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'You Can See Everything' Review: Nathan Fielder's Doc About Elizabeth Holmes

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Re: 'You Can See Everything' Review: Nathan Fielder's Doc About Elizabeth Holmes

#121

Post by torgoguys »

xyzelement wrote: post #13

I have a distinctive memory about Theranos from business school - so circa 2013 a few years before it blew up. Some professor was going on and on about Holmes for being a young, female, founder. It stood out at the moment as weird because the praise was separate from success or outcomes or like brilliant science. It was all about the identity: gender and age. I wonder if the reason the scam went so far as it did beca…

Yes, my daughter and I still will randomly say "worlds youngest self-made female billionaire" to each other and laugh when we hear someone use a phase that is only true because of an excessive number of qualifiers.

Re: 'You Can See Everything' Review: Nathan Fielder's Doc About Elizabeth Holmes

#122

Post by philipallstar »

jodrellblank wrote: post #91
philipallstar wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then we wouldn't have anything that's hard to create and/or requires risk.

Imagine claiming undue credit for the works of Euler, Einstein, Michaelangelo, and hundreds of huge Cathedrals all over Europe, while disclaiming the constant bailouts from the taxpayer so that Capitalists never actually risk or lose money, and being blinkered to the fact that 'money' doesn't solve hard problems or do hard things, workers do. Manhattan project? Taxpayer funded. Concorde? Taxpayer funded. Walking on t…

> so that Capitalists never actually risk or lose money

If you think capitalists never lose money then you're not on this planet. Obviously money is lost all the time. There are lots of investors, lots of companies, and few winners. This is mad. Of course bailouts happen, and they're done by the state. Capitalism would let them fail.

> hundreds of huge Cathedrals all over Europe

In this case the church was the capitalist. They risked the capital that paid for the cathedral. Although it was fairly low risk, as building a cathedral is pretty well understood.

> Manhattan project? Taxpayer funded. Concorde? Taxpayer funded. Walking on the Moon? Taxpayer funded. What are you talking about.

In this case the state is the capitalist, although it's taking the money by force rather than with a risk/reward voluntary investment. The worker isn't doing this by him/herself.

Re: 'You Can See Everything' Review: Nathan Fielder's Doc About Elizabeth Holmes

#124

Post by micromacrofoot »

azan_ wrote: post #107
micromacrofoot wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Then you are sexist and racist, nothing to be proud of!

funny that no one said that to the parent comment that blindly speculated that holmes caused more sexism simply for being a woman

yet bring up the ruling class and that gets called out for sexism despite the endless string of fraud cases covered by those demographics

Re: 'You Can See Everything' Review: Nathan Fielder's Doc About Elizabeth Holmes

#125

Post by noir_lord »

embedding-shape wrote: post #102
tdb7893 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general scam of unrealistic promises then under-delivering is such a well worn trope that while gender surely played a part in it (as it is a big part of social perceptions in general) I hesitate to blame it here. I think for anyone who has been in tech for a while it doesn't take an imagination to picture a man doing pretty much the same thing

Yeah, the same is maybe more obvious outside of HN, but engineer/tech companies often play the same trope but on "brilliant and smart people but bit naive/rose-tinted views that couldn't unintentionally harm anyone even if they tried", like how media showcased Zuckerberg initially, before everyone realized his true colors.

Musk as well among others.

Re: 'You Can See Everything' Review: Nathan Fielder's Doc About Elizabeth Holmes

#126

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

gedy wrote: post #77
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scamming as a male can actually improve your reputation. Donald Trump is currently the president of the united states despite years of ripping people off. If Bernie Madoff could run as a republican senator, I'd given him decent odds to win.

Unfortunately he was a registered Democrat.

So was Trump. To a true scammer, politics is just another grift.

Re: 'You Can See Everything' Review: Nathan Fielder's Doc About Elizabeth Holmes

#127

Post by watwut »

philipallstar wrote: post #38
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of male-led businesses also turned out to be scams, and yet no one goes 'that guy looks sharp, but he is male so seems suspicious'. Which only proofs how deep sexism is rooted.

> Which only proofs how deep sexism is rooted. Only if you're determined to look for it. No one promotes companies, or gives special grants, or runs special funding groups, or special networking breakfasts, for men. It's only for women. Women are currently viewed as intrinsically a good thing to run a company, and it's a problem if your company has fewer than 50% women. It's all about identity and not competence. She…

> No one promotes companies, or gives special grants, or runs special funding groups, or special networking breakfasts, for men.

They do? Epstein totally did that. Thiel totally does that. All those deeply conservative male leaders do that.

Re: 'You Can See Everything' Review: Nathan Fielder's Doc About Elizabeth Holmes

#129

Post by etchalon »

tdb7893 wrote: post #94
xyzelement wrote: post #13

I have a distinctive memory about Theranos from business school - so circa 2013 a few years before it blew up. Some professor was going on and on about Holmes for being a young, female, founder. It stood out at the moment as weird because the praise was separate from success or outcomes or like brilliant science. It was all about the identity: gender and age. I wonder if the reason the scam went so far as it did beca…

The general scam of unrealistic promises then under-delivering is such a well worn trope that while gender surely played a part in it (as it is a big part of social perceptions in general) I hesitate to blame it here. I think for anyone who has been in tech for a while it doesn't take an imagination to picture a man doing pretty much the same thing

I mean, plenty of men have done the same thing. No imagination required.

Re: 'You Can See Everything' Review: Nathan Fielder's Doc About Elizabeth Holmes

#130

Post by lelanthran »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #18
glimshe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sure did. And it backfired in a way that could make future female innovators guilty by association. I can see investors asking themselves "That girl looks sharp, but is she another Elizabeth Holmes?"

Plenty of male-led businesses also turned out to be scams, and yet no one goes 'that guy looks sharp, but he is male so seems suspicious'. Which only proofs how deep sexism is rooted.

> Plenty of male-led businesses also turned out to be scams, and yet no one goes 'that guy looks sharp, but he is male so seems suspicious'.

The scam was sold on her gender ("successful female entrepreneur"), so unfortunately it's going to be part of the heuristic.

Male-led scams aren't sold on the gender of the scammer; gender is completely ignored (No one describes those as "a successful male entrepreneur").

Unfortunately, the gender sale was a big part of the scam. I'm looking at many male-led scams, and they did not sell it based on the gender of the scammer.

> Which only proofs how deep sexism is rooted.

No, it only proves that you have ideology deeply rooted. I believe you see sexism everywhere. The type of person you just want to say "oookay, huh, is sexism here, in the room with us?"

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