Andreessen Horowitz may not have invested in Elizabeth Holmes’ doomed biotech venture Theranos (good on them!), but this week the venture capital giant did sink at least a couple thousand dollars into a private screening of the highly-anticipated documentary on the fraudster, You Can See Everything.
On Thursday afternoon, a16z (as Andreessen Horowitz is known to friends on platforms with character limits) rented out a 50-seat theater at the AMC Metreon downtown for a 4:15 p.m. showing of the documentary, which is — famously, bizarrely — directed by deadpan comedian Nathan Fielder and Primetime filmmaker Lance Oppenheim and opens in limited release today.
A private theater rental of that size likely cost between $1,200 and $2,000, according to AMC’s website and some grassroots evidence online.
The event was hosted in partnership with Tamarisk Lane, a three-year-old investment and advisory firm based in West Hollywood, whose founder, Jack Davis, is one of the producers of You Can See Everything. Whether Davis was present at the screening was unclear.
Just past the concessions counter and an inconspicuous standing sign that read “You Can See Everything. Hosted by a16z x Tamarisk Lane,” in plain white text on a black background, attendees checked in with a cheerful blonde woman at a computer before heading back into the halls of the AMC.
Considering the event was happening in the middle of a workday, the lobby was reasonably quiet. The guests of the hosting VCs appeared, for the most part, to be ambiguously young men with neat haircuts wearing expensive-looking T-shirts, sneakers, and backpacks. When approached by this reporter for a quote about why they were particularly excited to watch this movie, all of them were friendly enough: Several told me they were “pretty excited,” and one went so far to say he was “open to the description” of being “ravenous” to see the film. One Tamarisk Lane employee said the event was “packed.”
Unsurprisingly, all the men worked in “the startup world,” as one put it. But zero of them would share their name, and in fact several literally backed away, smiling and waving nervously, when I told them I was a reporter. When I asked why their crowd was being so secretive about what seemed to be a totally innocuous event, one man said, “Not secretive, not secretive…” as he backed away. “I’m just excited!” Then he turned and scampered into the roped-off safe zone behind the woman manning the guest list.
I wondered if he also thought of the You Can See Everything teaser, where Holmes stares at Fielder with her electric blue eyes and swears she’s not lying, even though they clearly both know she is.
