Transcript of Elizabeth Holmes' Husband Billy Evans: The Trial, Prison & Nathan Fielder's Documentary

Billy Evans, who is Elizabeth Holmes' partner.

The subject of the forthcoming documentary You Can See Everything, has had an unconventional love story with her fiancé, Billy Evans. The couple first connected as federal authorities were investigating Holmes for fraud and conspiracy connected to her failed blood testing startup Theranos.

A new documentary is offering an unprecedented look into the life of Elizabeth Holmes, the tech CEO turned convicted felon

at the center of a massive multi-year fraud.

Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced today to 11 and a quarter years in prison for counts of criminal fraud.

The disgraced tycoon and her fiancé, Billy Evans.

Please welcome Billy Evans.

Welcome. What's up?

Hi, everyone.

Grab a seat. Have you ever done a live interview like this?

Dude, I've never done an interview.

You've never done an interview?

So thank you guys all for being the guinea pigs here. I appreciate it. And apologies.

You're Elizabeth Holmes's husband?

That's typically not how I love to be introduced. Yeah, my name's Billy Evans. And yes, Elizabeth Holmes is my wife and best friend and partner.

You and I met at a party.

Yeah.

2, a year and a half ago, I think.

Yeah, around F1, I think, in Austin.

And we, yeah, that's right. And we started talking, and that kind of got to us kind of chatting about Elizabeth, and the case, and the history.

Yeah, I think I came up to you and I said, David, my name's Billy Evans. You guys talk about my wife a lot on your podcast, and you've got a lot of the story pretty fundamentally wrong. So if you're ever interested in learning some more details, I'm happy to read you in.

I'd had a couple drinks. I'm like, sure. He was great. He was, like, really great. I'll hear your side of the story.

Yeah.

And one thing led to another. We talked on the phone, and I ended up getting on a plane to Texas, and I went and visited Elizabeth in prison. Yeah. I spent the day with her and you.

Yeah.

And her parents and the kids, going quite deep into the whole thing. And there was a lot more to this story than what I think had been portrayed. And I was aware of the documentary. I had heard in Hollywood that this documentary was happening, and I had heard that it was a pretty

well-kept secret.

Yeah, but I know people.

Yeah, well, and I don't doubt it. Look at the crowd.

Yeah. And well, so the secret got out. I want to get to that. We're not going to litigate the case today, the Theranos case. That's Elizabeth's story to tell when the time is right. And she was under a gag order until last April.

Yeah.

So from the time that the DOJ began their investigation, Elizabeth was under a gag order through the trial and through the appeals process, which ended last April, I believe.

Yeah. So one thing for people to know about her, uh, which might shock you, is that Elizabeth follows rules, like, maniacally, like, to a T. So when the judge said that we are going to litigate this court in the courtroom and not in the media, she held true to that.

So she never spoke to the media?

No, for the entirety of the process, she remained silent.

And there were a lot of articles being written? Yeah, and movies being made, and podcasts. Okay.

Yeah.

So, you know, there's a lot to the story which we're not going to talk about today, the trial and the case, but I'm curious to hear a little bit about the experience. Okay, so maybe we can go back. How did you and Elizabeth first meet?

Yeah, Elizabeth and I met at a Fleet Week party in San Francisco on the roof of some venture capitalist. He was trying to hire me and date her. I was going to be there for, like, maybe 5 minutes. I had 100 people coming over to a house I lived in with 4 other guys, and we were going to throw a big Fleet Week party. And he called me when I went out to go grab ice, and he said, Billy, you know, are you coming by our event today? I said, of course. I'd totally forgotten. So I drove over to his place. I parked my car in the red. I went up the elevator. And a few minutes later, he introduced me to Elizabeth. And that killed my whole afternoon. I mean, the next, I don't know, 2 and a half, 3 hours, her and I just spoke. And we started a conversation that really has never ended. And I don't know if I can say I fell in love with her in that moment, but she was just incredible. Her ability to listen and really care about everything that you were saying, she made you feel so seen.

