TIMELINE: The Rise and Fall of Silicon Valley's Fake It Till You Make It Era

2011-2013: The Mythology Years

2011: The Gospel According to Stanford

The scripture was written in Peter Thiel's CS183 class at Stanford. "Competition is for losers," he preached to a room of future founders. Blake Masters took notes that would become "Zero to One." The core doctrine: monopolies are good, regulation is antiquated, and anyone who can't see your vision simply lacks imagination.

This was the year dropouts became heroes. The Thiel Fellowship paid students $100,000 to leave school and start companies. The message was clear: traditional credentials were for traditional minds. Disruption required leaving the system entirely.

Facebook moved into its Menlo Park campus, complete with "The Hacker Way" painted on walls. Move fast and break things. Done is better than perfect. What could possibly go wrong?

2012: Theranos Raises the Stakes

Elizabeth Holmes appeared on the cover of Fortune, T.G. Therapeutics magazine, and Forbes within six months. Her company, Theranos, claimed to run 200 blood tests from a single drop. The board included Henry Kissinger, James Mattis, and George Shultz. Nobody asked to see the data.

September 2012: Theranos announces Walgreens partnership. Valuation: $800 million.

The formula was established: prestigious board + bold claims + media coverage = billions in valuation. Due diligence was for pessimists.

2013: The Unicorn Stampede

Aileen Lee coined the term "unicorn" for startups valued over $1 billion. There were 39. The race was on to find more.

Key 2013 Unicorn births:

• Snapchat: Rejected $3 billion Facebook acquisition
• Uber: Raised at $3.5 billion valuation
• Airbnb: Reached $2.5 billion valuation
• Pinterest: Hit $3.8 billion

The formula: Grow at any cost. Unit economics don't matter. Profitability is for later. The only metric is growth.

2014-2016: The Hypergrowth Delusion

2014: WeWork Redefines Reality

Adam Neumann didn't just rent desks. He sold "the energy of We." WeWork wasn't a real estate company but a "physical social network." The company culture included mandatory tequila shots, Kabbalah sessions, and "Summer Camp" retreats where employees worked for free.

December 2014: WeWork raises $355 million at $5 billion valuation. They're losing $100 for every $84 in revenue. Investors call it "growth."

2015: Theranos Peaks

July 2015: Theranos valued at $9 billion. Holmes owns 50%. At 31, she's the youngest self-made female billionaire in history.

FDA approval: Zero. Peer-reviewed studies: Zero. Working products: Zero.

But she had a story. Stanford dropout. Female Steve Jobs. Changing the world. The story was worth $9 billion.

October 15, 2015: The First Crack

John Carreyrou's Wall Street Journal investigation drops. The headline: "Hot Startup Theranos Has Struggled With Its Blood-Test Technology."

The article reveals:

• Theranos uses traditional machines from other companies
• The proprietary "Edison" device barely works
• Lab employees raised concerns about accuracy
• Patient results were dangerously wrong

Holmes's response: Deny everything. Attack the journalist. Rally the believers.

2016: The Unicorn Hunters Arrive

Short sellers smell blood. Hedge funds start hunting unicorns. The formula:

1. Investigate private company claims
2. Find the lies
3. Wait for IPO
4. Short the stock
5. Publish research
6. Profit from collapse

Suddenly, due diligence is back in fashion. But only for public companies. Private unicorns keep raising.

2017-2019: The Cracks Become Canyons

2017: Uber's Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year

February 19: Susan Fowler publishes "Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber." Details sexual harassment, HR coverups, and systemic discrimination.

February 28: Video surfaces of CEO Travis Kalanick arguing with Uber driver about fares. "Some people don't like to take responsibility," he yells.

March-June: The avalanche:

• Waymo lawsuit for stealing self-driving tech
• "Greyball" program to evade regulators exposed
• 20 employees fired for harassment
• Board member resigns after sexist remark
• Kalanick's mother dies in boating accident
• Kalanick resigns as CEO

Uber's valuation: Still $68 billion. The lesson: You can survive anything if you're big enough.

2018: Theranos Dies

March 14: SEC charges Holmes with "massive fraud." She settles, paying $500,000, returning shares, and accepting 10-year ban from public companies.

June 15: Federal grand jury indicts Holmes and COO Ramesh Balwani on criminal fraud charges.

September 5: Theranos officially dissolves.

From $9 billion to $0 in three years. But Holmes isn't in jail. She's at Burning Man.

