Gender etc provided a new vector.

The lack of awareness was the prof not realising corporate and upper class women are just as capable of being con artists with a dysfunctional grasp on reality as men are. (Other women are too, but they don't get the opportunities.)

It's an ironically sexist assumption.

Although at the same time men are less likely to face consequences - unless they defraud big-ticket investors without prior permission. Which was the true crime here, and the only one that matters at these levels.

Yeah, the same is maybe more obvious outside of HN, but engineer/tech companies often play the same trope but on "brilliant and smart people but bit naive/rose-tinted views that couldn't unintentionally harm anyone even if they tried", like how media showcased Zuckerberg initially, before everyone realized his true colors.

And the general scam of an attractive young woman speaking to a bunch of elderly men (realy, look up the early investors) and somehow convincing them to part with thier money is as old as time.

Heck, Henry kissinger was on her board.

"The general scam of unrealistic promises then under-delivering" is how the richest man on the planet amassed his wealth. OP is doing the exact same thing he's accusing other people of doing, focusing too much on identity.

Holmes surely used her gender as a tool the same way all these striving psychopaths will use whatever is at their disposal, but if it wasn't her gender, it just would have been something else. And singling out her gender as uniquely responsible will do more harm than good as it will be used as a cudgel against all future women founders in a way someone like Musk or Sam Bankman-Fried won't for men. Or maybe this early xkcd[1] put it better.

[1] - https://xkcd.com/385/

I mean, plenty of men have done the same thing. No imagination required.