Today I received The Atlantic Memo introducing an article by Lora Kelley titled “Silicon Valley may never learn its lesson”. The memo reads in part, “Last week, Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty of seven charges related to the undoing of FTX; his combined charges carry a maximum sentence of 110 years. But the sudden collapse of a wildly successful company is unlikely to alter Silicon Valley’s “founder-friendly” attitude, which values a single individual’s confidence and mythmaking above much else,” Lora Kelley writes. Crypto may now be over, but generative AI is on the horizon—with Silicon Valley investors eager to once again jump into the fray.
I agree that Silicon Valley may never learn its lesson, but I think Silicon Valley per se is not the problem. The problem is the people who want to make quick money and will break every ethical rule in order to achieve fame and fortune. The same thing happened to Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, who was convicted of fraud to over 11 years in prison. She went from being the “youngest and wealthiest self-made billionaire in the United States” in 2015 according to Forbes to Fortune magazine naming her “The World’s 19 Most Disappointing Leaders” in 2016.1 Fortune magazine was right when they named her a “disappointing leader”. I mentioned in other posts about bad leadership and how bad leadership is the result, in most cases, of bad followership. Bad leadership is divided into seven types: incompetent, rigid, intemperate, callous, corrupt, insular, and evil. Clearly, Bank-Fried and Holmes fall into the corrupt category.
In both Bankman and Holmes’ cases, the main fault lies with the people who enabled their corruption and behavior. Bankman-Fried spent a lot of time in Congress lobbying politicians and explaining what constructive things could be done on crypto policies and how to provide federal oversight.2 In the case of Elizabeth Holmes, she recruited influential people including Henry Kissinger, James Mattis, and Betsy DeVos. All these experienced and highly qualified individuals trusted in the “qualifications” and “intelligence” of these young entrepreneurs without testing and thoroughly checking their background. These influential people should have waited for Holmes and Bankman-Fried to mature and grow in their sectors before jumping into the fray.
Silicon Valley is an area where a lot of technology is being developed and a lot of decent and smart people are working pretty hard to come up with ideas to improve our quality of life. We do not want to disrupt the work that is being done there, but people need to understand that quick and easy money is not possible. Of course, unless you break the rules, but again, sooner or later you are going to get caught.
It takes time to build a fortune. Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Steve Jobs worked very hard to establish their ideas and it took them a lifetime to build their wealth. So, knowing that, why are people so gullible?
Thoughts about leadership, history, and more 