May 23, 2022 • 2HR 1M

The Rise of the Fall-of-the-Tech-Founders Genre

'The Dropout,' 'WeCrashed,' 'Super Pumped,' and our fascination with disgraced CEO streaming TV.

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Emma Gray
Claire Fallon
Claire Fallon and Emma Gray obsessively analyze our cultural obsessions, from fashion trends to books to the buzziest scripted TV shows.
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Photo Credit: Apple / Hulu / Showtime / Canva

We’re in the midst of a streaming content bubble. Everything is being optioned; every week, three or four shows drop into the flooded TV landscape that boast giant budgets and star Matt Damon or Jessica Biel. Streaming series are being made out of books that haven’t even come out yet and TV shows that came out less than 20 years ago. Any news story that garnered a moderate amount of national attention — even decades ago — is at risk of being turned into a prestige drama.

And it just so happens that many of the big stories of the last five years involve startups that rocketed to multibillion-dollar valuations only to collapse under the weight of unsustainable growth, executive misconduct and mismanagement, and/or fraud.

This spring saw the release of three major TV shows that depict the rises and falls of three such companies and their troubled founder/CEO leaders: “Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber” (Showtime), “WeCrashed” (Apple TV+), and “…

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