The Rise and Fall of Elizabeth Holmes: Once a Revolutionary, Now a Convict

Guess who's serving time now? Elizabeth Holmes, the "revolutionary" founder of Theranos. Yeah, the one who promised to change the world of medicine with her blood-testing company. Well, turns out she was just a master at defrauding investors.

Back in the day, Holmes was the darling of Silicon Valley. She dropped out of college and set out to create a company that could revolutionize medical diagnostics. She even had big-name board members and a sky-high valuation.

But then reality hit. A journalist named John Carreyrou blew the lid off her little scam in a 2015 article. Theranos started retracting tests and recalling machines. Holmes stepped down as CEO, and the whole thing went down the drain.

Fast forward to her trial, where Holmes tried to play innocent. She blamed her former partner and painted herself as a clueless victim. Nice try, Holmes. The jury didn't buy it. She was convicted on four counts of fraud and handed an 11-year sentence.

Rapid Rundown

• 📉 Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, was convicted of defrauding investors.

• 🔒 Serving over 11 years in prison at a minimum-security facility in Texas.

Twitter's Value Plummeted to Only 33% of Original Price

Twitter is now worth just one-third of what Elon Musk paid for it. Ouch! Fidelity recently marked down the value of its equity stake in the company, and Musk himself has admitted he overpaid for Twitter. He bought it for $44 billion (including $33.5 billion in equity) but now says it’s worth less than half that. How Fidelity arrived at its new valuation is anyone’s guess.

Fidelity first reduced the value of its Twitter stake in November, to 44% of the purchase price. That was followed by further markdowns in December and February. Since Musk took over, Twitter has struggled financially. After saddling the company with $13 billion of debt, Musk’s erratic decision-making and challenges with content moderation led advertising revenue to decline by 50%. An attempt to recoup that revenue by selling Twitter Blue subscriptions has so far failed to take off.

Musk’s investment in Twitter is now worth $8.8 billion. The latest markdown erases about $850 million from Musk’s $187 billion fortune. Despite Twitter’s issues, Musk’s wealth is up more than $48 billion this year, largely due to a 63% surge in Tesla Inc.’s share price.

Rapid Rundown

• 💸 Twitter is now worth one-third of what Elon Musk paid for it.

• 📉 Fidelity marked down the value of its equity stake in the company.

Shopify Faces $130 Million Class Action Lawsuit Over Severance Cuts

Shopify employees used to be known for their loyalty and love for the company. But that was before people started getting fired. Now, Shopify is facing a class action lawsuit that claims the company cut back on the severance sums offered to laid-off employees. Shopify says the offers were miscalculated, but ex-employees are asking for a $130 million apology.

It’s estimated that around 2,300 people were affected by Shopify’s cuts in May, which is about 20% of the workforce. And last year, the headcount was also reduced by 10%. The plaintiff says his severance offer was cut in half, from $88,000 to $44,000. He claims he was told he’d have to settle for less if he didn’t accept and that other employees were offered up to $60,000 less than they’d initially accepted.

This is a sign of how times have changed in tech. Workers were once promised the moon in exchange for being a part of the next big thing. Now they find themselves in a much more adversarial relationship with their employers. But it’s worth noting that severance sums offered across the sector have been well above what the law guarantees. Ex-employees from Shopify, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Salesforce were all promised between 2-4 months, with more added for years of service.

Rapid Rundown

• 💸 Shopify faces a class action lawsuit over reduced severance sums for laid-off employees.

• 📉 Around 2,300 people were affected by Shopify’s cuts in May, which is about 20% of the workforce.

Articles & Resources

How the Push for Efficiency Changes Us — Pertinent quote: "While I certainly won’t deny the satisfaction of learning how to do a task faster, I do think it’s worth interrogating the way efficiency comes to shape our lives."

Why AI Will Never Fully Capture Human Language — An exploration of the limitations of artificial intelligence in fully capturing the intricacies of human language.

Exploding Rockets, Exploding Twitter — Clive Thompson reflects on Elon Musk's ability to learn from mistakes in SpaceX but not Twitter.

How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) — Tim Urban emphasizes the importance of aligning your career with your passions and goals.

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