She was infinitely curious about the smallest things that nobody else really cared about, who were too, you know, cool to pretend like it mattered. As the planes flew overhead, she was just amazed by them with this, like, childlike wonder. And when I first met her, I didn't know she was Elizabeth Holmes. She was just Elizabeth. She was wearing a big floppy hat and dark sunglasses and had a Band-Aid on her face because her puppy husky had just scratched her. Someway through the middle of the conversation, it turned to where we worked, like physically. And I told her that I worked on Page Mill Road. She said, oh, no way, where? And I said, 1891. And she said, you know, I'm 1790 or something. She was 2 doors down. And then that's when I really put it together.

And what was— what year was this? And what was the state of the Theranos story at that point?

Yeah, so this was October 7th, 2017 that we first met. It was peak, like bad.

So this was after the DOJ, the case—

It was before she was indicted.

Before she was indicted. Yeah. It was the Carreyrou article machine had started.

Yeah, like 100 of them. Those were already out there.

They had been out there. So she had this reputation.

Like horrible reputation.

Fraudster, all this sort of stuff. Yes. And so you're saying that when you first met her, it was her, who she is, that you kind of engaged with, not the story of Elizabeth Holmes, and then you found out it was her.

Yeah, I mean, it's like the, you know, 30 people that I've spoken to while I've been here where I know nothing about their story. Right. I'm just seeing the person in front of me.

So then when you found out who she really was—

Yeah.

Did you not just shut down and say, what am I doing talking to this person?

It was pretty hard to grok. I mean, it was like a hard thing to come to terms with, because you get to know this person separate and apart of how you're supposed to feel about them. And then you invariably go back to this idea of like, this is who I've been told this person is. And those 2 things were so radically different from one another. Yeah, it was really challenging.

And then—

But we didn't, like, just start dating, you know? Like, I met her, and then there was, you know, I was looking at renting her building because we were right next door, and our business was kind of doing this, and hers was doing this at that time. So we were looking at renting the Theranos HQ, and that was kind of the context under which she gave me her business card. And, you know, she crossed out her cell phone number on it and wrote personal cell. I was like, huh, maybe this just isn't business. And that's, that's how we originally connected.

And then did you guys start hanging out?

Yeah. So when I first met her, she told me that she had this husky, and I told her I had a dog. I didn't really have a dog. It was my, it was my roommate's dog, but he, he was like mine. And the first times that we hung out, we'd just go on walks. And I was really curious about the circumstance, like probably many of you are.

Because there was some infamy at the time. You're curious to understand what's going on.

I think I was most curious to understand the difference between the person that I experienced and the person that I told existed— was told, like, existed. And they were so different. I was really curious, and I was interested in her, and she made me feel good because she listened so intently. But basically, we were friends for 6 months. We'd go on walks with her dog and my, like, rent-a-dog that was my roommate's.

And then there was a romantic turn.

Yeah. And, and it moved super quickly. Like it went from us being friends. I was traveling a lot at the time, so I was working for a company that built LiDAR and we were selling to car companies around the world. So I, you know, that year I spent maybe 12 trips to Germany. And

what was your role?

Uh, I was just solving the most important problems that the CEO didn't want, didn't want to solve.

Kind of like a startup type.

Uh, special projects. Special projects. Um, so everything from kind of sales to big. automotive manufacturers to hiring executive team members to raising capital at times, just really anything that needed to get done. You know, a startup, it's— there's a lot of problems that need to be solved, and I was just really willing to say yes.

So you guys kind of— this becomes more serious, becomes emotional, and she's going through this court case, right? The indictment started? Yeah,

I think like 3 weeks after we started dating, she got indicted. I mean, it's like one hell of an experience to fall in love with somebody so quickly, and then immediately come to terms with, like— I didn't even know what an indictment was, okay? Like, I was really unfamiliar with the entirety of the process.

Was she going through a period of crisis in her life during this kind of courtship period?

She is, like, cool as a cucumber.

So while this was happening, all the articles are coming out, before the indictment, she was just— she didn't feel super fazed or freaked out about it?

No, I mean, there's certainly things to be freaked out about, but you have to put yourself in her mindset, which, you know, I don't want to speak for her, but I can share with you kind of the perspective that I saw, which is this is somebody that fundamentally believes in their innocence and was being told at the time prior to the indictment, like, you're never going to get indicted. You did nothing wrong. The company did nothing wrong. And I know that's hard for you guys to comprehend and believe, but yes, this is what was kind of going on behind the scenes. Yeah. So I think at each of these chapters in which, you know, like, shitty thing after shitty thing happened. We were kind of perpetually surprised.

