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

(0:00) Billy Evans joins Friedberg (3:38) How they met, Elizabeth the person vs the headlines, indictment (11:02) Life on trial, having a child, where she went wrong in fundraising (19:28) Understanding the verdict, sentencing, and the mistake of staying silent (26:09) Elizabeth calls from prison, her life in jail (31:34) Why they did the documentary with Nathan Fielder (35:47) The road home, restitution math, why his new company is not Theranos 2.0 Thanks to our partners for making this possible! IREN is a vertically integrated AI Cloud platform, delivering data centers, compute and software for AI training and inference. https://iren.com/ Oracle connects the data, applications, and infrastructure that turn AI into business outcomes—with the flexibility, choice, and control to optimize as AI evolves. http://oracle.com/ai EY helps tech innovators scale from startup to exit to megacap. You build the future. We'll handle the rest. http://www.ey.com Meta believes the future is for everyone. We're focused on giving every person the tools to reach their full potential and making sure the benefits of technology are distributed to all. http://www.meta.com Keel Infrastructure owns the power, land, and connectivity that HPC and AI run on - backed by secured energy assets and established grid interconnections across North America. https://keelinfra.com/ Airwallex - Agentic Global Business Accounts. Open local accounts in 70+ countries to accept payments, earn yield, pay globally, and manage spend. http://airwallex.com PayPal has been revolutionizing commerce globally for more than 25 years. Creating innovative experiences that make moving money, selling, and shopping simple, personalized, and secure, PayPal empowers consumers and businesses in approximately 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. For more information, visit https://www.paypal.com Google for Startups connects founders with the right people, products, and best practices to help startups build faster and go further. https://startup.google.com/ Explore ideas, industries, and technologies worth understanding with Chamath every week on Learn with Me: https://research.socialcapital.com/allin Follow the besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@allin Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Billy Evans, who is Elizabeth Holmes's partner.

• 0:02Speaker 01

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

• 0:16Speaker 02

  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.

• 0:27Speaker 00

  Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced today to 11 and 1/4 years in prison for counts of criminal fraud.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  The disgraced tycoon and her fiance, Billy Evans.

• 0:41Speaker 03

  Please welcome Billy Evans.

• 0:53David Friedberg?

  Welcome. What's up?

• 0:56Speaker 05

  Hi, everyone.

• 0:57David Friedberg?

  Grab a seat.

• 1:00David Friedberg?

  Have you ever done a live interview like this?

• 1:02Speaker 05

  Dude, I've never done an interview.

• 1:04David Friedberg?

  You've never done an interview.

• 1:05Speaker 05

  Thank you, guys, all for being the guinea pigs here. I appreciate it and apologies.

• 1:09David Friedberg?

  You're Elizabeth Holmes's husband?

• 1:11Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:19David Friedberg?

  You and I met at a party.

• 1:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24David Friedberg?

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

• 1:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, around F1, I think, in Austin.

• 1:29David Friedberg?

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

• 1:37Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:53David Friedberg?

  I'd had a couple of drinks. I'm like, sure.

• 1:56Speaker 05

  He was great. He was like really great.

• 1:58David Friedberg?

  I'll hear your side of the story.

• 1:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:01David Friedberg?

  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.

• 2:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:09David Friedberg?

  I spent the day with her and you.

• 2:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:13David Friedberg?

  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.

• 2:30Speaker 05

  But it was a pretty well-kept secret.

• 2:32David Friedberg?

  Yeah, but I know people.

• 2:34Speaker 05

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

• 2:36David Friedberg?

  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.

• 2:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:50David Friedberg?

  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.

• 3:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, so one thing for people to know about her, which might shock you, is that Elizabeth follows rules 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.

• 3:19David Friedberg?

  But she never spoke to the media?

• 3:21Speaker 05

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

• 3:24David Friedberg?

  There were a lot of articles being written.

• 3:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, movies being made and podcasts.

• 3:27David Friedberg?

  Okay.

• 3:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:30David Friedberg?

  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?

• 3:41Speaker 05

  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 five minutes. I had 100 people coming over to a house I lived in with four 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, two and a half, three hours, her and I just spoke.

• 4:25Speaker 05

  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're saying. She made you feel so seen. She was infinitely curious about the smallest things that nobody else really cared about or 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. And some way through the middle of the conversation,

• 5:09Speaker 05

  it turned to where we worked, like physically. And I told her that I worked on Page Mill Road. She said, no way, where? And I said, 1891. And she said, you know, I'm 1790 or something. She was two doors down. And then that's when I really put it together.

