Elizabeth Holmes on Friday was sentenced by a California judge to 11 years and three months in prison for defrauding investors in her failed blood-testing company, Theranos.
Why it matters: This is the end of a years-long saga that saw the celebrated startup founder become a cautionary tale of Silicon Valley's "fake it 'til you make it" culture.
Friday's sentencing of Elizabeth Holmes serves as a reminder of the danger of showing blind faith in promising business leaders with inadequate oversight.
Why it matters: The demise of Holmes — the disgraced leader of once-heralded blood-testing startup Theranos — and this month's implosion of FTX illustrate the real-world consequences of giving even the most captivating leaders too much leeway to do their own thing.
SmileDirectClub is rolling out new technology that it says will allow you to use its app to 3D-scan your mouth and get a teeth-straightening plan using AI.
Elon Musk capped off another chaotic week leading Twitter by posting a 24-hour "poll" Friday night asking his followers to vote yes or no on whether the company should reinstate former President Trump's account.
The latest: More than 1 million votes were cast within the first 30 minutes of the tweet's posting. Musk then added a second message reading "Vox Populi, Vox Dei" — Latin for "the voice of the people is the voice of God."
Ticketmaster's site crashed for many people when pre-sales for Taylor Swift's upcoming tour began Tuesday and the blowback has been massive ... and swift.
Catch up quick: The stock price of Live Nation, which merged with Ticketmaster in 2010, fell nearly 9% after the New York Times reported that the Justice Department has been investigating the companies for months. It recovered slightly to close down 7.9%.
Stores are facing a very different kind of problem this holiday season: They have too much to sell.
The big picture The supply-chain woes that thwarted holiday shoppers last year are mostly resolved. Instead, Walmart, Target and Kohl's are among major chains that have reported surging inventory levels as people stopped shopping for stay-at-home products like pajamas and electronics.
Elon Musk on Friday announced Twitter would deemphasize "hate" or "negative" tweets and that it has reinstated some accounts that had been suspended both before and after Musk acquired the company.
Why it matters:Musk originally said he wouldn't make any new content moderation decisions until a new "content moderation council" with "diverse views" convenes.
Binance and OKX yesterday suspended deposits in Circle's (USDC) and Tether's (USDT) stablecoins based on the Solana blockchain, in a puzzling display of crypto exchange operations.
Why it matters: The top two dollar-pegged stablecoins by market capitalization are listed on dozens of exchanges, but the sudden, unexplained actions taken by a few of those exchanges raise the question of how stable the Solana ecosystem is.
Taylor Swift made her first public comments Friday on the controversy over her Eras Tour presale, saying it was "excruciating for me to just watch mistakes happen with no recourse."
Why it matters: The presale for Taylor Swift's upcoming Eras Tour was marred by technical glitches from Ticketmaster and led to a canceled general public sale, prompting an outcry among fans.
The Securities Commission of the Bahamas announced today that it had moved FTX Digital Markets (FDM) assets to wallets in the control of the government agency.
The big picture: A venue battle over the FTX bankruptcy is underway. A filing yesterday sought to bring proceedings under the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.
The question of whether tickets for sporting events are getting cheaper or more expensive is complicated to answer.
What's going on: According to the official Consumer Price Index, there is major deflation happening in this category: The cost of admission to sporting events fell 18% (!!) in October from the same time last year. But private sector data suggests the opposite.
The market is actually up this month, but bearish bets are building fast.
The big picture: A measure of sentiment from the options markets shows that bets on falling stock prices have sharply outpaced those expecting prices to rise.
Target has released details about the annual Black Friday week sale, which the retailer is calling its largest ever.
Why it matters: Thursday's holiday shopping announcement comes a day after Target CEO Brian Cornell said during an earnings call that "consumers are showing increasing signs of stress and pulling back from discretionary purchases."
The now-bankrupt FTX’s new CEO, John Ray III, introduced himself with a bang Thursday.
Driving the news: Four business days after FTX filed a surprise Chapter 11 case, it finally filed its "first day declaration," a document in which the company’s executives tell the full backstory about why it sought bankruptcy protection.
John Ray III, now the CEO of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, also helped clean up one of corporate America’s biggest collapses 20 years ago: Enron. History isn't repeating, per se, but it rhymes.
Why it matters: If FTX's blowup is anything like Enron's, that means big changes are on the horizon for the systems that enabled the crypto company's rise and fall.
The astonishing collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX is casting new light on an endorsement deal Pistons star Cade Cunningham signed last year, Crain's reports.
Attendance is sluggish at movies and museums, but people are flocking to "immersive" shows that let them walk around (virtually) in a Van Gogh painting, King Tut's tomb or a surreal fantasy world.
Why it matters: People are yearning to ditch their sofas and phone screens for transcendent experiences that let them move around and mingle, untethered from a theater seat or virtual reality headset.
Elon Musk's Twitter tenure faced a new level of crisis Thursday evening as a large number of employees apparently chose to quit rather than accept the new owner's ultimatum to sign up for "extremely hardcore" conditions with "long hours at high intensity."
By the numbers: There's no way to know for sure how many employees remain at Twitter, but Musk had already laid off roughly half the social media company's 7,500 workers.
"Bae," "vax," "verbing" and "zonkey" are among some 500 new words added to the Scrabble dictionary.
Driving the news: TheMerriam-Webster Dictionary released its seventh edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary this week, adding new words to the game for the first time since 2018.
This article originally appeared in Axios Finish Line, our nightly newsletter on life, leadership and wellness.Sign up here.
Four years ago, a 14-year-old boy who had lost both parents dropped abruptly into our laps, Jim writes.
We knew Kelvin from years earlier, when he played soccer with our biological son. We had mostly lost contact.
Yet here he was, asking if we would take him in. Four days later, his uncle was at our door — a box with a birth certificate and other papers in hand, and Kelvin in tow.
Why it matters: The company confirmed on Wednesday that it had started to lay off staff, which the New York Times estimates to be roughly 10,000 people — its largest ever round of cuts.