It wasn't supposed to go this way.

Yeah, yeah. I think that's a good way of describing it.

And then she gets indicted.

Yeah.

How was that?

I mean, that's the first night I met her parents. Like, it's a tough way to meet your in-laws.

How was she? It was obviously— so it was mounting. There was a lot of articles and press about this, but—

Yeah, kind of infinite press. But she wouldn't read it. You know, we, like, I've seen, I don't know, maybe an episode and a half of The Dropout for a reason maybe some of you guys will understand in the future.

You didn't watch this?

No, but I, like, you know, I skim Bad Blood because, like, my lawyers told me to for other reasons. But otherwise, I really didn't consume any media on the subject.

And then she gets indicted, and how was this for your— for you guys and your relationship at this point? I mean, now—

It was 3 weeks into a relationship with somebody, but— we were so close already because we'd spent 6 months, like, really being friends. It was intense, man. I mean, I think part of it is if I knew what I know now, like, how painful the process was, I probably would've responded differently at the time. But I was in new territory. I mean, let's see, this was 2018. I don't know, I was like 26 years old, 27 years old.

Yeah. And then the trial began.

Well, it took a while for the trial to begin.

Right, because there was—

Right, so we had like a long period of time in which there was this impending thing, and there was an enormous amount of time spent with lawyers and her working like late into the night to go through hundreds of thousands of records. and try and piece together a story that she didn't fully understand that was being told about her. So it was a really intense time, but there's also some really beautiful moments in there too. Like, you know, one thing that nobody knows, but I guess you guys are the first to know, is Elizabeth and I spent 8 months traveling the country in an off-road RV. We had our dog Balto. He's a husky. And if you've never seen a husky, like, in the wild, it is a sight to be seen because that dog lived. And we just went to trailer parks and we went to national forests where you're allowed to stay and park your car for 14 days without moving it. And we would just hike all day and work at night, sit around the fire and just be together.

What about your job?

Well, at that time I had already left the business and I was starting something else. Okay. So I was kind of working for myself.

You guys were just, let's go be free, get away from all this?

I think a part of it was just the enormous attention by the media when we were in San Francisco. I've got an entire collection on my phone of— here's how the situation works. We'd go into a restaurant, and within 30 seconds, 6 people would pull out their phones. And some of them were sneaky, and others were pretending like they were taking a photo of their friend, but it was obvious. It was so uncomfortable. We couldn't go anywhere without immediately being recognized, immediately being judged. We'd go to a restaurant for a friend's, you know, dinner celebrating their anniversary or their engagement, and then we'd have articles written about how Elizabeth Holmes is gallivanting around San Francisco. And it's hard to know how to act when every action that you take, and every decision that you make, and every place that you go is being judged, through the eyes of 1,000 angry journalists.

There was this period of time when everyone talked about Elizabeth Holmes being manipulative.

Yeah.

In wearing the turtleneck and talking with a deep voice and having this kind of character that she played, where the idea was, if she's playing a character for everyone else around here, you know, clearly she's playing a character all the time, and that might be the origin of the fraud, of the— The manipulation.

I think there's a lot of things that have been said about that. And some of them, I think if you just look back, like, with as much clarity as you can muster, and try and disassociate, like, Elizabeth Holmes from the situation as much as possible, if you just say it, like, some of it's pretty crazy. You know, like, that she would manipulate people with her big blue eyes, and that her deep voice would immediately have people give her, you know, $100 million. I mean, it's incredibly sexist, one. But yeah, I mean, I've read a lot of this stuff. You wouldn't say that about a man. No, you'd never say that about a man. No, Liz would have a meeting with somebody like, I'll not insert name here, but think like one of the biggest family offices on earth. It would be a 45-minute meeting. They'd commit $100 million by the end of the meeting. And any guy that did that, people would say, wow, what an incredible ability to tell a story. What an incredible ability to have deep conviction in the thing that you believe in, that this person wants to support your mission and your vision.

When it's Liz, it's, wow, she fleeced that person 45 minutes.

Okay, but then there's these stories about things that were misrepresented. The machine does this, and then it doesn't do that. Again, I don't want to litigate the case, but was there any experience you had where Elizabeth Stretched the truth, where she was kind of pushing the boundaries, where the imagination in her mind maybe became the reality?

