The new Hulu series “The Dropout” is one of those very rare true stories that would never work as Fiction, because nobody would ever believe that something this insane could ever happen.
“A 19 year old girl, Elizabeth Holmes drops out of Stanford with an idea to start her own company and change the world. Her idea was so profound and valuable that if it worked it would change the course of medical science forever”. Unfortunately, her idea – brilliant that it was – never did work. The idea that one drop of blood could replace a vile or vile’s of blood required to give a human being an accurate blood test was so compelling that her company Theranos was able to fool investors out of millions of dollars. At its peak, Theranos was valued at 9 billion dollars. Even more amazing was that many of the investors that Elizabeth conned and lied to for years included George Shultz, Larry Ellison and even Henry Kissinger. It is almost impossible to believe that so many people lost money over a blood testing machine that nobody who invested in Theranos – actually saw – test blood accurately – or at all. This entire nightmare of lies and deception started with the huge narcistic ego of a young girl, who wanted to be like Steve Jobs and rule the world – with everything else simply acceptable collateral damage.
As this excellent 8 part series unfolded, we find out that the myriad of non stop lies was virtually unlimited, at one point even involving Pharmaceutical giant Walgreens who was conned into sending blood from their own customers to Theranos, where they diluted the blood, used another machine from another company and risked the lives of thousands of people, by giving incorrect blood tests. As disgusting as the company behind the story of “Erin Brockovich”, Purdue (the company behind the opioid crisis), the employees who worked at Theranos did not care that people could die after getting an incorrect blood test. They only cared about collecting money and continuing their lies, never caring about human life.
The acting in this 8 part series is outstanding, starting with Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes, Naveen Andrews as Sunny Balwani, CO-CEO of Theranos and an excellent supporting cast throughout this series.
Some weeks ago, Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty on 4 of the 11 counts of fraud and when she is finally sentenced later this year, she could spend as much as 20 years in jail. Justice finally served.
The ratings for this great series are a very high 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, with my rating 95%. I highly recommend The Dropout.