Blood, sweatshops, and millionaire tears

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Today’s issue features a gossip trifecta:

• Justice being served

• A public dragging

• The return of a scammer

Blood

Elizabeth Holmes – founder of health tech startup Theranos, deep voice aficionado, and prison BFF of former Real Housewife of SLC, Jen Shah – lost an appeal to have her 2022 fraud conviction overturned.

To recap Ms. Lizzie’s hijinks: 

• Claimed that Theranos had developed a “revolutionary blood analyzer” that could run any blood test from a drop of blood (it couldn’t)

• Led investors to believe the Theranos analyzer was running accurate blood test results (it wasn’t)

• And despite this, she convinced investors to give her hundreds of millions to back the company (girl boss!)

Sweatshops

On Monday, Y Combinator, a popular startup accelerator and VC firm, posted a demo from Optifye.ai (catchy name 🙄) that caught a lot of backlash and was ultimately taken down.

According to its profile on the YC website:

The demo in question showed a badly scripted convo between a factory boss, a line supervisor, and a line worker.

The fictional boss calls the supervisor about a low-performing worker spotted by Optifye’s AI-powered security cameras. The demo (and company) quickly got called out for being a Sweatshop-as-a-Service, among other things.

But others noted that this type of work surveillance software isn’t new – and it’s already being used and has a market fit. The disconnect probably comes from the fact that Americans generally dislike the idea of being surveilled by AI at work.

According to TechCrunch, neither Y Combinator or Optifye have responded to requests for comment. 

IDK much about YC but dang, y’all really aren’t gonna stand by your investment?

I mean, I personally think it’s a creepy dystopian Big Brother-y nightmare, but aren’t YOU the ones who promoted it in the first place?!

Millionaire tears

Billy McFarland is back, babyyyy!

Fyre Festival 2 is officially in the works, set to be held May 30-June 2 on Isla Mujeres in Mexico.

ICYMI, the OG Fyre Festival took place in 2017 and was marked by such tragedies as gross sandwiches, soggy mattresses, and not enough toilets. 

The spectacle went viral partly because of the hype around the event (including celebrity promotions) and partly because of the schadenfreude of watching rich kids get scammed for tickets up to $12k.

General access tickets for Fyre Festival 2 start at $1,400 per person. Ja Rule appears to be sitting this one out. 

As always,

ALLEGEDLY 💋

Hey, I’m Amber! I’m a freelance content marketer/consultant and aspiring humorist. You can find me on LinkedIn, Medium, Bluesky, and my website. If you really like what I’m doing, you can buy me a coffee.