That's a good question. Where the imagination became the reality. Liz is somebody who, like, so deeply believes, and until you've met somebody like her, it's really hard to understand what that's like. But I think a lot of the things that are kind of most litigated in the press, at least, and most described, this is not like the machinations of a woman, of a single person. This was hundreds of employees working tirelessly for 16 years to solve a really difficult problem. So, you know, one of the things that I think has been largely described as a fraudulent behavior was missing revenue numbers, right? She missed her revenue numbers. She should have known that that was going to come. And if you look at, like, where that comes from, just, you know, brief bit of the case, they had contractual obligations with Walgreens to pay them that amount of money. And then when bad press came out, then they defaulted on those obligations, and then the business didn't fulfill those revenue obligations. So then they missed it by a large number, but it wasn't like a made-up number. This was a number that was obligated to be paid by the company that they had a contract with.

Number of Walgreens stores.

It's like 800 Walgreens stores.

And they were going to roll out over time. Walgreens had done this contract to do that. Yeah. And they did. And Walgreens stopped doing that after the CareU article came out.

That's right. Right.

Yeah. You guys then start going through this process of preparing for the trial. Is that when you got pregnant?

Uh, well, she did.

Sorry. Um, I mean, this is like, I don't know the right term. You get, you know, like, it's always like, hey, man, you guys got pregnant. I'm like, I didn't really do that.

I'm always about 5 words away from being canceled. So I'm going to watch myself.

You're pre-cancelled, actually.

Yeah, I think my X-Files says already canceled. The question was, what was it like preparing?

When did you get pregnant? When did Elizabeth get pregnant?

Well, our son was born on July 10th of 2020.

And when did the case, the trial start?

It was supposed to start well before, but this was COVID. It was a really weird experience because we were all masked going into the courtroom. There's all these discussions about whether or not—

But you guys settled down and had a kid.

Yeah.

Knowing that there was this trial coming up, was that ever a debate or discussion about, we've got potentially this case?

This was not like a planned and decided thing, just to be clear. Okay, you know, sometimes God gives you gifts that are unexpected.

Yeah.

And I mean, it's been the greatest experience that I'll ever know.

You guys have 2 children.

We have 2 children. So my son is now 5.

Yeah.

And my daughter's 3.

So how was it going through the trial with these little kids and Elizabeth?

It was so gnarly. Like, you know, anybody— so many people say, you know, the reason why she did this or they did this was to get sympathy. Tell you what, first of all, the jury had no idea that this was happening. Like, Elizabeth was militant about not letting people see her in, like, a place of weakness at this time. So we would wake up at 4:30 every morning with the baby, with Wills is his name, And we would— Liz would feed him, and we'd change him, and we'd get him ready, and then we'd put him back down, and then she would start getting ready. And Liz, like, isn't very good at doing her hair, and I, like, bought a Dyson Airwrap and would help her with that after watching YouTube videos. And we'd get all prepped and get into the car with our family, so typically her mom and myself, and sometimes my mom, and just our closest friends, to go to what felt like war. It was really hard. And she would pump milk all the way down with these, like, mobile pumps, because her son was 3 months old when the trial started, and he needed milk throughout the course of the day.

And she bought, you know, a special diaper bag so it wouldn't look like a diaper bag, so people wouldn't be able to say anything about it. And then we would, during breaks during court, she would go to the bathroom and pump more milk, and then I would collect it at lunch, and I'd send it up. in an Uber up to the house, and then my mom or Liz's mom, who was at the house, would then feed it to our son. But it was crushing to spend the first, you know, 2 months away from this thing that you love more than everything in the world without the ability to hold them all the time. It was really tough timing.

You guys think you were going to win the case?

100%. Yeah, 100%.

There was only a few counts that she was convicted on. She was found not guilty. This is what a lot of people don't really get.

Yeah, so the basic math on it is that there was 13 counts. Liz ran about 12.5 million tests on patients at Theranos over an 18-month period. The government spent years investigating.

12.5 million blood tests on patients?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not like a small number. It's a pretty big number in a short period of time. And the next year, they were going to do like 100 times more. I mean, they were going to be the 3rd largest lab company in the country.

