From heroes to villains, Hollywood sheds light on fallen tech titans

# Hollywood’s tech heroes turn villains
Hollywood has found its new favourite villain: the onetime heroes of Silicon Valley.
From convicted biotech fraudster Elizabeth Holmes to Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, screens are filled with figures who wowed the world — and markets — with promises of innovation.
“These figures used to be more on the aspirational side”, Monica Castillo, film critic for The A V Club, said.
“They were larger-than-life figures who bootstrapped their way to multibillion-dollar companies, and they were kind of seen as heroes who were like changing the world”, she said.
“Then now... there’s sort of a level of disillusionment”.
Castillo said audiences are asking “harder questions” of their tech heroes.
Silicon Valley was once associated with progressive entrepreneurs whose politics appeared aligned with their innovative ambitions. Lately, however, many industry leaders have embraced US President Donald Trump and his “America First” policies.

“Musk”, Alex Gibney’s four-hour documentary, examines the SpaceX and Tesla chief’s career, from his beginnings as a tech entrepreneur to his alliance with Trump and the Republican Party.
Also in theatres is “The Social Reckoning”, Aaron Sorkin’s follow-up to “The Social Network”.
Instead of tracing Zuckerberg’s rise, Sorkin focuses on Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, played by Mikey Madison, and her revelations about the company’s practices, including how algorithms amplified hate speech to keep users engaged.
Both films explore how their subjects accumulated enough power to influence US policy, with consequences worldwide.
Holmes receives similarly critical scrutiny in “You Can See Everything”, which chronicles the downfall of the Theranos founder.
Her company promised to conduct numerous medical tests using only a few drops of blood. It failed to deliver, and Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for fraud and conspiracy.

In the 34 days before entering a Texas prison, Holmes opened her home to co-directors Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, hoping to tell her story. They eventually moved in.
The resulting blend of documentary and reality television is generating Oscars buzz.
Meanwhile, Luca Guadagnino’s fictional drama “Artificial” stars Andrew Garfield as OpenAI chief Altman, whose company developed ChatGPT.
Matt Neglia, editor in chief of Next Best Picture, described it as “as entertaining as it is terrifying”.
For J M Tyree, a cinema professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and editor in chief of Film Quarterly, these stories reflect broader public unease.
“Popular movies always are reflecting these social anxieties of the day”, he said.
“Right now, people are really worried about power being concentrated into the hands of just a few individuals at the expense of most of the rest of the citizens”.
Audiences have lost faith in “zillionaire tech moguls”, he added, questioning both their wealth and their products’ social impact.
Tyree also contrasts them with earlier industrialists who established museums and libraries, suggesting today’s technology leaders show less interest in philanthropy.
Castillo believes filmmakers are seeking “some sort of accountability for all the damage” attributed to these powerful figures.
“The only way that they can punch back is through their movies”, she said. — AFP