• 5:22David Friedberg?

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

• 5:27Speaker 05

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

• 5:34David Friedberg?

  So this was after the DOJ, the case.

• 5:37Speaker 05

  It was before she was indicted.

• 5:38David Friedberg?

  Before she was indicted.

• 5:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:40David Friedberg?

  It was, the carry you article machine had started.

• 5:42Speaker 05

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

• 5:45David Friedberg?

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

• 5:48Speaker 05

  Like horrible reputation.

• 5:49David Friedberg?

  Fraudster, all this sort of stuff.

• 5:50Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 5:51David Friedberg?

  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?

• 5:59Speaker 05

  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.

• 6:04David Friedberg?

  Right.

• 6:05Speaker 05

  I'm just seeing the person in front of me.

• 6:06David Friedberg?

  So then when you found out who she really was.

• 6:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:09David Friedberg?

  You're not just shut down and say, what am I doing, talking to this person?

• 6:12Speaker 05

  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 two things were so radically different from one another. Yeah, it was really challenging.

• 6:30David Friedberg?

  And then.

• 6:31Speaker 05

  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 cells. Like, huh, maybe this just isn't business. And that's, that's how we originally connected.

• 6:59David Friedberg?

  And then did you guys start hanging out?

• 7:00Speaker 05

  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 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.

• 7:19David Friedberg?

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

• 7:23Speaker 05

  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.

• 7:33Speaker 05

  I was really curious and, and I was interested in her. And she made me feel good because she listened so intently. But basically, we were friends for six months. We'd go on walks with her dog and my like rent-a-dog that was my roommate's.

• 7:48David Friedberg?

  And then there was a romantic turn.

• 7:50Speaker 05

  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, that year I spent maybe 12 trips to Germany and.

• 8:05David Friedberg?

  What was your role?

• 8:07Speaker 05

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

• 8:12David Friedberg?

  Kind of like a startup type.

• 8:13Speaker 05

  Special projects.

• 8:14David Friedberg?

  Special project.

• 8:15Speaker 05

  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, startup, it's, there's a lot of problems that need to be solved and I was just really willing to say yes.

• 8:29David Friedberg?

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

• 8:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think like three 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, I was really unfamiliar with the entirety of this process.

• 8:52David Friedberg?

  But isn't she going through a period of crisis in her life during this kind of courtship period?

• 8:56Speaker 05

  She is like cool as a cucumber.

• 8:58David Friedberg?

  So while this was happening, all the articles are coming out.

• 9:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:01David Friedberg?

  Before the indictment, she was just, she didn't feel super phased or freaked out about it?

• 9:06Speaker 05

  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.

• 9:21Speaker 05

  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 like comprehend and believe. But yes, this is what was kind of going on behind the scenes.

• 9:34David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 9:36Speaker 05

  So I think at each of these chapters in which, you know, like [BLEEP] thing after [BLEEP] thing happened,

• 9:43Speaker 05

  we were kind of perpetually surprised.

• 9:46David Friedberg?

  It wasn't supposed to go this way.

• 9:48Speaker 05

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

• 9:51David Friedberg?

  And then she gets indicted.

• 9:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:53David Friedberg?

  How was that?

• 9:54Speaker 05

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

• 10:02David Friedberg?

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

• 10:08Speaker 05

  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.

• 10:18David Friedberg?

  You didn't watch this?

• 10:20Speaker 05

  No, but I like, you know, I skim bad blood because like my lawyers told me to for other reasons.

• 10:28Speaker 05

  But otherwise, I really didn't consume any media on the subject.

• 10:33David Friedberg?

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

• 10:37Speaker 05

  It was three weeks into a relationship with somebody. But we were so close already because we'd spent six months like really being friends.

• 10:47Speaker 05

  It was intense, man. I mean, I think part of it is, if I knew what I know now, like how, how painful the process was, I probably would have responded differently at the time. But I was in new territory. I, I mean, let's see, this was 2018.

• 11:11Speaker 05

  I was like 26 years old, 27 years old.

• 11:13David Friedberg?

  Yeah, and then the trial began.

• 11:16Speaker 05

  Well, it took a while for the trial.

• 11:17David Friedberg?

  Right, because there was.

• 11:18Speaker 05

  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 eight 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.

• 12:00Speaker 05

  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.