After Quest and LabCorp.

Yeah. And the year after that, they would've been bigger than either of them. And sorry, I lost my train of thought. Can somebody remind me where I was?

Well, so we were going through—

Oh, the counts. Yeah. So there's 13 counts. Of the 12.5 million tests that she ran, the government brought forward 4 patients that they accused her of defrauding with inaccurate results.

Patient fraud.

Yeah, patient fraud. So, like, you gave this person a bad result, you knowingly gave them a bad result, and you were responsible for having done so. She was acquitted of those counts, so there was no evidence that was brought forward that was convincing to a jury that there was any fraud associated with patients. I think one thing that's really strange to me as an inside observer, but also at times an outside observer, is diagnostics is like an inherently inaccurate space. 90% accuracy for some tests is good, and for other really inaccurate tests, 70% is really good. So if you're running 12.5 million tests, 4 patients isn't exactly statistically significant to show that there's problems there. But yeah, she was acquitted of—

But she was convicted of financial fraud.

She was, yeah. So she was convicted of defrauding 3 investors, um, and then colluding with her partner at the time to do so. So conspiracy.

And the conspiracy conviction is what gave the judge the authority to give her a bigger sentence.

Yeah, that was insane.

Coupled with the fact that they brought in Rupert Murdoch as a victim after the case.

That's right, yes.

Which allowed them to also add additional time to the sentencing guidelines.

Yes. So context, Elizabeth was sentenced to 135 months in prison. That's 11 and a quarter years. And she was— the way in which sentencing works is there's all these aggravating factors. So they calculate this through a point system, and the points are dependent upon a variety of things. So was there, you know, any aggravation in what you did? Was— what was the amount of financial loss? And Elizabeth was convicted of these 3 counts of defrauding those 3 investors, which again, like, I and she deeply believe in her innocence associated with those. I implore you to look at— Do

you want to tell me why?

What I will say, which my lawyers would probably kill me, but what I will say is—

They're not here.

They're watching on YouTube. In the next 2 weeks, I ask you to read something that we are going to put out. And I'm not telling you what to think, but I'm asking you to spend the time to look at it. and to think honestly about what it means. And I think it's going to be pretty shocking, because we have spent years trying to understand what the hell has gone on here. And it will be pretty illuminating.

Look, I mean, to understand what the hell has gone on here, one can get a story that's, to a lot of people, very clear-cut, the book Bad Blood, and the articles, and the awards that were given for the investigations and the reporting on the— that came out of these articles. There's a lot of anecdotes and stories and so on that have painted a very clear picture for the majority, for everyone, I would say, on this person is guilty of fraud. This person should be convicted of fraud. Tell me about the side of the story that she wanted to tell and the context why she didn't tell it. Why is that her story to tell?

I can tell you why she didn't tell it.

Why didn't she tell it? Because if there's such a different story and you guys were so convinced, yourselves, you and Xi, and it was 100%, we're not going to be indicted, we're 100% going to win the case. Why was that never released? And, you know, you've mentioned this gag order, but maybe just help us understand that.

Yeah, so I want to be really specific because I know, like, a million people are going to, you know, pick this apart and clip it and do whatever they'd like with this interview. But technically, it was not a gag order. Technically, what the judge said to the trial team, you know, in pretrial hearings, like, in the very beginning, is that this is a case that's going to play out in the courtroom and not in the press. And I think that was the single biggest mistake that Elizabeth has ever made, to be, like, really clear. I mean, maybe Sonny's number one, but it's fucking up there. Because her power was in her voice. Her power was in her telling that story. And she did not because she followed the rules of not going against what the judge had asked her to do. And that case just ended you know, a handful of months ago. It's been a long time in which she was silent.

So she felt like she didn't want to risk going through the court process and winning there by speaking out of court and getting in trouble.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and she's a really idealistic person. You know, she grew up in a house with a mom and a dad who both worked for the government. Her mom worked with Charlie Wilson, and her dad worked with the EPA and USAID doing water projects around the world. And the conversations around the dinner table that we still have, because her parents are helping me with my kids, and they're in my house, like, all the time. I've spent more time with Elizabeth's parents over the course of the last few years. They lived with us throughout the entirety of trial. Like, they're amazing people. But they're also very idealistic. So the conversations around the dinner table were always around service. It was, what pain and suffering did you alleviate in the world today? So that was always the thing that she was so focused on, because that was her upbringing. I think if you look at somebody's parents and their lived experience at a young age, it tells you a lot about who they are.

