A hit new documentary about disgraced biotech founder Elizabeth Holmes is sparking a new wave of fascination with the saga surrounding one of Silicon Valley’s biggest scandals.
Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s film “You Can See Everything” follows Holmes, the former CEO of blood-testing startup Theranos, in the weeks before he was sentenced to 11 years in prison for defrauding investors.
Ahead of the nearly three-hour documentary’s Oct. 16 release, viewers are flocking to Hulu’s 2022 miniseries “The Dropout,” in which actor Amanda Seyfried plays Holmes.
A spokesman for Disney, which owns Hulu, said streaming hours of Hulu original programming jumped 186% in September compared with August, and the week “You Can See Everything” was released, jumped 92% compared with the previous week.
The eight-episode series is also available on Disney+ and has been streamed for more than 2 million hours since September, a spokesperson said.
The renewed attention on the rise and fall of Holmes’ Theranos has also brought listeners back to ABC News’ “The Dropout,” the true-crime podcast on which the Hulu series is based.
According to ABC News data provided by a Disney spokesperson, from September 7 to September 13, the play volume of “The Dropout” podcast on Spotify and Apple climbed nearly 400% the week after the “You Can See Everything” trailer was released.
Listening rates increased more than 900% over the new film’s opening weekend and continue to soar, a spokesperson said, adding that Tuesday’s numbers were the highest single-day numbers since “You Can See Everything” was announced.
A Spotify spokesperson told Business Insider that Wednesday was the most-streamed day for “The Dropout” podcast on the platform since the documentary was released, with U.S. listeners up 305% compared to the previous 30-day average.
The audiobook “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies at a Silicon Valley Startup,” by journalist John Carreyrou, has also attracted a new wave of listeners. Carrero revealed flaws in Theranos’ blood-testing equipment in a Wall Street Journal report.
According to a Spotify spokesperson, Carreyrou’s audiobooks saw the biggest growth on Thursday, with U.S. listenership soaring 560%.
As of Friday, the book was No. 6 on Amazon’s bestseller list in the business and finance category.
In January 2022, after a nearly four-month trial, Holmes was found guilty of four counts of federal conspiracy and wire fraud related to a scheme to defraud Theranos investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Holmes reported to the Texas minimum-security women’s prison on May 30, 2023, after being sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison.
The former Silicon Valley darling has repeatedly claimed that Theranos, once valued at $9 billion, has developed a revolutionary blood analyzer that can perform hundreds of tests with just a few drops of blood from a finger.