Silicon Valley Financial News

Bill Gates dismissed cryptocurrency projects such as nonfungible tokens as shams “based on the greater-fool theory” at a climate conference Tuesday, reviving past criticisms of digital assets. “Obviously, expensive digital images of monkeys are going to improve the world immensely,” Gates said sarcastically while speaking at an event in Berkeley, California hosted by TechCrunch. He said he’s neither long nor short the asset class. Gates has criticized crypto before, sparring with Elon Musk last year over whether Bitcoin is too risky for retail investors and the environmental harm of mining coins. Speaking Tuesday as the founder of Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the climate-focused fund he began in 2015, Gates noted the difficulty of recruiting Silicon Valley engineers to work in industries like chemicals and steel production in need of lower greenhouse gas emissions.

In a case that exposed Silicon Valley’s culture of hubris and hype, Elizabeth Holmes was convicted Monday of duping investors into believing her startup Theranos had developed a revolutionary medical device that could detect a multitude of diseases and conditions from a few drops of blood.

In a case that exposed Silicon Valley’s culture of hubris and hype, Elizabeth Holmes was convicted Monday of duping investors into believing her startup Theranos had developed a revolutionary medical device that could detect a multitude of diseases and conditions from a few drops of blood.