Film Review: The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019)

If there is one thing we have learned in 2010s that should unsettle us all, it is the realisation that Silicon Valley increasingly represents less of a solution and more a part of the world’s problems. Indeed, regardless of all the justified praise for inventions and the creative use of modern technology that have made people’s lives exponentially better around the world, American tech giants such as Facebook, Apple and Google have over time begun to show their exceptionally dark side—whether through their monopolistic position, which will eventually start stifling all innovation; through the shameless spying on and selling of their own users’ confidential data; or through increasingly aggressive censorship based on ever more arbitrary criteria that are becoming less and less comprehensible to laypeople.

The problem with Silicon Valley’s giants, however, is not some grand aberration—neither in the broader context of American capitalism nor in relation to Silicon Valley itself, where the corporations that dominate today’s world are just a handful of lucky winners who drew the right tickets in a social‑Darwinist lottery. Most Silicon Valley companies, like most businesses in America and more or less every market‑economy country, are losers. Stories of failure and defeat, however, rarely make for grateful material for newspaper articles or films—that usually only happens when a specific mix of characters and circumstances creates a major spectacle that ends up on the front pages.

One such example is the subject of the documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley. Its central figure is Elizabeth Holmes, an American entrepreneur who until a few years ago enjoyed a reputation as one of the most respected figures in American business and was celebrated by the media as one of the rare examples of a woman who managed to reach the top of a major American technology company. Today she is regarded as the source of the biggest scandal in Silicon Valley’s history.

Raised in a family of respected and wealthy doctors, Holmes developed an interest in science and technology from an early age and began research work while studying at the elite Stanford University. That work would prompt her, in 2004, to leave university and found the company that later became known as Theranos. Holmes set as her—and her company’s—goal the discovery and manufacture of a device capable of performing the most complex tests from a finger‑prick blood sample, and thus helping doctors and patients obtain high‑quality and, above all, rapid diagnoses.

Theranos was, with its idea, one of the many “start‑ups” operating in Silicon Valley, but from 2013 it quickly began to stand out among them precisely thanks to Holmes, who—carefully cultivating business methods as well as the image of her great role model Steve Jobs—displayed an incredible ability to win over members of the American and global business, political and media elite for her idea. That resulted in panegyrics to the “female Jobs” in the press and on television, as well as numerous generals and distinguished statesmen on the board of directors, and even more distinguished investors who poured billions of dollars into her company.

The only problem for Holmes, however, was that her device simply could not perform tests in the fast and high‑quality way she promised; in fact, it required far more effort, money and time than could be expected from a self‑proclaimed genius. When, in 2015, an article by investigative journalist John Carreyrou in the Wall Street Journal raised some uncomfortable questions, Holmes’s empire began to collapse like a house of cards, and the public—even some of her most fanatical admirers—began to realise over time that it was all one huge fraud.

Alex Gibney, who directed the film, has over the last two decades established himself as one of America’s leading documentary filmmakers, with a speciality in scandals—including, of course, those involving white‑collar crime. The Inventor is in large part similar to his first significant work, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room from 2005, which was devoted to the notorious energy company whose spectacular collapse—based on defrauding shareholders—was only overshadowed by the 9/11 attacks. The reason for the similarity may not be entirely coincidental, as Holmes’s father was for a time one of Enron’s vice‑presidents.

In the case of Theranos, Gibney uses a similar approach—that is, he strives to tell the story largely using Holmes’s own words, though she understandably did not participate directly in the production of this documentary. In this respect, the author was fortunate in Holmes’s exceptional penchant for self‑promotion, which left numerous recordings of interviews, TED talks, and even Theranos propaganda films directed by Oscar‑winning documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. On the basis of these, as well as numerous conversations with journalists and former employees, Gibney builds a picture of a personality who had the sincerest and noblest intentions and genuinely believed in what she was doing—but who also had some rather poor role models.

That refers primarily to Thomas Edison, an inventor and entrepreneur whom Americans love to celebrate as a national hero and a symbol of all the good that science and creative genius, combined with capitalism, can bring—but whom those familiar with Nikola Tesla’s biography can scarcely describe as a positive figure. In the film, Gibney sought to show parallels between Edison and Holmes—suggesting how both used methods that were not exactly the most moral and often told brazen lies to the public and investors. The difference, of course, is that Edison, after numerous failures, eventually succeeded in inventing a practical light bulb, whereas Holmes—after just as many years and billions of dollars thrown in—created one big nothing; and only thanks to a fortunate twist of fate was she prevented from risking the lives of tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions of patients worldwide with a faulty device.

The Inventor can therefore serve as an important and quite timely warning that even Silicon Valley—long considered immune to the corruption and incompetence plaguing the pillars of today’s world—is part of the problem, and that true geniuses in leadership positions there are the exception rather than the rule. Holmes thus succeeded for years in taking some of the smartest and most experienced people—and indeed the whole public—for a ride. However, she could never have done so without the help of the media, who—like herself—preferred to believe what they wanted to believe rather than the actual state of affairs, meaning that the “female Jobs” remained unquestioned for a long time. Gibney did not succeed in adequately showing that broader context in the film, but regardless, The Inventor is a film well worth watching, offering an interesting—though rather unsettling—view of today’s world.

RATING: 8/10 (+++)

(Note: The text in the original Croatian version was posted here.)

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