A petite blonde woman - lips ringed in postbox red lipstick - stands on a table in front of a rapt crowd, telling a story about an uncle who liked crosswords, who taught her to play football in his yard, who died of an incurable cancer. This loss, she explains, means she dreams of “a world where no one has to say goodbye too soon”. A pause; she liked how that sounded. And - the crowd are getting excited now - this is the world she is creating, she says. “This is my religion. This is who I am. Anyone who doubts my company, doubts me.” The crowd screams; some of them are sobbing. No one doubts her company. “No!” they call out. “No!”
Meet Elizabeth Holmes, the Theranos founder and blue chip scammer whose name has become shorthand for Silicon Valley hubris - and whose twisted American-Dream-gone-wrong is now the discomfiting substance of a 10-episode Disney+ series, starring Amanda Seyfreid as the swashbuckling, sociopathic turbo-nerd Holmes. In the above scene, she is nothing short of terrifying.
