The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley dropped last night on HBO. The documentary chronicles the fall of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, from Stanford dropout wunderkind to Scooby-Doo villain with her mask pulled off to reveal … just her face. (In the documentary, multiple people who worked with Homes recall that she did not appear to blink — a creepy habit the minds behind the movie exploit for dramatic effect ad nauseam.) All of this is very interesting and you should definitely watch, if only because it’s two hours of listening to Holmes speak in a baritone voice we now know is fake.
The real star of The Inventor, however, is not necessarily the woman behind the blood-testing start-up once valued at $9 billion and now worth less than nothing. It’s Tim Draper, an early investor in Theranos who, despite fraud charges, continues to defend Holmes. (Draper, a venture capitalist, invested $500,000 in seed money in the company’s early days — which is to say, in the grand scheme of things, he didn’t lose that much money when things went south compared to others, like Betsy Devos, who invested hundreds of millions.) Why is Draper the star? His stupid tie. I have no idea what he said in any of his clips in the documentary because I was too focused on the fact that he chose to wear a bright purple tie covered in the Bitcoin logo.
This is apparently not the first time Draper has thought, Hey, this would be a great moment for my sweet Bitcoin tie. He appeared on Fox News with Tucker Carlson — there’s a whole lot to unpack there, but we’re just going to punt on it — wearing the tie while discussing Draper’s plan for dividing California into, uh, three states.
Want to shop the look? It’ll cost you $44.30 on Zazzle to look as dumb as this guy. No defending a known huckster necessary.
