Why Are Famous Crooks Going Upscale?
One thing I began to notice about this decade's crop of highly publicized corporate fiascos and white-collar crooks is how many people come from the upper echelons of society. Stockton Rush, late CEO of OceanGate, was descended from two signers of the US Declaration of Independence and has degrees from Princeton and Harvard Business School. Alissa Heinerscheid, one of two Bud Light executives put on leave after the Dylan Mulvaney debacle, comes from a wealthy Houston family, went to the upper-crust Groton prep school, and has degrees from Harvard and Wharton. Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX, went to the elite Crystal Springs Uplands private school and then MIT; his parents are Stanford professors. His FTX colleague Caroline Ellison went to Stanford; her parents are MIT professors. Elizabeth Holmes, who went to prison for the Theranos fraud this past May, is descended from the Fleischmann Yeast fortune, went to the private St John's School in Houston and then to Stanford, ...