I have to ask, because— and I tried earlier, but I'm going to get in trouble if if I don't ask, not in trouble, but people will harp on it. Why did she wear the black turtlenecks and speak in a deep voice?

Why did she wear the black turtlenecks?

And speak in a deep voice. I've met her. She doesn't— I mean,

she's got a deep voice, but why did she wear the black turtlenecks?

Tell me about the experience you heard from her about being a young CEO. Is that where this is coming from, where she was always telling her story and she felt like she had to play a role in storytelling? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but I'm just trying to understand the context.

Yeah, I mean, it's a really heavy subject, and I'll touch on it briefly, but again, this is like her story to tell. Um, I think this is probably her calling. Sorry. Oh, it is. But I'm like, you know,

put her on speaker.

I think the BOP would have something to say about that. Do you guys mind if I just say hi for one second? I can't call her back because she's in federal prison.

Are you allowed to put her on speaker?

No, like, really, she'll get sent to the SHU. That's the solitary housing unit. It's not a nice place to be.

To accept this call—

This is what I hear every time she calls me.

To block this call and all future—

I swear to God, this was not planned. No. Hey, baby. Can you leave a voice and then hang up?

I'm on stage right now in front of a bunch of people.

Can I say hi?

Yeah. Dave, can Dave say hi? You're not on speakerphone or anything. Don't worry. Yeah. But I love you with my whole heart. Here's Dave. Sorry, guys.

I don't want to get you in trouble.

So the context is we've got 500 people.

Okay. There's thousands of people here. We're just talking to Billy. Okay. We'll talk soon. Bye. That's actually her.

I love you.

That was crazy.

I miss you. We'll talk soon, okay, baby? Okay, bye.

What's it been like since she's gone in? For the kids, for you, what's it like?

I mean, first of all, I am not unique in going through the process of having your partner in prison. At Liz's facility, it's called the Bryan Federal Prison Camp. It's a camp which everybody says is, like, super easy. Let me tell you, it is not. It's in College Station, which is where Texas A&M is, and there's 800 women there. And Elizabeth has been there for 1,205 days, and every single day has been incredibly painful. But I recognize that I'm not unique in that. You know, there's 130 million Americans who have a family member that will be incarcerated. And you look at their incarceration rates, they're insane. But it's really hard to do this alone. And I have, like, a newfound, really deep respect for the moms out there that do this by themselves and who are working and raising a family. And it's just, it's impossible to have your best friend in the world and the person— look, I knew I wanted to marry Liz or, like, have her be my soulmate when I really genuinely knew that I wanted my kids to be more like her than they were like me. And it's hard knowing that they're spending a lot more time with me than they are her.

What do you tell them? Why is she there, and why do we go to prison every Saturday?

Yeah. Yeah, well, it's kind of a mix because one's 5 and the other one's 3, and the 2 of them have different comprehension of the situation. So my son knows where she is, but to start, it was just, this is Mommy's work. He was 22 months old when she went to prison. Like, how do you describe that to a 2-year-old? And our rule is really simple. When they ask questions, we tell them the truth, regardless of how complicated or uncomfortable that conversation is, we want them to understand what's really happening, but it's hard. It's really hard. And it's hard because I'm building a business, and I'm trying to free my wife from federal prison, and I'm raising 2 kids.

What was that moment like when she went in and said goodbye to the kids, for you guys, for the kids?

So my kids weren't there. We thought it would be too emotional for them. flew out. We had a friend very kindly pay for a plane to fly us out to Austin, and then we stayed the night out there. We did some filming with Nathan and Lance. And then we were told all these things about prison that just turned out to be, like, totally fucking wrong. Like, we were told that she was allowed to bring, like, New Balances. It's, like, not allowed. And you pay these prison consultants who supposedly are supposed to know the system, and you're just, like, woefully unprepared. But what was it like? It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. We drove her to the prison. I got out of the car. There's 3 parking spots right in front of the facility where she got out wearing these new ridiculous New Balances and this, like, little sweater that was a gift from a friend. And I just hugged her and I said, I love you more than everything. And she looked at me and she said, now we are free.

