A couple years ago, a friend recommended what he said was a fascinating HBO documentary, The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley. And he also recommended a book on it all – Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou, which came first. In fact, Carreyrou initially wrote the story as a series of articles for which he won the Polk Award. (Previously, he shared a Pulitzer Prize for another series on corporate scandals.) I can’t recommend them both highly enough. They were both wonderfully done, and worked as companion pieces, even though I don’t believe they were related. Carreyrou’s book was meticulously researched, filled with material the documentary couldn’t begin to cover – in fact, he was called as a witness during her recent fraud trial. Where the documentary shined was that she had so much of her work videotaped that it’s remarkable how much footage is available. And so you get to see her in action – which is very important to the story, especially if you only saw coverage of her at the trail. A point that Carreyrou makes is that she consciously patterned herself on Steve Jobs, down her clothes, the black turtleneck, her tight hairstyle, lowering her voice and even training herself not to blink. So, seeing her in action adds something the wonderful book can’t show. To those interested, you can get the book here. I didn’t follow the trail closely, but because of the book and documentary, I did stay on top of it to a reasonable degree. And the verdict came down yesterday that she was found guilty on four counts, and not guilty on four other charges – and the jury was deadlocked on three. My view and my friends overlapped, though we had a slight divergence – he thought it was a scam with her from early on, perhaps even the beginning. I felt she seemed well-meaning, though deluded in thinking she could develop what her supervisor said was physically not possible…but she got so deep into things that she probably (in part) convinced herself it would work and in larger part had to start lying and scamming so that the House of Cards she built wouldn’t fall apart. In either case, being found guilty on four counts seems justified. And that they didn’t convict her on seven of the charges perhaps suggests the jury agreed with him – though not necessarily, since they might have felt she was largely guilty but the government didn’t prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. CNN legal Elie Honig analyst had interesting comments on what he expected the penalty would be. He said – "All that matters here for sentencing purposes is the guilty counts. This is a maximum of 20 years, but in the federal system, we have this guidelines book. And the sentence — the recommended sentence is driven largely by how much loss there is. We are talking about a $140 million loss case. I did a quick calculation. That comes out to a recommended guidelines range of, conservatively ten years, potentially as high as 15 or 16 years depending on other enhancements. So she is looking at at least a decade behind bars under sentencing guidelines." I’m certain that we haven’t heard the last. No doubt she'll appeal, but I’m not sure what grounds she has for an appeal to succeed. And there’s also the upcoming trial of her former boyfriend and partner Sunny Balwani, who her lawyers tried to blame for it all. But that strategy clearly didn't succeed, and there would seem to be nothing that his trial can do to help her or her reputation -- after all, if the government thought she was just a victim they wouldn’t have gone after her, and his side is going to try and blame her for everything. So, yes, she’ll still be in the news. But other than the sentencing, I suspect her day in court is largely over. But we’ll see… I believe there are two movies being made about this all, one of which is for Apple Original Films based on John Carreyrou's book, Bad Blood. It's set to star Jennifer Lawrence, which I think is great casting. And directed and co-written (with Vanessa Taylor) by Adam McKay, who did The Big Short. This is the trailer for the original HBO documentary. You'll not only see how well-made it is, but also what I was talking about above with her -- and why Jennifer Lawrence is great casting. And if you do see the documentary, which is terrific, I can only repeat that Carreyrou's book adds so much more. And that’s the news from Today in Court…
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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