The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley

The dark side of (not only) Silicon Valley start-ups, where everyone pretends and presents to the investors and general public that “we grow, we are following our vision that will change the world, we keep growing, research, development and company growth is progressing smoothly, when a breakthrough occurs and you either come across something or you give and fall into oblivion". Elisabeth “wannabe Jobs" Holmes and her company Theranos walked the similar path. Vision, charismatic leader, great start, big investments, famous names. But they didn't make anything happen, there was basically nothing except the vision. Shall we admit failure? Never. And so, the story of the greatest deception of its kind ever began. Good intentions were replaced by small modification of reality, then it took just one small step to lying and everything ended up with corporate practices that looked exactly as being taken from poor paranoid thrillers from the 70s. The problem is not that Elisabeth does something that others don't. Success is exaggerated in front of investors, functionalities that are being developed and which the whole team struggles with are presented as already ready and operational... Well, it´s just another typical start-up. But what is fascinating about all this is the scale and so many levels on which lies were successfully not only kept but constantly nurtured. As the snowball of "successful company with technology that changes the world" was increasing its size more and more, article by article, dollar by dollar to nearly a thousand employees, and a company worth nine billion dollars. The second, also quite interesting, aspect is Holmes herself. Did she lie consciously or did she really convince herself over the years that her fanatical vision of what she publicly proclaimed was real? And Gibney is a perfect match for this substance. There´s just one small catch, perhaps. The movie was made too early. It would have been better to wait at least one year until all the documents had been published and the outcome of the lawsuits and the fate of the culprits had been known. (07/04/2019)

Elizabeth Holmes convinced not only the public of her good intentions, but above all herself, so that even when her most loyal supporters turned away, she remained steadfast. This blinded Don Quixote tragedy is fascinating in its own way. Apart from a huge hole in which a lot of money disappeared, Theranos was mainly a gamble on human health. It seemed like playing with Lego, trying this, trying that, every once in a while someone would step on a block and it would hurt, and when the parents came home from work and saw the mess, the kit would be taken away. (01/02/2023)