• Disclosure
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
  • CCPA
  • Medical Disclaimer
Sunday, February 5, 2023
Lubbock County News Online
  • Home
  • News
  • Business
  • Technology
    • Crytpocurrency
    • Gaming
    • Gadgets
  • Sports
  • Health
  • General
    • Business Services
  • Travel
  • Press Releases
  • Popular
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Business
  • Technology
    • Crytpocurrency
    • Gaming
    • Gadgets
  • Sports
  • Health
  • General
    • Business Services
  • Travel
  • Press Releases
  • Popular
No Result
View All Result
No Result
View All Result
Home News

What ‘WeCrashed’ And ‘The Dropout’ Tell Us – CNN

what-‘wecrashed’-and-‘the-dropout’-tell-us-–-cnn
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

(CNN)“I was up there with him at the top of the world.”

That’s how Harrison Weber, editorial director of the office-leasing company WeWork, recalled the evening in 2013 when he stood by the company’s founder, Adam Neumann, in the upper floors of the Woolworth building.

    wAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAQAAkAAAIKlI+py+0Po5yUFQA7

    WeWork had just moved to add 30 floors of the landmark building to its holdings, part of a real-estate-buying binge that would end with WeWork occupying more office space in several major cities than any other private company. At the time, WeWork was one of the country’s hottest new start-ups, with a valuation of $47 billion.

      And then, just like that, it collapsed. Neumann, a charismatic leader whose penchant for impossibly lofty — and sometimes, just impossible — goals, easily charmed investors. But that did not translate into successful management. By late 2019, the company’s valuation had slid to around $7 billion, and Neumann resigned. He took a $1.7 billion severance package with him. (The company survived in altered form.)

        That boom-bust story, and the fantasies that fueled it, is now a miniseries: “WeCrashed,” premiering Friday on Apple TV+. It joins shows like “The Dropout,” streaming on Hulu, about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, and Showtime’s “Super Pumped,” about Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick.

        Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway in the limited series

        Together, they represent a damning examination of the Silicon-Valley-centered, venture-capital-funded economy. The stories are ready-made for dramatization, stories of hubris and excess that hurtle toward an inevitable crash. But they also reveal a deep anxiety about the new economy, a sense that, at the end of the day, it creates overnight billionaires but little of lasting value.

          These are not just shows about founders and frauds but also about workplaces and labor. The stories of Theranos, WeWork and Uber are stories of workplace abuses: punishing schedules (Neumann liked to schedule 2 a.m. meetings, apparently just because he could), bullying and sexual harassment and recriminations against whistleblowers. Uber, for instance, established a $4.4 million fund to settle harassment suits after a federal investigation into the company’s “cultural of sexual harassment and retaliation.” In response to investigations into the company’s workplace culture, shareholders forced Uber CEO Travis Kalanick to resign.

          Uber and WeWork continued on after Neumann and Kalanick were ousted and walked away with handsome financial payouts, while Holmes’ company, unsalvageable, went bust virtually overnight. In the case of Theranos, employees were then faced with the consequences of working for a business engaged in fraud. Holmes claimed to have invented a machine that could run a series of blood tests based on a single drop of blood; there was never a working prototype. Earlier this year, she was convicted on three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, felonies that each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The trial for her deputy Ramesh Balwani began earlier this week.

          Elizabeth Holmes can be two things at once

          It’s clear that on-screen depictions of Theranos and WeWork are timely. Yet in their skeptical portrayals of the new economy, these shows are also part of a longer canon of robust literature on the meaning, and meaninglessness, of work. That literature winds back to the origins of office culture in the mid-19th century.

          Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener” follows the main character, a young man hired to copy legal documents by hand. By the third day of work, Bartleby has decided to resist the rote work assigned to him, responding, “I would prefer not to” whenever he is asked to do a project. His employer, unable to comprehend an obstinate employee, goes to elaborate lengths to contain and avoid Bartleby. His befuddlement at Bartleby’s response showed how important compliance was to office culture, even in its earliest days, and how central resisting that compliance would be to workplace literature.

          The office literature genre came of age in the US after World War II. A growing, mostly White middle class found both economic security and new anxieties about the culture of conformity and competition that seemed to define not only their work lives but their home lives as well.

          Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Showtime's 'Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber.'

          In novels like Sloan Wilson’s “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,” the main character Tom is caught between his dread of becoming the kind of company man who wears a gray flannel suit and does as he’s told, and his desire for the stability and wealth that comes with climbing the corporate ladder. Even as he wrestles with how high to rise and how hard to work, he can never escape the utter meaninglessness of middle-class corporate life, which hums steadily in the background of the novel even as the characters move and grow and change.

          That sense of ennui moved from the background to the foreground in the workplace comedies of the 1990s and 2000s. In movies like “Office Space” and series like “The Office,” creators understood that the realities of office life were too absurd to be played for anything other than laughs. The films bridge the old and new economies: In “The Office,” the company is a paper company teetering on irrelevance; in “Office Space,” it’s a software company that doesn’t appear to do much, if anything. And while there is a plot about fraud at the heart of “Office Space,” it is carried out by the workers, not the owners, and has no consequences.

          The new era of shows represented by “The Dropout” and “WeCrashed” focus more on the founders than the workers at these companies, but they still contain a serious critique of workplace culture and the new economy.

            It’s impossible to watch these series and not come away convinced that there is something fundamentally farcical and fraudulent with the venture-capitalism fueled economy, which seems to have no way of discerning the difference between visionary and fantastical, and where the least scrupulous walk away with the most money, even after their ventures fail.

            Of course, venture capital also fuels the companies that succeed — including the companies whose stories made “The Dropout” and “WeCrashed” possible. The shows might invite critiques of the new economy, but they are also a reminder of how inescapable it is, and how much we’ve come to accept the fraud as a price we pay for that economy’s benefits.

            Lubbock County News Online

            © 2021 Lubbock County News Online

            Navigate Site

            • Disclosure
            • Privacy Policy
            • DMCA Policy
            • CCPA
            • Medical Disclaimer

            Follow Us

            No Result
            View All Result
            • Home
            • DMCA Policy
            • Medical Disclaimer
            • Privacy Policy
            • Disclosure
            • CCPA
            • Terms of Use

            © 2021 Lubbock County News Online

            We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
            Cookie SettingsAccept All
            Manage consent

            Privacy Overview

            This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
            Necessary
            Always Enabled
            Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
            CookieDurationDescription
            cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
            cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
            cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
            cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
            cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
            viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
            Functional
            Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
            Performance
            Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
            Analytics
            Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
            Advertisement
            Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
            Others
            Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
            SAVE & ACCEPT