The bad side of tech and entrepreneurial dreams inspire multiple new shows on streaming

When Micheal Douglas suavely proclaimed “Greed is Good’, Wall Street by Oliver Stone skyrocketed across Western hemisphere movie theatres and became a cult on VHS. Something about money-chasing, greed fuelled and arrogant, compulsive individuals seeking to become incredibly rich through new-age businesses or industry makes for addictive viewing. This has fuelled a slew of expensive, stylised, and star-studded shows on OTT focused on the bad guys of tech. And each show whets an appetite to observe, understand and savour this new world of tech-driven, terminologically confusing but creatively inspiring times that we live in.

Super Pumped, the Showtime series streaming on VOOT is the perfect example. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Travis Kalanick, the unlikeable, egotistic tech magnate that built Uber, who bent rules of the game and fought against almost everyone that mattered to keep his company afloat. Gordon-Levitt has delivered genuine caffeine pumped, obsessive, almost exhausting performance — making Kalanick true to life and fascinating. But what keeps Super Pumped going is the near impossibility of these ambitions and massive egos that sustain the mania of creating a first-of-its-kind global corporation.

The fuel behind Kalanick’s ego is his ability to envisage a business that never existed and to take it everywhere. Dramatic and a little tiring at 8 episodes, this show offers the viewer an inside view into the unpleasant and compulsive nature of tech disruptors and the toxic work culture that they create over time. Featuring Kyle Chandler (Bill Gurley,  VC partner to Kalanick) and Uma Thurman speaking in an odd Greek accent (Arianna Huffington, Kalanick’s mentor), it assimilates a cast of unpleasant, driven individuals whose choices and decisions give an insight into the adrenaline-driven nature of tech unicorns.  Kalanick would bend laws and pay little heed to codes of conduct but he will build his company, regardless of the human or repetitional cost.

The show’s creators, Brian Koppelman and David Levien, who have also co-created Billions (Hotstar), along with Andrew Sorkin, a similar ego-driven series about the world of complex high finance and fund management in New York City; versus a wily state attorney. While Billions entertained with fast-paced verbal volleys amongst its characters for a while, it has now spiralled into a morass of indulgent prolonged ego battles that don’t always hold attention. Super Pumped wrapped up the Uber story with its first season, and the second will be about the Facebook internal conflict between Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg.  Tech scandals and stories seem to have found steady viewership on cable TV and streaming for these shows to be commissioned repeatedly.

From a similar world but about a person without a moral compass is The Dropout from HBO. streaming on Hotstar. This series mystifies you because it compels you to watch the story of an over ambitious and unlikeable protagonist in Elizabeth Holmes. Amanda Seyfriend has played the young Stanford dropout who was always in a tearing hurry to become a billionaire. She is aided by an able cast of supporting actors.

Holmes’ company, Theranos, claimed to offer over 90 diagnostic tests at home with just a drop of blood. Well funded, supported by venture capital and private equity, Holmes built a so-called breakthrough company and became a business celebrity of sorts, making it to magazine covers and high-profile industry events. Only when the information about the complete disregard for laws and rules emerged, did it become clear that Theranos was lying about its technology and engaging in criminal misuse of their investor money. Their product could kill and make people sick by offering wrong results. Watching this series is also a lesson on the gullibility and silliness of super-wealthy investors and men in power. It even has an episode titled ‘Old White Men’. All it took for a young, decent-looking young wannabe billionaire was to borrow Steve Jobs’ black turtleneck and mannerisms and a fake deep voice to garner millions in investments from top VC firms; and superstores. Holmes is nearly down and out now with her company on the last legs and her activities being called out as criminal by lawmakers. Just a few years back when she was on the rise no one questioned her claims and put her on a pedestal of super success.

Apple TV + recently released the story of the infamous WeWork and its near-failure under the leadership of eccentric entrepreneur Adam Neumann. The series titled, WeCrashed, features Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway along with other top actors in an incredible story of partying frenzy, hyperbolic personalities, and impossible claims to ‘disrupting’ ways of urban life. This is yet another story of a star entrepreneur, clamouring for tech and unicorn recognition, shockingly failing to keep control of a company that he built along with his partner in love Rebekah Neumann.

The common thread in these series is the sheer free reign that these new-age entrepreneurs have had from the media, common people, and industry leaders. There’s little accountability and lots of hype. By the time truth emerges and flaws show up, they've already created room for others to dream about changing the way we live without willing to do the legwork. All the same these shows remain chronicles of times that we live in and serve an important balancing voice in a universe of hype.

(Views expressed in this piece are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of OTTplay)

(Written by Archita Kashyap, she has tracked cinema, music, and entertainment for a long time. She loves stories in any format and believes that OTT is the next change-maker that will bring the best stories for everyone.)