Entrepreneurship = best binge of ’22

Of course 72 years later is no time to diss a Kurosawa classic But really Rashomon 1950 is an absolutely random moviemdashabout abduction and potential rape Which Irsquom quite sure most people havenrsquot watched But everyonersquos heard ofmdashfor lsquoRashomon Effectrsquo that the film introduced to storytellingWhich is The same story told by separate narrators as events change thereof each timemdash while the eventual outcome that is a death in Rashomon remains the same Whatrsquos the finest example of lsquoRashomon Effectrsquo since Gone Girl 2014 maybeUndoubtedly the Netflix series The Playlist 2022 Which is probably the coolest thing to come out of Sweden after Spotify The hugely entertaining semifictional show is on the founding of the cuttingedge clutterbombing musicapp Spotify itselfOnly that most such biopicsseries wedded to the lsquogreat man theoryrsquo focus on a persistent genius at the centremdashDaniel Ek spoton Edvin Endre founderCEO of Spotify here Which is simplistically enjoyable and saleable enoughExcept nothing of great significancemdashoutside of personal expressioninvention at most often not even thatmdashis ever the work of an individual alone Yup failures are orphans But success stories too change in a fairlegit way depending on whorsquos telling itThere is an episode each in The Playlist dedicated to multiple protagonistsmdashthe investor lawyer coder artiste beyond the foundermdashwho parented SpotifyAs it is if yoursquove spent most of your adult life socialising with talltalkers over tall glasses of beers regaling you with the great moneyspinning plansschemes in their headsmdashyoursquod know that ideas count for absolutely nothingAlso Read Meghan Markle on life in her neck of the woods and Archewells romcom plansOnly execution does Besides personal courage conviction a life with fewer strings attached etcmdashwhatrsquos the most likely impediment to the execution of a big idea Money of courseWhere does big money come from if you donrsquot have it already Now thatrsquos the multibilliondollar overleveragedunderestimated evaluation question with startups in the 21st Centuryrsquos techspace isnrsquot itTherersquos a telling scene at a restaurant in The Playlist where the platformrsquos phenomenally nutso investor Christian Hillborg Martin Lorentzon explains how all this works We should be listeningBasically a restaurant makes simple profit from that average Joe who orders the same stuff for himself every time But do they care No Their attention is on the table piling up the entire menu starting with the dessert Obviously someone has to pay the bill SureBut by the time the bill comes itrsquos time to order dessert againmdashthose on the table have moved to another level The public too wants to be only on the table with goodies piled up Ultimately I suspect someday into the future they pay for what was ordered Call that the IPO or lsquogoing publicrsquo Makes senseAlong the way with cash and its merciless burnrate and the incessant megalomaniagreed that follows whatever happens to ethics original purposeidea Theyrsquore all thereItrsquos just that cannibalism appears to be capitalismrsquos default position No matter how much of a dogooder you start out as yoursquoll end up in a similar place lsquotake the money or keep the companyrsquoPlaylist is set in Stockholm Take this universal story about ideas investors and their expectations raise it to the power lsquoxrsquo it becomes Silicon Valley doesnrsquot itmdashwhere Amazon is North Star Apple the ultimate fruit of successGoogle is the guiding light and Zuckerberg just Zeus I guess In fact if you bring Spotifyrsquos primary investor Christian Hillborg from Playlist over to NYC he could easily replace the magical maverick Jared Leto as the WeWork founder Adam Neumann in Apple TVrsquos stellar biographical series WeCrashed 2022Travis Kalanick the Uber founder features prominently in WeCrashed Both WeWork and Uber share the same VC fund Benchmark while we hear of other biggies Sequoia Google Ventures Soft Bank so much to learn from showsLikewise Spotify founder Daniel Ek from Playlist is mentioned in the similarly stunning series Super Pumped 2022 on Vootmdashon the life of Uberrsquos Kalanick played by Joseph GordonLevitt This is where you take a ride through Silicon Valley witnessing its superstars Sergey Brin Larry Page Google Tim Cook Apple Ariana Huffington Huffington PosthellipThe ecosystem is complete Whatrsquos common to the three kinetically engaging TV dramas They reflect the spirit of the timesmdashof superyoung focussed techbros with lsquosaviour complexrsquo and slightly sociopathic tendencies cloaked in laudable ambition They go from superstardom to villainy even irrelevance in a few years flatItrsquos bust or boom Uber Spotify WeWork are success stories on the face of it What did their founders have in common fortitude How long does that lastI suppose the only other startups on steroids where technology and talents have traditionally combined for seemingly shortterm results is the movies Over there the actual rockstarentrepreneur is the producer who nobody knowsNot even if yoursquove literally shed blood sweat and tears to make The Godfather 1972 for Godrsquos sake Thatrsquos what The Offer 2022 on Vootmdashfinest series on the making of a filmmdashshows us about the unsung hero Albert S Ruddy Miles Teller Here you go then do yourself a favour if you havenrsquot already Playlist WeCrashed Super Pumped The Offer Binge them backtoback from the same yearThank me laterMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper