Katie Drummond, WIRED's global editorial director, has described the unusual circumstances behind the magazine's widely shared interview with Nathan Fielder. She spoke about it on this week's episode of WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast, hosted by Brian Barrett and Leah Feiger, and the conversation centered on Fielder's new documentary, You Can See Everything.
The film, codirected by Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, follows Fielder through a month spent inside Elizabeth Holmes' home in the weeks before she went to prison. Holmes was convicted in 2022 of defrauding investors through Theranos, her blood-testing startup, whose fast and accurate tests turned out not to exist. The documentary was kept under wraps for three years, and only a few dozen people had seen it before its premiere at the Telluride Film Festival.
Drummond was one of them. The approach came through Fielder's publicist, who emailed while Drummond was riding in a car to dinner and asked whether there was time to talk about Fielder. Drummond, a self-described fan, said yes. The publicist said Fielder had a project coming out, that few people knew what it was, and that nothing more could be shared without an NDA. The question was whether WIRED had a cover available that fall. Drummond said they were not sure at the time, but agreed anyway and then checked with the editor who runs the print magazine. A cover turned out to be available, and both signed NDAs. Only then did they learn the project was a film.
Drummond admitted to some suspicion that WIRED might be drawn into a bit. They pointed to an episode from the second season of Fielder's series The Rehearsal, in which Fielder appeared on CNN with Wolf Blitzer and discussed aviation safety in earnest. After seeing the film and talking further with its makers, Drummond concluded the request was a good-faith effort to get Fielder, who rarely does press, to talk publicly.
The interview lasted nearly an hour and a half and was not easy. Drummond said Fielder was pleasant but dislikes being interviewed, and says as much in the published conversation. Drummond suggested Fielder is uncomfortable putting feelings into words and did not want personal views on Holmes or Theranos to color how audiences watch the film. Fielder instead asked Drummond questions about the movie, which Drummond took as a sign that Fielder is still working out what the three years of making it meant.
Revisiting the interview changed Drummond's view of the film in one respect. In the conversation, Drummond had told Fielder that viewers never learn what Fielder thinks of the people on screen. After rereading the transcript during editing, Drummond disagreed with that, citing Fielder's facial expressions, the way Fielder speaks to people, and the editorial choices that come with a director's credit. Drummond saw the film twice, had a different reaction each time, and said the interview contains no spoilers.
The attention afterward has been uncomfortable, Drummond said. Drummond became an editor after finding online attention unpleasant as a reporter, and described reading harsh Reddit threads about the interview. Drummond joked that Google searches now surface results pairing their name with words like "felon" and "conviction," then clarified that this was a joke.
WIRED also published a package of related stories. One, by former WIRED editor Adam Rogers, examines how the magazine was among the first outlets in the early 2010s to praise Theranos. Drummond called it a sharp reckoning with those editorial decisions. In Drummond's view, smart people at WIRED worked in a culture that celebrated startup founders and bold ideas without always giving them the scrutiny they deserved.
The episode also covered other news, including Anthropic's pledge to commit 5 percent of its shares to a public benefit fund and Elon Musk's promise to give one SpaceX share to every child in America. A WIRED investigation found that election offices in at least 32 states have received suspicious letters, some containing white powder, about two weeks before the midterms.
