Why Hollywood is 'Super Pumped' for epic big-business flameouts of WeWork, Theranos and Uber

The bloodiest battles on streaming TV are being fought in the boardroom. 

The charismatic, hubristic leaders of formerly unicorn startup companies – and their rise and meteoric falls  – have earned series treatments starting with Showtime's "Super Pumped" (Sundays, 10 p.m. EDT/PDT), featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Uber founder Travis Kalanick.

Amanda Seyfried portrays disgraced Theranos CEO and founder Elizabeth Holmes in Hulu's limited series "The Dropout" (first three episodes streaming March 3, then weekly). And Jared Leto and Anne Hathaway round out the big-business streak as the power couple behind the shared workplace company WeWork in AppleTV+ "WeCrashed" (streaming first three episodes March 18, then weekly). 

Each ripped-from-the-headlines series is based on reported accounts, revealing classic themes of overarching ambition, power, greed, love and betrayal, not to mention epic blowout partying (like Uber's $25 million Las Vegas employee getaway, depicted in "Super Pumped" with a private Beyonce concert).

Showtime series 'Super Pumped':Will have you calling Lyft

But how are CEOs and their quest for world-changing domination the new war stories?

"From Shakespeare through the Greeks, writers are drawn to these high-profile and tragicomic storylines that are writ large in the public square," says Tom Nunan, former president of NBC Studios and a lecturer at UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. "There's a timeliness as these stories are now about the entrepreneurs, the whiz kids, the people making billions, sometimes with smoke and mirrors, and ultimately paying the consequences." 

"WeCrashed" executive producers Lee Eisenberg and Drew Crevello sold AppleTV+ on the series chronicling the precipitous fall of WeWork, once valued at more than $47 billion, and the mesmerizing duo of hard-partying CEO Adam Neumann (Leto) and his wife, Rebekah (Hathaway). 

"We've so mythologized Silicon Valley and these unicorn entrepreneurs that we described them as the new American heroes,"  says Crevello of the pitch, which also focused on their inevitable fall. "The combination of envy plus schadenfreude is a pretty potent mix."

Adam Neumann, whom Eisenberg calls "part cult leader, part rock star," makes a potent mix with Rebekah. "WeCrashed" is the rare business story that doesn't present a singular vision but a joint quest for domination. "Adam is the CEO, but Rebekah is just as much a part of the WeWork lore," Eisenberg says. "WeWork doesn't exist without Adam; it certainly doesn't exist without Rebekah. We told their love story."

Before Neumann stepped down as CEO of the embattled – and now decimated – WeWork in 2017, the lavish-spending duo raised billions from investors while convincing their employees the shared office company was on a world-changing mission. Two years after the company's attempt to go public flamed out amid scandal, a pared-down WeWork – under new leadership – went public in October.

"It's these larger-than-life personalities and charisma," Crevello says, adding that what   "makes these folks irresistible to investors are the same qualities that make them irresistible to audiences. It's the excitement of being part of something important and thrilling."

Showtime's "Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber" boasts a similarly stellar cast as corporate titans fighting with (and alongside) Kalanick to control the revolutionary ride-sharing app – Kyle Chandler as venture capitalist Bill Gurley and Uma Thurman as confidante Arianna Huffington.

The producers are well versed in this world. "Billions" creators Brian Koppelman, David Levien and producer Beth Schacter made the switch from the fictional world of hedge-fund billionaires to the real-world "Super Pumped" drama and excess, based on New York Times reporter Mike Isaac's 2019 book.

Schacter says the series shows "new American king" Kalanick making the often ruthless, overreaching choices that took him from lauded maverick CEO who propelled a ride-share revolution to a scandal-plagued company from which he was forced to resign in 2017.

"It’s a constant in history; after the uprising the people that come to power become the entrenched power," Schacter says. The series doesn't sympathize with Kalanick but contextualizes his fall. "It’s up to the audience to decide: Was this something always in Travis or the circumstances? The combination of toxic power and success?"

The producers already have planned a second "Super Pumped" season exploring the relationship between Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and founder CEO Mark Zuckerberg, based on Isaac's upcoming book. The announcement came days after HBO revealed a Facebook limited series, "Doomsday Machine," with Claire Foy starring as Sandberg.

The pipeline of projects continues and can be so current that new developments can affect the story.

"The Dropout" started filming just as Holmes' fraud trial began in 2021. The wunderkind CEO, once compared to fellow Stanford University dropout Steve Jobs, was charged with duping Theranos investors and patients about her flawed blood-testing technology she had hailed as a medical breakthrough. Holmes was convicted on four counts of fraud and conspiracy in January and will be sentenced in September.

"The timing of this is bananas in so many ways; it's crazy that we were shooting episodes while the trial was beginning," Seyfried told reporters in December. "There was a lot of real life happening; the timing made it a lot more real."

The series' real-time nature means the actors face the prospect of hearing from (or running into) the participants they portray. Austin-based Chandler, who portrays 6-foot-9 Gurley in "Super Pumped," is bracing for that.

"The only thing I am concerned (about) is that (Gurley) is from Texas, we might pass each other in the street," Chandler said this week. "If he doesn't like it, he's about 8-foot-4.  I don't even think I could outrun the guy,"