• 12:13David Friedberg?

  What about your job?

• 12:14Speaker 05

  Well, at that time, I had already left the business and I was starting something else.

• 12:19David Friedberg?

  Okay.

• 12:19Speaker 05

  So I was kind of working for myself.

• 12:21David Friedberg?

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

• 12:26Speaker 05

  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, six 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.

• 12:50Speaker 05

  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 a thousand angry journalists.

• 13:20David Friedberg?

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

• 13:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:26David Friedberg?

  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 manipulation.

• 13:44Speaker 05

  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.

• 14:10Speaker 05

  I mean, it's incredibly sexist, one. But yeah, I've read a lot of this stuff. No, you'd never say that about a man. You know, 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. And when it's Liz, it's wow, she fleeced that person 45 minutes.

• 14:48David Friedberg?

  Okay. But then there's these stories about things that were misrepresented. The machine does this and then it doesn't do that. And 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?

• 15:11Speaker 05

  That's a good question.

• 15:14Speaker 05

  Where the imagination became the reality?

• 15:21Speaker 05

  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.

• 15:29Speaker 05

  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, a brief bit of the case, they had contractual obligations with Walgreens to pay them that amount of money.

• 16:10Speaker 05

  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.

• 16:25David Friedberg?

  Number of Walgreens stores.

• 16:26Speaker 05

  It's like 800 Walgreens stores, a million dollar store.

• 16:29David Friedberg?

  And Walgreens had done this contract to do that.

• 16:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:31David Friedberg?

  And Walgreens stopped doing that after the Carry You article came out.

• 16:34Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 16:35David Friedberg?

  Right.

• 16:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 16:36David Friedberg?

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

• 16:42Speaker 05

  Well, she did.

• 16:43David Friedberg?

  Sorry. I mean, this is like, I don't know the right term. You know, like it's always like.

• 16:47Speaker 05

  Hey, man.

• 16:47David Friedberg?

  You guys got pregnant. I'm like, I didn't really do.

• 16:49Speaker 05

  I'm always about five words away from being canceled.

• 16:51David Friedberg?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:52Speaker 05

  I'm gonna watch myself.

• 16:53David Friedberg?

  You're pre canceled, actually.

• 16:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think my X file says already canceled.

• 16:59Speaker 05

  The question was, what was it like preparing?

• 17:01David Friedberg?

  When did Elizabeth get pregnant?

• 17:03Speaker 05

  Well, our son, our son was born on July 10th of 2012.

• 17:05David Friedberg?

  And when did the case, the trial start?

• 17:08Speaker 05

  It was supposed to start well before, but this was COVID.

• 17:12David Friedberg?

  Right.

• 17:12Speaker 05

  It was a really weird, weird experience because we were all masked going to the courtroom. There's all these discussions about whether or not.

• 17:17David Friedberg?

  But you guys settled down and had a kid.

• 17:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:19David Friedberg?

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

• 17:27Speaker 05

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

• 17:33David Friedberg?

  Yeah.

• 17:34Speaker 05

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

• 17:39David Friedberg?

  You guys have two children.

• 17:39Speaker 05

  We have two children. So my son is now five.

• 17:42David Friedberg?

  Yep.

• 17:43Speaker 05

  And my daughter is three.

• 17:45David Friedberg?

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

• 17:48Speaker 05

  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 a baby, with Will's is his name. And we would, Liz would feed him and we'd change him and we'd get him ready and 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 air wrap and would help her with that after watching YouTube videos. And we'd get all prepped and get into the car with our family.

• 18:30Speaker 05

  So typically her mom and myself and sometimes my mom and just our closest friends to go to what felt like war.

• 18:39Speaker 05

  It was really hard and she would pump milk all the way down with these like mobile pumps because her son was three 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 her son. But it was crushing to spend the first, you know, two 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, it was really tough timing.

• 19:24David Friedberg?

  You guys think you were gonna win the case?

• 19:25Speaker 05

  100%. Yeah. 100%.

• 19:29David Friedberg?

  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.

• 19:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, so the basic math on it is that there was 13 counts.

• 19:40Speaker 05

  Liz ran about 12 and a half million tests on patients at Theranos over an 18 month period. The government spent years investigating.

• 19:48David Friedberg?

  12 and a half million blood tests on patients.

• 19:50Speaker 05

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

• 20:02David Friedberg?

  After Quest and LabCorp.