Tell me about the documentary. How did it come about?

Yeah, pretty crazy, huh? Have you guys seen this thing?

Everyone's seen the trailer.

Okay. Yeah. Why did we do it?

Yeah, how'd it come about?

Yeah. How'd

you do it, and what is it?

Well, I'm going to— you will see. You will see what it is. For context, I also have not yet seen it, so I can't pretend to know more than I do.

Well, what was the context going into this?

Yeah, the context is that Elizabeth is facing an 11-year sentence. She's been prevented from speaking publicly, and it in any way, shape, or form. And this would come out after that period in which she's now allowed to talk. So there's been a lot of media produced on her. There's been a lot of people who have told her story. And that narrative is pretty ossified. So the whole idea was, here she is, see her, and make up your own mind.

As a person.

Yeah, it's not to relitigate the case.

You don't talk about the case in the document.

Well, practically, at this time, she wasn't allowed to talk about the case. So she, again, was going to follow the rules and not talk about the case.

It was just the personal life. It's a reality context of your lives.

Yeah, one of the most stressful times imaginable. You know, we— Liz had given birth in February to our daughter Ivy. Shortly thereafter, she had gone through IVF, and then she was going to report to prison, like, 2 months later.

So you guys chose to do this to give an opportunity to tell the story of who she is differently?

You know, it was to have people see who she is, because I've gone through this really consistent experience with the people who love me most, everybody from my grandmother, who's like my idol, to my best friends who are backstage right now, where they'd hear that I knew this person to start, or that I was falling for this person, or now we're going to have a kid. And in the beginning, every single one of these people are like, Billy, you are crazy. What are you doing? Do you know who she is? And I would tell them, I understand why you feel that way, but just meet her. And those people would meet her, and they'd spend time with her, and they'd see her in a totally natural environment of going on a hike or helping a friend. And every single one of those people's opinions of her would radically shift. And it wasn't because she convinced them of, like, something related to Theranos or some, like, specific detail. I think if you guys have the opportunity to meet her, to see this film, or to spend time with her, That was the intention of the film, is to help scale that up and allow other people to sit with her and to make up their own minds.

How do you think it went? Do you sit down with— Well,

I haven't seen it yet. I mean, I might think this is, like, the dumbest thing I've ever done.

This guy's a pretty unique guy to choose to do this show with.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's been 3 years, so why has it taken so long?

It was supposed to wrap, like, so it was supposed to come out within a year of the time in which they first started shooting.

Right. So it's been— 3 years.

Yeah, it's a long time, man.

Have you heard any updates about why it's taking so long? And like, are you worried about it?

Well, it's out now.

Are you worried about it?

About what part?

The whole show. Like, are you worried that they've edited it in a way that doesn't showcase who she is, but maybe— Look, we signed— You look at the trailer.

Yeah, she looks insane.

She looks insane. And it's like, it's just reinforcing the narrative. This is a manipulative narcissist, whatever the narrative is. And it feels like, whoa, this is going to be crazy. She's like bad. Yeah, it's pretty intense.

Well, especially the music. It's like—

Yeah, I think the music makes it, by the way.

Yeah, well, yeah, there we go. Um, am I nervous? You know, I've been through so many intense, like, kind of surreal experiences that it takes quite a bit to, to raise my blood pressure. And, and this one is— there's certainly concern, but, you know, ultimately it's our decision.

What's the status with Elizabeth in prison? How much longer does she have? How much longer till you guys can be together, and so on?

Yeah. It's a really confusing process understanding what they call the calculator. So, like, prison numbers 101. So you've got your sentence, which is how long you're supposed to be in under the watchful eyes of the Bureau of Prisons, like, altogether. And then you have the amount of time that you actually spend in the facility itself, so, like, in the 4 walls of that prison. And then you've got some time that you can spend at a halfway house, and then you have some time that you can spend at home confinement. President Trump, in his first administration, passed something called the First Step Act, which has really been, like, one of the most incredible pieces of legislation that helps bring my wife home sooner. So she can earn 16 days off of her sentence for every 30 days that she's there if she's doing programming. So this is doing things that are proven to reduce recidivism, which is your likelihood of going back to prison. So the short answer is that as of now, the expectation is that she could be at a halfway house in second quarter of next year.

