'm Manveen Rana.

Over the last few weeks, a new film has taken America by storm.

SPEAKER_4 (1:55)

Some are calling it the wildest thing they've ever seen.

SPEAKER_1 (1:58)

What did I just see?

Brad Arrington (2:01)

I am a full-throated evangelist for this movie.

SPEAKER_1 (2:04)

I am so won over by it.

SPEAKER_6 (2:06)

It is definitely my film of the year. I've seen it twice already.

SPEAKER_4 (2:10)

It made $15 million at the box office this weekend, the second highest opening for a documentary ever.

SPEAKER_6 (2:16)

It feels unignorable as a force that the Oscars are going to have to contend with.

Manveen Rana (2:21)

The film You Can See Everything opens in the UK this week. It follows the disgraced American entrepreneur and former Silicon Valley whiz kid, Elizabeth Holmes, in the 34 days before she began her prison sentence for fraud.

Elizabeth Holmes (2:42)

I'm not that person. I can promise you that.

I don't have anything to deceive you on. Of course I'm not deceiving you.

Manveen Rana (2:52)

Elizabeth Holmes rose to fame after founding a company that promised to diagnose hundreds of medical conditions from just one drop of blood.

At its height, it was valued at nine billion dollars, but it turned out to be a lie. The technology didn't work and the company collapsed. Investors lost millions, hundreds lost their jobs and Holmes was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

SPEAKER_8 (3:21)

Elizabeth Holmes, who famously dropped out of college to revolutionize blood testing once compared to Steve Jobs, now found guilty of four counts of criminal fraud.

Manveen Rana (3:32)

Elizabeth Holmes has always maintained her innocence, but for many of her employees, the fallout from the collapse of her company was traumatic.

Brad Arrington (3:42)

My life was deeply affected. I went through a period of extreme anger and anguish.

Gage Kleck (3:50)

I kind of took two years out of my career in a way. I don't actually show any of the work that we did.

Manveen Rana (3:56)

So, what do the people whose lives were ruined by her company make of the fact that Elizabeth Holmes invited a film crew to document her day-to-day life and her reflections before going to prison? The Sunday Times decided to ask them.

Patrick O'Neill (4:14)

I was afraid to see it a little bit.

Gage Kleck (4:16)

The thing that kind of made me want to jump out of my seat was just, there's no way she didn't know she was lying.

SPEAKER_11 (4:22)

She still, she's never acknowledged her wrongdoing.

Manveen Rana (4:28)

The story today, is the Elizabeth Holmes documentary Just Another Lie?

Roisin Kelly (4:45)

It came out in America last month, so people have been talking about it here for weeks.

There's billboards everywhere, you know, Times Square, just kind of Elizabeth Holmes' eyes are looking down at you. Everyone in the office, in coffee shops, is asking, have you seen it? Have you seen it yet?

Manveen Rana (5:04)

Roisin Kelly is US correspondent for The Times and The Sunday Times, based in New York, where it seems the whole city can't stop talking about You Can See Everything.