Real Alpha
Watch modeSubscribed

Hard Fork · 3 min · Oct 16, 2026

Missing peer-reviewed studies helped trigger Carreyrou’s probe

John Carreyrou recalls how a New Yorker profile and a pathologist’s doubts made him investigate Theranos. Two independent red flags turned a hunch into reporting.

John Carreyrou

Investigative Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Two-time Pulitzer winner who exposed Theranos fraud for The Wall Street Journal and wrote Bad Blood.

  • MR

    Max Read, Host · Writer, Read Max

    Former editor of Gawker and Select All; writes the Read Max newsletter.

About this segment

John Carreyrou recalls how a New Yorker profile and a pathologist’s doubts made him investigate Theranos. Two independent red flags turned a hunch into reporting.

From “Why Nathan Fielder's ‘You Can See Everything’ Left Us Reeling | Hard Fork”, Oct 16, 2026. Watch the full episode

“there were no peer-reviewed scientific journal studies or articles about her technology.”
John Carreyrouat 6:49 · Hard Fork6:49

Takeaways

  1. The profile raised questions about the lack of published research.
  2. A pathologist independently doubted the technology’s feasibility.
  3. That source pushed Carreyrou to investigate further.

In this episode

Full episode
  1. 17:08Holmes’s changing image doesn’t erase the evidence of deception7:45
  2. 28:42Holmes’s story stays compelling partly because she keeps renewing it6:26
  3. 40:53Silicon Valley’s pitch culture blurs the line between vision and fraud3:14

  4. 6:00Missing peer-reviewed studies helped trigger Carreyrou’s probe3:09

  5. 2:12Roper could not verify the science behind her Theranos test3:59Up next
  6. 34:55Holmes’s partnership pattern appears to be repeating6:11
  7. 55:34Talent deals can leave the original startup behind3:22

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

  1. 6:13

    Let's turn to you, John, because you were there for the downfall. I mean, you played a prominent role in the downfall. When did you first hear about Elizabeth Holmes And what was your sort of experience of reporting on her? Yeah, she wasn't really on my radar until a New Yorker story of her profile by Ken Aleta was published, I think, in mid-December 2014. And I read that commuting back from the Wall Street Journal newsroom in Manhattan to my apartment in Brooklyn, read it on the subway.

  2. 6:48

    And there were some things that I picked up in that story that struck me as odd. The main thing probably is that, you know, she was making these bold claims about what her technology could do, but there were no peer-reviewed scientific journal studies or articles about her technology. And then there was also a note in there about the secrecy. and um i thought you know i thought to myself there's something not quite right here but then um didn't really think any more of it uh for the next couple weeks until about three weeks later out of the blue i got a call from a source who was a practicing pathologist in Columbia, Missouri, and he'd read the very same New Yorker story. And he knew a lot more about blood testing than I did. And he was very skeptical of her claims and about the feasibility of what she asserted. He was like three times removed

  3. 7:54

    from any real information. But the fact that he was so skeptical about the science and the feasibility of the science coming on top of my own questions that I had spontaneously reading The New Yorker story, that kind of made me willing to look a little bit more into it. So there were all these YouTube videos that I watched. And we've made it possible to eliminate the tubes and tubes of blood that traditionally have to be drawn from an arm and replaced it with the nanotainer.

  4. 8:32

    And there's something really odd about her. I felt like she was playing a role. There was some play acting going on. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I felt sure that part of it wasn't genuine. And that made me even more kind of suspicious and willing to delve deeper into the story.