The Dropout

[BresciaBike]

Has anyone watched it? None of my family or friends have but it's sooo good.

Yes, my viewing habits are behind the times 😛

We're behind the times too! Just binged this on iPlayer and now I'm working my way back through the original podcast. The baffling thing to me - as a Gen X non-scientist - is that rather than inventing/discovering something, then marketing it, Elizabeth Holmes seemed to decide she wanted something to exist, sold the idea of it, and then set about trying to invent it. Which is typical of that peak iProduct marketing period, I guess.

It struck me as a nightmarish situation for any normal person - to have such giant investment, an internationally renowned board, complete media scrutiny, all pressurising you to make good on a product that's clearly borderline impossible (or else someone else would have made it) without actually knowing how to do it... but clearly Elizabeth Holmes was not a normal person.

It reminds me of one night on a boat after some night dives. I'd been backpacking for a few months but knew it had to come to an end soon. A woman about 10 years younger than me told me, oh so very seriously, that she believes you must follow your dreams in life - no waiting around. I highlighted it wasn't always possible, money to fund such a life for one thing. She said it doesn't matter, start living the dream and forget worrying about the rest (aka the means).

That's a much smaller example than taking billions for technology that doesn't exist and can't for years and years. But it does have the same feature of disregarding the means and the hard work and living the end result. A purely superficial "achieving" of the goal.

On another note, Chloe Sevigny gave a cracking good performance in The Dropout!