Monday sees the airing on Sky Atlantic of the documentary charting the rise and fall of the American female tech billionaire Elizabeth Holmes. Like many, I have been transfixed by this tale of greed and avarice in Silicon Valley. On the back of her “unicorn” biotech company, Theranos, Holmes raised £400 million before The Wall Street Journal revealed her blood-testing machines were a dupe in 2015. Her technology rested precisely on nada. And no one over 10 years had seen it.
Once the pin-up for female tech billionaires, fêted the world over by media barons and presidents, and on every cover of every magazine, from Forbes to Fortune, Holmes’s slide into ignominy will go down in the history books. I’m as drawn to her as Killing Eve’s murderous Villanelle, simultaneously repulsed by those buggy eyes that hid the 31-year-old Stanford dropout’s treachery, and wrongly, horribly fascinated by her gobsmacking audacity.
Think of the psychopathic levels of discipline it must have required never to let the mask slip? To go in for raise after raise off those venture capitalists, strutting every stage, swanning through every TV appearance, when she knew there was nothing beneath. Even now she continues to protest her innocence. I wonder if she slept. Did she pace the house at night, awoken by the horror of her lies? Did she practise endlessly in the mirror, did she throw up secretly in the loo when the duplicity got too much? Or like Villanelle, is she still all icy cool?
Holmes adopted every Silicon Valley stereotype in the book, not just the way she dressed and spoke but how she manufactured the hype behind her brand “story”. On top, she cleverly adopted just the right level of traditional “male” characteristics to make her investors feel safe, while equally sidetracking them with her youth and femininity. Copying the uniform of Steve Jobs was a clever trick, with her insistence on black turtlenecks. As was only pulling in male confidantes and supporters. Scores of men were conned, showing up the fragility of the testosterone-fuelled ecosystem in San Francisco.
But our preoccupation with her is, of course, dangerous. We will watch the documentary, read the book, listen to the podcast (and, in two years’ time, see Jennifer Lawrence in the movie).
In the meantime, change is still slow. Men still dominate Silicon Valley; big money will charge bloodthirstily after those tech unicorns, dazzled by the promise of a Brobdingnagian win, while serious checks and balances will be ignored. It’s going on as we speak: Google was fined another €1.2 billion this week by the EU for breaking anti-trust laws, its market abuse of rivals going back 10 years.
"We’ll watch the documentary, read the book, listen to the podcast. In the meantime, little will radically change"
Meanwhile, Revolut, one of Britain’s best-known financial tech companies which raised £250 million this time last year, came under fire for potentially failing to prevent money-laundering through its systems.
Wired magazine recently revealed claims that staff at Revolut were mistreated to fuel its growth. CFO Peter O’Higgins resigned and Nik Storonsky, the founder and CEO of Revolut, continues to deny every allegation.
I’ve got People’s March placard anxiety
It’s the People’s March tomorrow and I’ve just about managed to rouse the family to join me. I’m not missing it for anything. My 14-year-old son has said he will come but only if he and his friends don’t have to be near me. My husband is looking grumpy but has acquiesced and my younger son hasn’t been told yet (I’ll resort to sweets and other bribery on the day).
But this corralling of the troops matched with a hefty workload has meant I haven’t had a nanosecond to consider my banner. And now I’ve got banner anxiety. “I’m with EU” is all I’ve got so far … this is hardly going to garner headlines or impress my fellow Remainers.
My favourites on the last march included: “Ikea has got better cabinets”; “My mother-in-law lives in Spain. Please don’t make them send her back here” and “The only single market I want to leave is Tinder”.
One protestor fashioned a brilliant copy of Banksy’s shredded painting in a frame, just with a Vote Leave Take Back Control poster.
Blame it on the pink pussy hats on the inaugural march against Trump. It set a high bar. Our purpose has never been more urgent and humour is a powerful tool. Even if I fail to come up with the goods by tomorrow, thank God I have trust in all of you.
*The supermodel Nathan Westling announced this week that he is transgender. “I’m happy. I can’t even imagine going back to how I was before because it’s just darkness,” he movingly told CNN.
Westling began his modelling career in 2013 as Natalie Westling, the skater’s mane of red hair garnering fans, debuting on the Marc Jacobs runway and becoming a Prada and Chanel favourite.
There has been heated debate around the transgender movement but Westling reminds everyone that no one should have to live in “darkness”, as he describes, because they feel too ashamed or scared to reveal who they really are.
