The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley examines the rise and collapse of Theranos, the blood-testing company founded by Elizabeth Holmes. Holmes dropped out of Stanford University to build a firm around a device she said could run a wide range of tests from a single finger-prick of blood, promising care that was cheaper and less painful than conventional venous draws. Investors and the media treated her as a visionary in the mold of Steve Jobs, and the company reached a valuation in the billions. Doubts about whether the technology worked as described surfaced publicly in 2015, regulators later moved against the company's laboratory operations, and the enterprise lost its value. The documentary looks at how the claims were sustained and at the psychology of fraud.

Alex Gibney directed, wrote and produced the film, the ninth of the ten features he has directed, arriving between Zero Days (2016) and Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos (2024). Gibney also appears as narrator and interviewer. Those speaking on camera include behavioral economist Dan Ariely, journalists Roger Parloff and Ken Auletta, and former Theranos lab associate Erika Cheung, alongside archival footage of Holmes. The production involved 38 credited cast members and was made by Jigsaw Productions and HBO Documentary Films, running 119 minutes.

Reception places the film in solidly favorable territory: it holds a 7.2 rating on IMDb from nearly 15,000 votes and a 7 on TMDB from a much smaller base of 314.