Although Bitcoin (CCC:BTC-USD) gets all the headlines, one of the most exciting developments in the New Digital World is how the blockchain has sparked many of the best minds in technology to reimagine how business and finance operate.
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It’s about time – and what better evidence than Theranos and its notorious leader, Elizabeth Holmes?
Holmes has finally been convicted of four counts of fraud and conspiracy against investors in her failed blood-testing company. Whatever the outcome of the criminal trial, Holmes was bound to live in infamy as a “millennial Madoff”… If Bernie Madoff had created a biotech startup instead of a Ponzi scheme.
Sure, many entrepreneurs have aimed (or claimed) to change the world. But Holmes took it to another level. To present herself as a rising superstar of Silicon Valley, she changed her voice, changed her entire daily routine, minute by minute. She even rewrote the origin story of Theranos to include a favorite uncle with cancer. In the absence of “revolutionary new blood-testing technology” that actually worked, Holmes focused on selling the dream – spinning a whole new persona out of thin air.
Ultimately, Holmes was simply giving the people what they wanted: an icon of the “visionary CEO” that would reshape the world. “Everyone wanted to work for the next Steve Jobs,” her ex-employees point out, and come along for the ride.
Times have changed, though. Trust in authority is at an all-time…
