Movie Mondays: Founder Failures Fixation

Welcome to The Modern Day Renaissance Man newsletter. I, Trey Layton, write about the things that interest me, often covering topics such as startups, sports, and entertainment. If you'd like to receive these newsletters directly in your email a few times a week, go ahead and subscribe to never miss an email!

Happy Monday, folks.

Did Harry Styles really spit on Chris Pine? I admit that I've watched this video now about 50 times and feel no closer to the truth. If any of you are spit scientists (looking at you, Hump Day Camel), please let the people know. We are dying over here.

The story of Elizabeth Holmes, founder of biomedical golden child Theranos turned convicted fraudster (#girlboss of the century), has become a well-known one over the past year thanks to articles, books and not one, not two, but SIX shows on the scandal, two of which (The Dropout - Hulu & Bad Blood - Apple TV) come from major streamers.

In short, Holmes dropped out of Stanford in 2004 after starting revolutionary healthtech startup, Theranos, which claimed to perform more than 1,000 tests using just a few drops patients' blood. This promise skyrocketed Theranos to a $9 billion valuation as one of Silicon Valley's brightest stars before reports surfaced in 2015 claiming that the product was fraudulent, initiating the company's dramatic descension up to its 2018 demise and the subsequent lawsuits from patients and investors over the false claims issued by the company and its borderline robotic investor. It has now been revealed that the company was probably only able to conduct roughly 12 tests, so yeah. Not cool, Liz.

Most people have little interest in everyday stories from Wall Street and The Bay unless they are as wild as this one. However, we have seen more than a few dramatizations of such tales in Hollywood in recent years, including Holmes' story, the WeWork debacle, and Uber's shady rise, and now, it has been rumored that we are getting a story about the infamous PayPal Mafia, the early team behind the payment behemoth that has since gone on to individually do huge projects of their own.

While the name "Mafia" might interest viewers associating it with content such as The Godfather and Peaky Blinders, it's a bit deceiving. Think Elon Musk and the founder of LinkedIn rather than Al Capone and Lucky Luciano. Regardless, given how relatively unknown the business world is, why is it that studios continue to pump out stories about them?

To start, new stories are really hard to come up with. Think about how many movies and shows you've seen recently containing the same plots, themes, and archetypes. Studios have spent decades recycling cookie-cutter formulas, in the process sucking out the originality and innovation of storytelling. Often, real events provide new content which is honestly more interesting than what someone could come up with, thus lending themselves to dramatic treatment. Further, in the world of IP, portrayals of real world events are legally protected so long as they do not knowingly falsify them, thus providing a free source of fresh ideas.

Second, many of these people and companies are ones that we are familiar with. We use Uber and Facebook everyday, and even those who aren't tech nerds read stories about Adam Neumann partying and Elon Musk's 10th kid. We want to dive further into these stories to learn more about the company or person beneath these brands. Eight episodes on the dude putting computing microchips in monkey brains, digging tunnels beneath LA, and planning his estate on Mars? Sign me up.

While many of these stories are unique, they also cater to a familiar fascination with the mad genius, an archetype present in culture dating back centuries, like when Mary Shelley gave us Frankenstein, and Robert Zemeckis gave us Doc Brown in Back to the Future. Audiences have always gravitated towards those who seem to defy societal convention, and ambitious entrepreneurs and innovators do exactly this. It takes a special kind of crazy to turn down cushy, guaranteed lifestyles working traditional jobs in favor of years of ramen and all-nighters to just try to break even.

Perhaps, though, it is less about trying to make real people fit into the molds of fictional characters but rather about applying familiar fictional personifications to reality. Luckily for half of us, Thanos isn't real. But we have conceptions about "supervillains" and attempt to apply them to what we are seeing in real time in society. Many of these infamous founders, with their power and lavish lifestyles, emerge as some of the closest things we've got. The ability to realize these fictitious enemies through actual people provides us with the ability to make the world more fascinating and potentially even make possible the idea of heroes to challenge them.

Regardless, buckle up. While the PayPal story isn't as disastrous as some of the profiled companies of past, there are plenty of interesting people involved to ensure it is no less fascinating. Office watch party with complementary beer and wine, anyone?

This past week's box office numbers:

Whole lotta red. At least Bodies is getting the screens it deserves.

Another thing which I found to be super fascinating was the announcement of a partnership between Netflix and Unity. They are working to expand the streamer's catalogue of games AND to create a live action Assassin's Creed series. As someone who grew up fighting the Red Coats in the name #justice in Assassin's Creed Unity, sign me up.

Much better week of releases than the past couple:

• The Woman King (9/16 via theaters; Viola Davis = 🐐)

• Pearl (9/16 via select theaters; A24 slasher & prequel to the horror film X)

• Do Revenge (9/16 via Netflix; prolly cheesy but some big names like Maya Hawke in this black comedy based on a Hitchcock)

What real-life story do you think is deserving of a Hollywood makeover? My vote is for the Mark Zuckerberg nightmare surfing picture.

Cheers to another day,

Trey