Even for those of us who follow the many Shakespearean twists and turns of Silicon Valley startups, the meteoric rise and catastrophic fall of Theranos is almost too wild to believe.
Now the company and its infamous founder, Elizabeth Holmes, are getting the HBO documentary treatment courtesy of Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney, known for tackling big controversies like Scientology and Enron. (Our Nicole LaPorte spoke with Gibney for a Q&A published last week.)
The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley will follow in Gibney’s tradition, charting Holmes’s path from a young startup founder who was touted as the next Steve Jobs to an accused fraud who fooled millions into believing the company’s supposedly revolutionary blood-testing technology actually worked. It’s an amazing cautionary tale that is sure to find a wider audience in Gibney’s hands.
The Inventor debuts tonight (Monday, March 18) at 9 p.m. ET. For cord-cutters who want to stream The Inventor without cable (either live or after it airs), there are a few different streaming options. Viewers with pay-TV login credentials (i.e., those mooching off of friends or parents) can just watch the documentary on the HBO Go website or via its mobile apps on iOS or Android.
If you don’t have those credentials, your best bet is to sign up with a streaming service. HBO typically costs $15 a month, but you can sometimes get a free trial. I’ve rounded up a few options below:
- HBO Now: This is HBO’s own service and it’s the one I use. You can get a free trial for a week, which is plenty of time to check out the doc and decide if you want to keep subscribing after that. Find it here.
- Hulu: Current Hulu subscribers can add HBO and stream it using the Hulu app. Find it here.
- Amazon Prime Video: Prime members have access to HBO as a standalone channel. You can sign up for a free seven-day trial here.
- PlayStation Vue: If you subscribe to this service from Sony, you can tack on HBO. Find it here.