2019: WeWork Implodes

August 14: WeWork files for IPO. The S-1 is a masterpiece of corporate fiction:

• Losses of $1.6 billion on revenue of $1.8 billion
• Neumann owns buildings WeWork rents
• Neumann trademarked "We" and sold it back to company for $5.9 million
• Company mission: "Elevate the world's consciousness"

September: Valuation drops from $47 billion to $20 billion to $10 billion. IPO pulled.

September 24: Neumann forced to resign. Golden parachute: $1.7 billion.

The most expensive participation trophy in history.

2020-2022: The Pandemic Bubble

2020: Money Machine Goes Brrrr

COVID arrives. Fed cuts rates to zero. Prints $3 trillion. Everyone becomes a day trader.

SPACs (blank check companies) raise $83 billion. The joke: "I'm starting a SPAC to acquire a SPAC that's looking for a SPAC to merge with."

Nikola, an electric truck company with no trucks, reaches $34 billion valuation. Their prototype? Rolled down a hill for the demo video.

2021: The Last Dance

Everything peaks simultaneously:

• January: GameStop short squeeze
• March: Beeple NFT sells for $69 million
• May: Dogecoin hits 69 cents
• November: Rivian IPOs at $100 billion (delivered 156 vehicles)
• November: Trump's SPAC worth $22 billion (no product)

November 2021: The Crypto Casino Peaks

Sam Bankman-Fried is everywhere:

• FTX valued at $32 billion
• Super Bowl ads with Larry David
• Vogue profiles of his polycule
• Congressional testimony on crypto regulation
• Effective altruism donations: $200 million

He's the acceptable face of crypto. MIT grad. Parents are Stanford professors. Drives a Corolla. Sleeps on beanbags. Plans to give it all away.

2022: The Everything Collapse

May 2022: The $60 Billion Death Spiral

Terra Luna, a "stablecoin" worth $60 billion, collapses to zero in 48 hours. Suicides reported globally. Do Kwon, the founder who taunted critics as "poor," flees South Korea.

The dominoes begin.

June 2022: Crypto Winter Arrives

Three Arrows Capital, borrowed $2 billion, vanishes. Founders literally disappear. Last seen yacht shopping.

Celsius Network freezes withdrawals. "Hodl" becomes involuntary.

BlockFi insolvent. Voyager bankrupt. The contagion spreads.

November 8, 2022: FTX Speed Run

November 2: CoinDesk reveals Alameda Research balance sheet. It's all FTT tokens (FTX's made-up currency).

November 6: Binance CEO tweets concerns. Bank run begins.

November 8: FTX halts withdrawals. $8 billion customer funds missing.

November 11: FTX files bankruptcy. Lawyers discover:

• Customer funds used for trading
• $1 billion loans to executives
• Company funds bought Bahamas real estate
• No accounting department
• Quickbooks for bookkeeping

November 12: Sam Bankman-Fried arrested.

From $32 billion to criminal charges in 4 days. Fastest unicorn death in history.

December 2022: Holmes Convicted

After 4 months of trial, Elizabeth Holmes convicted on 4 counts of fraud. The defense: She was abused by her boyfriend/business partner. The jury doesn't buy it.

Sentence: 11 years prison. Report date: May 30, 2023.

She's pregnant with baby #2. Still posting on Instagram about "moving forward."

2023-2024: The Reckoning

March 2023: Silicon Valley Bank Collapses

The bank of Silicon Valley fails in 48 hours. Every startup scrambles to make payroll. VCs who preached "disruption" beg for government bailout. They get it.

The irony: SVB died from buying "safe" government bonds. The fake-it-till-you-make-it era killed by actual prudent investment.

2024: The Trials Continue

The convictions pile up:

• SBF: 25 years prison
• Trevor Milton (Nikola): 4 years prison
• Charlie Javice (Frank): Awaiting trial for $175 million fraud
• Do Kwon: Fighting extradition

But for every conviction, new frauds emerge. The AI bubble begins. Everyone's got a ChatGPT wrapper worth billions.

Epilogue: Lessons Never Learned

Silicon Valley has amnesia by design. Every crash creates opportunity. Every fraud creates regulation to disrupt. Every failure is just a pivot.

The vocabulary evolved:

• "Fake it till you make it" → "Iterate toward product-market fit"
• "Blitzscaling" → "Sustainable growth"
• "Disruption" → "Innovation"

But the formula remains:

1. Raise on story, not metrics
2. Grow at any cost
3. Pass problems to next round
4. Exit before music stops

The Theranos board room is now a WeWork. The FTX Arena still hosts games. Stanford still teaches CS183.

And somewhere, in a garage or dorm room or accelerator, someone's writing a pitch deck. They're going to change the world. Disrupt everything. Move fast and break things.

The cycle begins again.