The lead characters — and probably their true-life counterparts — of “Super Pumped,” “The Dropout” and “WeCrashed” will all tell you the same thing: They wanted to change the world. The world, they say, just wasn’t ready.
In the span of less than a month, three new series have tried to figure out the rise and fall of the tech bro: Travis Kalanick (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) at Uber, Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried) at Theranos and Adam Neumann (Jared Leto) at WeWork. We know how all three end: Kalanick and Neumann were ousted by their respective boards and Holmes, along with COO Sunny Balwani, was charged with and convicted of criminal fraud.
Each tells a slightly different story. Holmes never got Theranos off the ground, bested by technology that didn’t actually work. WeWork, for a while, housed millions of office workers around the world, although its profit margins were dubious at best. Uber remains one of the most successful Silicon Valley exports.
