We’ve all heard of musician and actor biopics; now, it’s time for the latest innovation in biopics: the tech CEO biopic.
These days, startup founders can be just as famous (or infamous) as any other celebrity, and the dramatic lives they’ve lived in business or at home make great fodder for TV and movies.
To play these famous figures, some of our best-known actors had to ditch their signature looks to take on the famous turtleneck and wired glasses of Steve Jobs, or the red lipstick and frizzy blowout of Elizabeth Holmes.
Here are 15 celebrities who transformed to play some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent figures.
Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg in ‘The Social Reckoning’
“Succession” star Jeremy Strong will play the Facebook founder in “The Social Reckoning,” a film about the release of Facebook Files, a staggering number of internal documents leaked by whistleblower and employee Frances Haugen and published by The Wall Street Journal in 2021, and the subsequent congressional scrutiny that followed.
The film, set for an October 2026 release, is written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter of “The Social Network,” making this something of a sequel to the 2010 classic.
Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg in ‘The Social Network’
“The Social Reckoning” won’t be the first time Zuckerberg has been portrayed on screen — most famously, Eisenberg played the founder in “The Social Network,” which chronicled the earliest days of Facebook, back when it still had a “the” in front of it.
It juxtaposes the wild, early days of the website with two lawsuits Zuckerberg settled a few years later: one from cofounder Eduardo Saverin and another from his Harvard classmates, the Winklevoss twins.
Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker in ‘The Social Network’
The other famous “disruptor” portrayed in “The Social Network” is Parker, one of the cofounders of Napster, the original music streaming platform. He’s played by Timberlake in a career-best performance.
Parker comes in as an early believer and investor in Facebook, which ruffles the feathers of cofounder Eduardo Saverin.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Travis Kalanick in ‘Super Pumped’
Gordon-Levitt played Uber cofounder and former CEO Kalanick in “Super Pumped,” a 2022 Showtime limited series. It focuses on the rise of Kalanick and his eventual fall from power, culminating in his 2017 resignation from the company.
Amanda Seyfried as Elizabeth Holmes in ‘The Dropout’
Seyfried played Holmes all the way from her time at Stanford in 2003 (where she did the titular dropping out) through to the catastrophic collapse of her company Theranos in 2015, spurred by an exposé published in The Wall Street Journal, in the 2022 Hulu limited series “The Dropout.”
Theranos purported to manufacture a device that could do a litany of blood tests from a single finger prick, but, infamously, it never actually worked. In 2022, Holmes was sentenced to 11 years in prison after being convicted of defrauding investors.
Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs in ‘Jobs’
The first mention of Jobs on this list goes to Kutcher, who played the Apple founder in the 2013 biopic “Jobs.” It follows his career from the beginning of Apple in 1976 to the introduction of the first iPod in 2001.
Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs in ‘Steve Jobs’
Two years after “Jobs,” the late founder was portrayed again on screen, this time by Michael Fassbender in “Steve Jobs.”
Instead of a standard cradle-to-grave biopic, “Steve Jobs” checks in with the enigmatic figure at three different points in his career: first in 1984, before the introduction of the first Apple Macintosh computer; second, in 1988, when Jobs is the head of a new company, NeXT, and is preparing to launch its first computer; and finally, in 1998, as Jobs gears up to release the iMac.
Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs in ‘Pirates of Silicon Valley’
In 1999, the TV movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley” aired, starring Wyle as the Apple founder. It chronicles Jobs’ career from the ’70s to the ’90s, from the founding of Apple to his return as CEO.
Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates in ‘Pirates of Silicon Valley’
The other half of the “Pirates of Silicon Valley” narrative focuses on Gates, the cofounder of Microsoft. He’s played by “Breakfast Club” star Anthony Michael Hall.
The film’s climax is based on the real-life falling out Gates and Jobs had in 1985, when Jobs felt that Gates had ripped off Apple.
Jared Leto as Adam Neumann in ‘WeCrashed’
Leto really did physically transform to play the WeWork CEO and cofounder in the 2022 Apple TV+ miniseries “WeCrashed.” The show chronicled the immense success the coworking start-up experienced in its early days in 2010, all the way through its disastrous attempted IPO in 2019.
Anne Hathaway as Rebekah Paltrow Neumann in ‘WeCrashed’
Hathaway costarred in “WeCrashed” as Neumann’s wife, Rebekah Paltrow Neumann, who was heavily involved in WeWork, even if she wasn’t officially a cofounder. She was, however, “an unpredictable and unmistakable presence” at the company, per Business Insider’s reporting.
Jay Baruchel as Mike Lazaridis in ‘BlackBerry’
The creation of the BlackBerry, one of the earliest smartphones, was dramatized in “BlackBerry,” which starred Baruchel as one of the cofounders of RIM (the brand behind the phone) and one of the cocreators of the BlackBerry itself, Lazaridis.
The film begins with Lazaridis and his partner teaming up with Jim Balsillie (more on him later) to make BlackBerry the most popular smartphone in the world — only for its reign to end with the iPhone.
Glenn Howerton as Jim Balsillie in ‘BlackBerry’
RIM really got off the ground when Mike Lazaridis and his cofounder Doug Fregin were approached by Balsillie. According to the movie’s telling, Balsillie offered to invest $20,000 for a 50% stake in the company, and was eventually sold a 33% stake for $125,000 and the title of co-CEO.
The less we say about Howerton’s performance, the better — it really must be seen to be believed.
Lily James as Whitney Wolfe Herd in ‘Swiped’
2025’s “Swiped” is the story of the creation of Bumble through the eyes of its founder, Herd. Originally, she was a cofounder of Tinder, but resigned in 2014, and eventually received an out-of-court settlement after suing Tinder for sexual discrimination and sexual harassment, without either Tinder or its parent company, IAC, admitting to wrongdoing.
After leaving Tinder, Herd wanted to create an app that focused on female empowerment, and thus, Bumble, a dating app where women have to make the first move, was born.
Sebastian Stan as Vlad Tenev in ‘Dumb Money’
In 2023’s “Dumb Money,” which is about the “Gamestonk” GameStop short squeeze and subsequent drama that happened in 2021, led by the Reddit community r/WallStreetBets and one user in particular, Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, Stan has a small role.
He plays Robinhood cofounder and CEO, Tenev. During the events of the film, Tenev directs Robinhood, an e-trading platform and investment app, to stop allowing users to buy certain stocks and options (including GameStop), which caused an uproar.
Read the original article on Business Insider
The post 15 actors who transformed themselves into real-life tech company CEOs and founders appeared first on Business Insider.