• 20:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. And the year after that, they would have been bigger than either of them.

• 20:09Speaker 05

  And, sorry, I lost my train of thought. Can somebody remind me where I went?

• 20:12David Friedberg?

  Well, so we were, we were going through.

• 20:15Speaker 05

  Oh, the counts, yeah. So there's 13 counts of the 12 and a half million tests that she ran, the government brought forward for patients that they accused her of defrauding with inaccurate results.

• 20:25David Friedberg?

  Patient fraud.

• 20:26Speaker 05

  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.

• 20:37Speaker 05

  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 inherently an accurate space. 90% accuracy for some tests is good, and for other really inaccurate tests, 70% is really good. So if you're running 12 and a half million tests for patients isn't exactly statistically significant to show that there was problems there. But yeah, she was acquitted of those counts.

• 21:17David Friedberg?

  She was convicted of financial fraud.

• 21:18Speaker 05

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

• 21:30David Friedberg?

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

• 21:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, that was insane.

• 21:36David Friedberg?

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

• 21:41Speaker 05

  That's right, yes.

• 21:42David Friedberg?

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

• 21:46Speaker 05

  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 three counts of defrauding those three investors, which again, like I and she deeply believe in her innocence associated with those. And I implore you to look at...

• 22:23David Friedberg?

  Do you want to tell me why?

• 22:25Speaker 05

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

• 22:30David Friedberg?

  They're not here.

• 22:32Speaker 05

  They're watching on YouTube. In the next two 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.

• 22:57David Friedberg?

  But 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 that came out of these articles. And 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 of why she didn't tell it.

• 23:34Speaker 05

  Well, I think that's her story to tell. I can tell you why she didn't tell it.

• 23:36David Friedberg?

  But why didn't she tell it? Like, because if there's such a different story and you guys were so convinced yourselves, you and she, 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.

• 23:50Speaker 05

  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 pre-trial 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 just the single biggest mistake that Elizabeth has ever made, to be like really clear. I mean, maybe Sonny's number one, but it's [bleep] 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.

• 24:34Speaker 05

  And that case just ended, you know, a handful of months ago. It's been a long time in which she was silent.

• 24:41David Friedberg?

  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.

• 24:51Speaker 05

  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.

• 25:34Speaker 05

  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.

• 25:49David Friedberg?

  I have to ask because, and I tried earlier, but I'm going to get in trouble 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?

• 26:00Speaker 05

  Why did she wear the black turtleneck?

• 26:01David Friedberg?

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

• 26:05Speaker 05

  I mean, she's got a deep voice, but why did she wear the black turtleneck?

• 26:09David Friedberg?

  I mean, tell me about the experience you heard from her about being a young CEO and like, you know, 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.

• 26:24Speaker 05

  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. I think this is probably her calling, sorry. Oh, it is. But I'm like, you know...

• 26:36David Friedberg?

  Put on speaker?

• 26:36Speaker 05

  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.

• 26:44David Friedberg?

  Are you allowed to put on speaker?

• 26:45Speaker 05

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

• 26:59Speaker 05

  This is what I hear every time she calls me.

• 27:03David Friedberg?

  I swear to God, this was not planned.

• 27:05Speaker 05

  No.

• 27:08David Friedberg?

  Can you hear her voice and then hang up?

• 27:11Speaker 05

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

• 27:16David Friedberg?

  Can I say hi?

• 27:17Speaker 05

  Yeah. 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, thank you.

• 27:27David Friedberg?

  I don't want to get you in trouble.

• 27:30Speaker 05

  So the context is we've got 500...

• 27:32David Friedberg?

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

• 27:42Speaker 05

  I love you.

• 27:43David Friedberg?

  That was crazy.

• 27:44Speaker 05

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

• 27:48David Friedberg?

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

• 27:59Speaker 05

  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.

• 28:42Speaker 05

  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 want 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.

• 29:24David Friedberg?

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

• 29:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, it's kind of a mix because one's five and the other one's three, and the two 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 two-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 two kids.

• 30:12David Friedberg?

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

• 30:17Speaker 05

  So my kids weren't there. We thought it would be too emotional for them, so I 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 [bleep] 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?

• 30:56Speaker 05

  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 three 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."

• 31:35David Friedberg?

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

• 31:39Speaker 05

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

• 31:44David Friedberg?

  Everyone's seen the trailer.

• 31:45Speaker 05

  Okay, yeah.

