Downfall, catharsis and re-gendering: Entrepreneurial glorification and the case of Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes

Gender shapes collective narratives of entrepreneurial ascent and failure in multiple and often contradictory ways, but how this happens remains under-researched. We argue that catharsis – a concept rarely used in organization studies – helps shed light on how female start-up founders can be targeted and responsibilized in the post-failure descent, even after being glorified as exceptional and lucrative ‘investment objects’ during the ascent of their venture. We illustrate our claims via a highly-mediatized case: Elizabeth Holmes at Theranos. While extreme, the significant public attention this case attracted renders it an exemplar for interrogating gender dynamics in entrepreneurial ascent and downfall narratives. We analyse the case via a poststructuralist feminist narrative lens focusing on shifts in Holmes’ mediatized subject positions from 2013 to 2023. Narrative ‘arcs’ of ascent and failure can, we argue, involve a cathartic re-gendering that shapes the female entrepreneur’s fall from grace while restoring a financialized social order in which they remain ‘othered’. Related to this, we demonstrate how investor interests are a driving force in shaping the scene of entrepreneurial failure as cathartic re-gendering, and we show how the promise of post-feminist entrepreneurship fails to materialize in such cases.