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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

#151

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.

Well, to become the world's youngest female billionaire, you just have to pick the right parents and birth date. Difficult to do for sure, but seems much less interesting to talk about than becoming the world's youngest self-made female billionaire.

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

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

then again, how good a manager would she have made if she was bossing around colleagues to the point of them quitting? Management is not just about qualification, it's also about the human aspect. I have seen enough toxic femineity at work to say it is actually a thing, on par with toxic masculinity.

Or perhaps this guy perceived normal, appropriate management that he would have been perfectly fine with had it come from a man as “bossy” when it came from a woman.

or perhaps she was just a toxic colleague, with tons of experience in a narrow field that he did not have and making colleagues leave was just her thing.

Vote me down all you want, women are just as capable as men in every way, including the wrong, toxic ones

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

#154
post #7

I watched the entire trailer fully believing that Nathan Fielder had managed to find the most unhinged uncanny look-alike actress to play Elizabeth Holmes. This trailer was so good that I would have been fully prepared to watch a 2 hour dramatised mockumentary about Theranos. Finding out that this was really Elizabeth Holmes was a huge shock

Yet people who met her were stupid enough to think she is some kind of genius and gave her millions of dollars. Sometimes I think if Charles Manson started a startup instead of killing people he would have had millions in investments and be praised as some sort of wunder kind...

> Sometimes I think if Charles Manson started a startup

We like to think we live in a meritocracy, but the fact so much of success is based on personality, manipulating people, being charming and persuasive, tapping into others' insecurities and ambitions.

Elizabeth Holmes is a symptom of the same basic human dysfunction that brought us Charles Manson and Donald Trump.

Relevant musical interlude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xxgRUyzgs0

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

#155
post #115

Imagine a world where we held Musk to the same standard as Holmes.

I get that musk frequently underdelivers and has gone insane recently, but what he’s done with spacex and Tesla is genuinely impressive. So I’m not sure what the hell do you mean, what exact standard?

I think lying to investors is essentially what she was convicted of. You can make the argument that Musk believes what he says. Or you can say that he stayed clear of methods that make malice very obvious like forging documents.

But I don't think the comparison is completely far fetched. Let's take stuff like his "funding secured" tweet, the "2016 autopilot promo video", his "Solar Roof" stunt do come a little close to outright lying to investors for my taste. Not quite the level of forging documents, but pretty dishonest.

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

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scammers/predators/grifters/sociopaths will adopt any disguise and say whatever needs to be said that gets the mark to fall for it. Are priests the pinnacle of trust in your society? You now get a lot of scammers pretending to be (or actually becoming) priests. Are sagely tech leaders announcing the latest new thing on their thought-leadership blogs the way to get investment money? You now have 99% of LinkedIn's memb…

> Anything that turns your brain off, whether it's tugging your heartstrings, endorsing your ideology, whatever, scammers are ready to take advantage. TheLastPsychiatrist used a good phrase to describe this: cognitive kill-switch. Anything that stops further examination or exploration of an assertion is a CKS. In Holmes' case, the CKS was "you're just sexist if you don't believe"...

CKS is an effective CKS if misused.

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

#159

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, 100%

Certain people were so desperate for the female Steve Jobs, that when a woman came along literally cosplaying Jobs, they jumped without asking any questions.

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

#160

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…

She cosplayed Steve Jobs with the sweater, had obviously studied the west coast CEO bullshit trope stuff, and everything and used her earnest attractive nature to dupe a bunch of well known old men to endorse her.

Being female was a part of the grift but not the most notable. Many male grifters do the same thing without the girl power thing.

Being female is key for the sympathy play after the fact, and this little exercise to fish for a pardon from POTUS with a documentary. She went from Steve Jobs Girlboss to exploited victim, boo hoo.

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