Season 4 of “Industry” depicts tech fraud better than any TV show right now

HBO’s hit financial thriller “Industry” delivered one of its most compelling stories so far this season: a chase to expose a fraudulent financial technology company called Tender.

The show follows Harper Stern, who leads her newly launched investment firm and searches for a company to short sell — essentially betting that its stock will collapse. After a journalist tipped her off that something was wrong with Tender, she sent her colleagues Sweetpea and Kwabena to Ghana to investigate.

What they discovered was a curse. “Fake users generate fake revenue and fake money,” Sweet Pea tells Harper’s. The entire company seems to be built on fabricated numbers. “A thing is not a thing.”

What’s amazing about this season of “Industry” is how well it speaks to the moment. Tender starts out as a payment processing platform for adult content. The show refers to the very real (and still controversial) online safety bill introduced by the UK, which brought in age verification and other strengthened rules for consuming adult content online. Because of its association with adult content, Tender finds itself at odds with new government regulation and must spin or die, as the saying goes.

Whitney, the CFO-turned-leader, wants the company to transform into a bank and has a plan to make it happen, including making Tender’s CEO, Henry, the face of the transformation. Whitney is the embodiment of every tech baron cliché. Move fast and break things. Win at any cost. He lobbies politicians to obtain a banking license and looks for merger opportunities.

Meanwhile, Harper leads her newly launched company after feeling undermined at her previous company and being called a DEI factory by the man who hired her (a nod to the decline of DEI in the past few years). You’ve teamed up with new friends, old enemies, and are out for blood – which means a company on the brink of collapse. For her, Tender is that company.

This puts her at odds with her friend Yasmine, who is married to Henry and formulates communications and lobbying strategies for Tender. It’s pride and prejudice, the sugar and spice that helps make the world go round.

The show highlights the world of technology with such precision that reality itself begins to feel ridiculous. Even TechCrunch is name-checking it as part of Tender’s media playback rules.

There is commentary on fascism through the character of Moritz, who lobbies against Western liberalism and is reluctant to sell his family bank to Whitney, whose family name is Halberstram, which sounds Jewish. The character may be a reference to the growing “techno-fascist” criticism of some tech moguls.

Meanwhile, Harper remains a sociopath. “My real passion is finding dead men walking,” she says at an investor breakfast. She ended up raising millions for her new company.

She is the only character whose presence weakens credibility. Personality-wise, she has to make smart calculations; Unlike Jasmine and Henry, she has nothing to fall back on if she fails. But would the British establishment, known for its isolation, exclusion and whiteness, really allow a black American woman to rise through its ranks and beat them at her own game?

“Who needs realism when you have a great personality,” one black British founder told me.

He said the show aptly depicts how detached the UK’s upper class are from consequences, and is in fact one of the few shows he has seen “that accurately depicts the cruelty of the British elite, specifically how they maneuver the media and governments to suit their own whims”.

One European investor added: “Nepotism and lack of boundaries at work, and people sleeping together for trade secrets, is very real and common, unfortunately.”

Meanwhile, Yasmine heads down a dark path. Earlier this season, she organized a three-way meeting between her husband, Henry, and Whitney’s assistant, Haley. As the season goes on, her behavior becomes so hedonistic that one reviewer actually likened her to Ghislaine Maxwell — perhaps a perfect symbol of what lies in the pits of money and power, and the role some women play in digging those holes.

However, an Icarus moment may be on the way, at least for Whitney.

By now, the public is aware of how real-world founders sometimes use deception to inflate success (such as Frank Charlie Javis) and allegedly rip off investors and the public (the FTX cryptocurrency collapse). There are many such infamous cases, some of which are referenced in the show. But perhaps the most relevant parallel to Tender in the real world is the eventual collapse of German fintech company Wirecard a few years ago.

Wirecard admitted that the billions in cash it reported likely never existed, although it was believed to be held by two banks in the Philippines. It was a story of complex accounting and legal gray areas, like Tinder. Short sellers have also gone after Wirecard, with one blog calling them “alternative whistleblowers” ​​— people who step in when “the market and regulator refuse to see what is right in front of them.”

It’s a speech that one could easily see Harper giving soon enough, with Eric having told her at one point that “only short work is ugly, difficult, probing work,” and that it’s “anti-status quo, anti-establishment, anti-authority.” Her job seems almost complete.

With Wirecard, several people were arrested, including the CEO, while the COO fled (and was also accused of being a Russian spy). Tender’s fate remains unrealized until the last few episodes. One of the best parts about “industry” is that it moves fast and breaks things. It is so clearly placed in our times and so bold in its demeanor that the audience is forced to choose their favorite hero and go along for the ride.

It’s a rush and a thrill. The visual embodiment of the absence of ethical capitalists. However, just like in real life, we can’t get enough.