'Halt and Catch Fire' (Fictional but good)
'Sillicon Valley' (Fictional and comedy but also good)
'The Playlist' (About Spotify, which isn't failure)
The Profit* is pretty interesting. It's like the shows where Gordon Ramsay goes into failing restaurants and tries to turn them around, except here the show's host tries to fix all kinds of local businesses. It's not about tech startups per se, but you still see a lot of common issues through the lens of local businesses: founder disputes, poor unit economics, bad marketing, etc. It's a little cheesy, but pretty good overall!<p>* <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Profit_(TV_series)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Profit_(TV_series)</a>
"The Aviator" [1] about Howard Hughes? Love to also talk about real startups movies without failure as a main theme. For example, "The Social Network" (includes Winklevoss and Eduardo Saverin "failures"). We have other non-fictional ones such as "The Founder" [2] about McDonalds. Classic: "Pirates of Silicon Valley". Ford v Ferrari (amazing if you have not seen it) [3].<p>And what about "Citizen Kane" [4]? The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg's biography. Have not watched entirely the last ones about Steve Jobs, I don't think they captured the real character and complex personality.<p>Bigger lists tagged startup in IMDB [5] and company [6]. Most of them are based on fiction.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338751/" rel="nofollow">https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338751/</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Founder" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Founder</a><p>[3] <a href="https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_v_Ferrari" rel="nofollow">https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_v_Ferrari</a><p>[4] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane</a><p>[5] <a href="https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=startup" rel="nofollow">https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=startup</a><p>[6] <a href="https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=company" rel="nofollow">https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=company</a>
This needs to be made. I am often contemplating writing down my startup story which almost killed me (ambulances with sirens, multiple times) and then failed. I really think people should document the actual stories.<p>Also kitchen nightmares/hotel hell for companies. It would be a hit, but without the woke American additions; just go full Ramsey UK style.
One of the funny/sad consequences of watching Silicon Valley, is that a lot of my friends (in my African country where only 4% has electricity) think that the startup need to expand no matter what, even if it has no viable business model, you can run a "budgetivore" business for many years like Linkedin/Amazon and in the end you will find a business model.<p>So imagine. Instead of building good and sound startups that can be champions in the country/region, they waste the meager resources available in the country on fake startups/crypto-scams.<p>Sad.
The "problem" is we really are in an technology revolution similar to the industrial revolution 200-300 years ago. For every 100 tech startup businesses that don't generate a penny of profit and are propped up by hyper valuations and stock prices, there are companies like Facebook and Google and Apple that absolutely print money in profits.<p>That in turn covers the outlay by venture money. All those companies that burn money in fire pits are essentially subsidized by the staggering amount of money that some new companies only recently formed in the past 20 years are printing.<p>Spray and pray and see what sticks for investors will work in this type of rapid revolutionary environment.
Jungle Town is a docuseries about a charismatic eco-evangelicist/property developer who charges interns $5000 to help build his sustainable village in the Panama jungle.<p>The interesting thing about the doco is that the film maker seems to get converted midway. At the start the founder is portrayed as a obvious charlatan but by the end he is presented in a much more favorable light.
For anyone who wants to see how crazy it can get, there's a documentary called Riot On! from 2004 that follows a company that "needed to grow" because of hot money - <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427783/" rel="nofollow">https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427783/</a><p>Highly recommend.
On „General Magic“, recently read „Build“ by Tony Fadell. I can recommend that for people interested in building startups. Will also give a bit more background on General Magic
Nothing in American culture today is mythologized more than the startup. It represents the acme of all our ambitions, hopes, and trust in the future. In the United States, people don't expect the government to bring them a better world, they expect companies to do that, and the younger, hotter, and cooler those who create the company, the better.
There’s also a great doco about Enron - nearly two hours long.<p><a href="https://watchdocumentaries.com/enron-the-smartest-guys-in-the-room/" rel="nofollow">https://watchdocumentaries.com/enron-the-smartest-guys-in-th...</a>
Not a TV series, but an interesting documentary about Makani, a failed wind energy startup funded by X: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd_hEja6bzE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd_hEja6bzE</a>
Startup.com is also a good watch (although more dated) <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fd8pdniJZk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fd8pdniJZk</a>
For a show on Startups but failure of its CEO but not the company, Superpumped is a great watch. It documents the rise of Uber and the fall of Travis Kalanic. It's based off the book of the same name, although I can't vouch for either's veracity outside of what made headlines.<p><a href="https://g.co/kgs/vkMuCR" rel="nofollow">https://g.co/kgs/vkMuCR</a>
The other day, I was watching the movie, Mr. Jones. It occurred to me then that Vanessa Kirby would be the best person (by appearance, at least) to play Elizabeth Holmes. But I see that ship has sailed.
> millions of people's health and lives were put in danger due to inaccurate blood test results<p>A bit of hyperbole there. It was only used in some Walgreen's in Phoenix.