You know, one of the most remarkable things for me was when I went to visit in prison. Yeah. That when you send money for commissary to her—

Yeah, 70% takes it.

There's a deduction because she— 70% gets taken away because how much does she owe to the victims of the financial fraud?

Yeah, $435 million.

So when you—

And of that, which is important to note, less than— I think it's less than $100 million. I mean, she would like know the exact math, but that number is made up of 10 investors. And from my perspective, what it looks like is the people who did the sentencing basically said, who are the 10 biggest investors? And let's all add them on because then that increases the sentence length. So originally, her sentence without these additional investors that she was never convicted did of, that she was never proven guilty of having done anything to them, but they were arbitrarily added on.

Because they had the conspiracy charge, they were able to bring them in.

That's my understanding of it, yeah. So that raised her sentence from something like 4.5 or 5 years to 11.

Right.

And because there's 2 things that it did, so one of which is it increased the loss amount, and then the second thing is it was now fraud of 10 or more victims. But, you know, one really interesting thing to note is that Recently, we got a 1-year sentence reduction for Elizabeth because they changed the sentencing guidelines. And at that time, even the government argued that there was no evidence that any of the investors who lost money faced any financial hardship from this. Right, yeah. You know, these are people like the DeVos family and the Waltons and—

Yeah, yeah.

The Niarchos, or, you know, these are like billionaires.

Yeah, and so she can't, like, buy food and stuff at the commissary. It seems like it's a, or I mean, it's difficult to.

She can buy it.

We spent the whole afternoon together buying trail mix at the vending machine.

Yeah, she's like a squirrel. She eats like instant nuts.

Yeah, I spent all the money I had on vending machine trail mix. I mean, it was just really so remarkable. I've never been to prison before, but when you see prisoners, it's easy to dismiss criminals, but you go through this, you always have to feel something for people that are being punished for their crimes.

Well, the saddest thing to me is there's 800 women in the facility, and on a given weekend, maybe 30 of them will get a visitor. It's just crushing. You see these little kids just crying, saying goodbye to their mom, and screaming at the door.

I want to talk about, just real quick as we wrap, people in the press have been reporting that you're running Theranos 2.0. What is the business you're building today, and why is it not Theranos 2.0? Is it an Elizabeth thing that you're doing this for or with, or how did this come to be for

you? My background's in the photonic space. I helped build a company called Luminar. We built LiDAR for autonomous vehicles. using lasers. So I've got background in photonics. I did that for a handful of years. And I found Elizabeth's mission incredibly compelling, as I hope you all do. The idea that diagnostics are broken today, they're way too expensive, and we want to make it more accessible and cheaper. And in the wake of Theranos failing, very few people have tried to do something incredibly ambitious in that space. So my company is called Hemantis. We are building a new layer of sensors to better understand biology. So we use a technique called Raman spectroscopy, in which we shine light through biological samples. It creates a scattering effect where the light changes color, and then you can interpret what chemical structures are within that sample. And this is a really well-known technique. People do it in research labs around the country. The problem is these devices are millions of dollars, many feet long, super complicated to use. So I'm taking a lot of the learnings from my work in the photonic space to make these cheaper and widely distributed so we can give artificial intelligence really rich and deep datasets for biology.

Today, most things are built for human doctors to understand, and we're trying to create really deep datasets that artificial intelligence can use to create correlations between all these disparate signals.

So photon-based chemical detection that can be used broadly in a bunch of different techniques.

Yeah.

And so the Theranos 2.0 story may be a bit of a press force.

Yeah, I mean, look, what sells more? Like, Billy builds technology.

Raman spectroscopy devices?

Yeah, it doesn't exactly drive clicks. So it's a lot easier to make it seem like Elizabeth Holmes is El Chapo running, you know, a diagnostics cartel from prison than it is to say Billy's building a nerdy company.

Well, look, I appreciate you being with us today, Billy. I know we've talked a lot over the last year and a half. Uh, to start to share your story. I think there's a lot more of your story and Elizabeth's story still to come. Is there anything else you want to say before we wrap up?

Gosh, you know, there's so many things that I want to say, but I just want to say thank you guys for listening. I really appreciate it.

Thanks for being here. Thank you, bro. Appreciate it.