{"id":1468536,"date":"2022-05-09T08:01:19","date_gmt":"2022-05-09T12:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1468536"},"modified":"2022-05-09T08:01:56","modified_gmt":"2022-05-09T12:01:56","slug":"how-to-decode-the-sudden-boom-of-start-up-failures-on-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-to-decode-the-sudden-boom-of-start-up-failures-on-tv\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Decode The Sudden Boom Of Start-Up Failures On TV"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fhow-to-decode-the-sudden-boom-of-start-up-failures-on-tv%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1468536&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/64DDB731-41AF-45AF-B72C-57B9A1C10963.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p><strong>Emily Jashinsky: <\/strong>What\u2019s with the rapid influx of dramatized series on collapsing start-ups? In the last couple of months, prestige series have aired on struggles at Uber, WeWork, and Theranos, drawing top talent like Anne Hathaway, Jared Leto, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Amanda Seyfried.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The shows are all captivating, too. Obviously, we\u2019re in the midst of a true-crime boom and each series depicts some dubious legal behavior. And obviously when a lot of companies soar at once, a lot are going to crash. <\/p>\n<p>There was something about the combination of the economic climate and technological advancements during the Obama years that seemed to fuel this cycle. So it just that simple? They rose, they fell, and now enough time has passed to make shows?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Some people would say that cycle reflects\u00a0the beauty of the American free-market system\u2014for every success story you have a Theranos or a WeWork. Risk takers like Travis Kalanik are innovators\u00a0and an inevitable part of the ecosystem. But is there something else going on here in 2022 with a lot of these fallen mighties in the rearview mirror?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Madeline Osburn: <\/strong>I would suggest the boom is bigger than just Silicon Valley and start-ups, although that\u2019s definitely a great place to find interesting characters. It\u2019s really about the influx of high-profile fraudsters that seem to have dominated our news feeds in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So in addition to multiple series about Elizabeth\u00a0Holmes\u00a0and WeWork, we are also seeing series like \u201cInventing Anna\u201d and documentaries about Fyre Festival, \u201cThe Tinder Swindler,\u201d and Operation Varsity Blues. In every case, the true story is more captivating and jaw-dropping than what any screenwriter could come up with, which is why there are as many documentaries as there are dramatized series.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>My theory is these fraudsters\u2019 stories, especially in Silicon Valley, are entertaining little anecdotes for the larger themes about\u00a0how elite society and institutions are cracking at the seams. Sure, we have big stories like Brexit, Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, and Covid that all have their place in pulling back the curtain, but in some ways, the story of a single start-up founder\u2019s\u00a0dubious legal behavior is a much easier way to digest the collapse of society and the puppet masters behind it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>EJ:<\/strong> Okay, you just made a great point. These stories captivate us 1) because they\u2019re genuinely interesting but also 2) because they fit into this emerging broader narrative.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As a country we seem to be working through exactly what that narrative is and what to do about it. One thing seems clear: It\u2019s very American. It\u2019s the \u201cwork hard, play hard\u201d mentality, but with \u201cplaying hard\u201d defined in the Fyre Festival sense. Luxury beyond our ancestors\u2019 wildest dreams, potentially available to anyone with a college degree and a good work ethic. (Or, of course, a trust fund.) The LuLaRoe documentaries showed this too.<\/p>\n<p>Anna Delvey wanted that life so badly, she put in a crazy amount of work just to fake her way to the top of New York City. She forged bank documents! The Tinder Swindler story isn\u2019t American but it still showcases people\u2019s desperation. Women wanted to go on a private jet so badly, they accepted the invitation from a stranger.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>All that is to say, so many of these lies are built on people\u2019s bad investment decisions. Theranos is a great example of that. And when we have elites with obscene amounts of money swirling around and major industries increasingly relegated to screens, things almost start to feel like the Sims. And that\u2019s where an Elizabeth\u00a0Holmes\u00a0comes in, scoops up tons of cash from easily duped rich people, and builds a house of cards.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MO: <\/strong>Yep, and that\u2019s why I would argue that out of all these crazy stories, (I mean\u2014Lori Loughlin staging\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/tasneemnashrulla\/staged-rowing-photos-lori-loughlin-olivia-jade-isabella-rose\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">photos<\/a>\u00a0of her daughters on rowing machines to get into the University of Southern California is <em>insane<\/em>) the Theranos story is the most captivating, and the one that\u2019s been retold the most with multiple documentaries, movies, and series.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You have names like Henry Kissinger, James Mattis, and George Shultz who were all on her board, not to mention investors like Rupert Murdoch and Walgreens who overlooked their due diligence so they could get in on the \u201cnext thing.\u201d If those names and institutions can be duped by\u00a0Holmes\u2019 \u201cscience,\u201d then what else are our most elite leaders being duped by?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And you\u2019re right about screens. There is something ironic about how our screens and technological advancements are making us much more gullible as a species.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>EJ: <\/strong>It\u2019s this sense that people like Adam Neumann are living off gains that feel like monopoly money, which also makes them more likely to spend it frivolously and lavishly. So much of the economy feels divorced from reality, and whether that\u2019s mathematically accurate, it feels accurate. And I think that explains why these stories are so compelling.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>MO: <\/strong>Nobody does fraud, and then makes movies about that fraud, better than America.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Emily Jashinsky: What\u2019s with the rapid influx of dramatized series on collapsing start-ups? In the last couple of months, prestige series have aired on struggles at Uber, WeWork, and Theranos,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":759,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1468536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1468536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/759"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1468536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1468536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1468536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1468536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1468536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}