Silicon Valley’s pitch culture blurs the line between vision and fraud

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 41:06

   holmes as a kind of allegory for tech like you have this uh this way that she was it as we've been saying a kind of emblematic figure of the 2010s she's she's doing the steve jobs thing she's getting all these these covers. And then there's the downfall. I wanted to ask you, Erin, since you're reporting on this all the time, you know, I think it's fair to say Elizabeth was like an emblematic figure 10 years ago. Is she still now? Like, what is the relationship that people who work in the Valley right now have with her? I think in general, the tech industry kind of rejects somebody who has been convicted of fraud. During the trial, I wrote a lot about how this the the trial was kind of emblematic or symbolmatic of like Silicon Valley's ethos of fake it till you make it and how Holmes had simply taken the same thing everyone else does, including Elon Musk

2. 41:57

   or other founders who need to exaggerate to, you know, get people on board with their vision. But she had just taken it a little bit too far. And, you know, Judge Davila even talked about that in his sentencing and at the end of the trial as well. So I had a lot of fights with Silicon Valley investors about this who were like, no, she is not part of Silicon Valley. This is not what we're about. But it's really hard, I think, for a lot of founders to parse where that line is because she was following the playbook that everybody and, you know, Caitlin's talked about this a little bit as well. Like you do have to exaggerate and paint a grandiose vision that may not be anywhere close to reality in order to get investors on board, in order to get employees on board with like whatever thing it is that you're inventing and

3. 42:43

   bringing into the world. Obviously, when that crosses into lying and deception, it becomes illegal. But like, I think there's a there's a very strong argument that you can make that she was absolutely a product of Silicon Valley culture. And that a lot of people get really confused about where the line is, especially when you have people like Elon Musk, who is constantly promising things that he doesn't deliver on. Right. I would say there's an extremely fine line, extremely fine line between Elizabeth Holmes and Elon Musk. And I think it would be completely legitimate for some lay person, you know, who parachutes in to Silicon Valley today or to American society today to wonder why one of them is in prison and not the other.

4. 43:31

   And I would say as an editor at Wired around that time, did I get a tour of a factory so I could see incredible Tesla robot, you know, robot arms before there was a car, you know, and there wasn't a car and there still wasn't a car and there still wasn't a car after that. So like, you know, I mean, not to mention like, you know, whatever high speed rail in California. I mean, you know, every single founder is trafficking across that line.