Tyler Shultz: AI is 'a great opportunity to go deceive people'

Shultz's warning lands as Theranos' cautionary tale is being retold on screen. 'You Can See Everything,' directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, captures Elizabeth Holmes' final weeks before prison and has become one of the highest-grossing documentaries of all time. The film deliberately avoids casting Holmes as either master manipulator or victim, instead showing her knack for making people pity her.

Shultz, whose first job out of college was at Theranos, was a key whistleblower who exposed the company's dangerously inaccurate blood testing devices, which reached Walgreens stores and delivered faulty results to real patients. His grandfather, former U.S. Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury George Shultz, was a notable investor and board member. Theranos' funding often came from individual investors like the DeVos and Walton families rather than venture firms; the company withheld scientific evidence from potential investors, citing trade secrets, which warded off many top venture capitalists.

Shultz worries those lessons are being forgotten as AI companies that have never turned a profit raise capital at trillion-dollar valuations. He said the days of having a thirty-minute coffee with someone and sending them $100,000 should be over, noting Holmes took that model and scaled it to $100 million. He also pointed to Holmes' new diagnostics company Haemanthus, which he described as 'Theranos 2.0' and which has reportedly raised about $20 million in funding. 'I have this feeling of unease about what might come next,' Shultz said.