• 31:49Speaker 05

  Why did we do it?

• 31:50David Friedberg?

  Yeah, how did it come about?

• 31:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:52David Friedberg?

  And what is it?

• 31:54Speaker 05

  Well, I'm gonna... 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.

• 32:04David Friedberg?

  What was the context going into this?

• 32:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, the context is that Elizabeth is facing an 11-year sentence. She's been prevented from speaking publicly 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.

• 32:37David Friedberg?

  As a person?

• 32:38Speaker 05

  Yeah. It's not to relitigate the case.

• 32:41David Friedberg?

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

• 32:43Speaker 05

  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.

• 32:48David Friedberg?

  So it's just a personal life. It's a reality context of your lives.

• 32:53Speaker 05

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

• 33:12David Friedberg?

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

• 33:18Speaker 05

  You know,

• 33:22Speaker 05

  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 gonna 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'd 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

• 34:05Speaker 05

  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.

• 34:34David Friedberg?

  How do you think it went? So you sit down with...

• 34:36Speaker 05

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

• 34:39David Friedberg?

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

• 34:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 34:43David Friedberg?

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

• 34:46Speaker 05

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

• 34:51David Friedberg?

  Right, so it's been three years.

• 34:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a long time, man.

• 34:54David Friedberg?

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

• 34:57Speaker 05

  Well, it's out now.

• 34:58David Friedberg?

  Are you worried about it?

• 34:59Speaker 05

  About what part?

• 35:00David Friedberg?

  The whole show. Like, are you worried that they've edited it in a way that doesn't showcase who she is, but maybe...

• 35:05Speaker 05

  Look, we signed...

• 35:06David Friedberg?

  You look at the trailer...

• 35:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, she looks insane.

• 35:09David Friedberg?

  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 gonna be crazy. She's like bad.

• 35:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's pretty intense. Well, especially the music. It's like...

• 35:24David Friedberg?

  I think the music makes it, by the way.

• 35:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, there we go. Am I nervous?

• 35:32Speaker 05

  You know, I've been through so many intense, like, kind of surreal experiences that it takes quite a bit to raise my blood pressure. And this one, there's certainly concern, but, you know, ultimately, it's our decision.

• 35:47David Friedberg?

  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?

• 35:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:59Speaker 05

  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, altogether. And then you have the amount of time that you actually spend in the facility itself, so like in the four 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,

• 36:44Speaker 05

  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.

• 36:56David Friedberg?

  You know, one of the most remarkable things for me was when I went to visit in prison.

• 37:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:03David Friedberg?

  That when you send money for commissary to her...

• 37:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, 70% of it gets taken.

• 37:07David Friedberg?

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

• 37:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, $435 million.

• 37:16David Friedberg?

  So when you...

• 37:16Speaker 05

  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... 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 of, that she was never proven guilty of having done anything to them, but they're arbitrarily added on.

• 37:49David Friedberg?

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

• 37:52Speaker 05

  That's my understanding of it, yeah. So that raised her sentence from something like four and a half or five years to 11.

• 37:57David Friedberg?

  Right.

• 37:58Speaker 05

  And because there's two 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 know is that recently, we got a one-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. You know, these are people like the DeVos family and the Waltons, and the Niarcos, or, you know, these are like...

• 38:30David Friedberg?

  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, too.

• 38:36Speaker 05

  She can buy it.

• 38:37David Friedberg?

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

• 38:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, she's like a squirrel. She eats like infinite amounts.

• 38:42David Friedberg?

  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.

• 38:58Speaker 05

  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. And it's just crushing. You know, you see these little kids just crying, saying goodbye to their mom, and screaming at the door.

• 39:11David Friedberg?

  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?

• 39:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it...

• 39:21David Friedberg?

  How did you get... Is it an Elizabeth thing that you're kind of doing this for or with? Or how did this kind of come to be for you?

• 39:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, so 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.

• 40:11Speaker 05

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

• 40:50David Friedberg?

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

• 40:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:56David Friedberg?

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

• 41:00Speaker 05

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

• 41:04David Friedberg?

  Raman spectroscopy devices?

• 41:05Speaker 05

  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.

• 41:17David Friedberg?

  Well, look, I appreciate you being with us today, Billy. I know we've talked a lot over the last year and a half 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?

• 41:35Speaker 05

  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.

• 41:41David Friedberg?

  Thanks for being here.

• 41:44David Friedberg?

  Thank you, Rob.