Do we tell half-truths?

This year, there has been a stand-out new genre on streaming services: the scammer show.

These dramatic reconstructions of ‘fake it until you make it’ chart the rise and fall of charismatic individuals who persuaded people to depart with eye-watering sums of money. Among them, Inventing Anna is the story of the fake German heiress Anna Sorokin, WeCrashed tells of the Neumans who raised billions of dollars whilst running at a colossal loss and, in my opinion, the best, The Dropout charts the fall of the biotech company Theranos and its founder Elizabeth Holmes.

Elizabeth Holmes claimed to have developed a way to simplify diagnostic blood testing and raised more than $400 million for her tech firm. However, the technology did not exist, and she was convicted of fraud in January. She is currently awaiting sentencing. Why were people taken in? It is too simplistic to say greed. Money played a part, but it is more complex than that. People wanted to believe the story of the brilliant young woman who would transform health care – the archetypal ‘girl boss’. They wanted to be part of her revolution to change the world and were seduced by her articulate and persuasive personality. They embraced her vision – ‘a world in which no one ever has to say goodbye too soon’. The media loved her, as did the American elite; Presidents feted her. From Rupert Murdoch to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, influential people were taken in. But it was all image, not substance; lies and half-truths. She had created a brand, not a reality. Her story is a tale as old as time. It is the story of the destructive power of lies.