the Cassandra complex
#5SmartReads - April 30, 2025
Do you know the myth of Cassandra?
A quick primer - Cassandra was a Trojan princess and priestess to Apollo. Apollo, being a Greek god who struggled to restrain his lascivious urges, propositioned his priestess and offered her the gift of foretelling the future in exchange for her love.
Who says no to a god - particularly, the god you’ve pledged your life to? Cassandra first said yes, but changed her mind and rejected him. Apollo, like his father, had a hard time with rejection and levied a curse upon her gift - her prophecies would continue to be accurate, but no one would believe her.
Cassandra accurately predicted the fall of Troy (specifically, bringing in the wooden horse into the city’s walls). She was later kidnapped by the Greeks and forced to become Agamemnon’s concubine, and was murdered alongside him.
Just another day in ancient Greece.
Her name became a cautionary tale and a metaphor that endures today. The Cassandra complex is defined as a person (usually a woman) whose valid concerns and warning are not believed or ignored by the populace.
Sound familiar?
I’ve been thinking about the modern day Cassandras (Kamala Harris, Liz Cheney, Nikki Haley, Hillary Clinton) and how they rang the alarm bells about Trump. I also studied the lesser known Cassandras - the ones that have warned us of the dangers of monopolistic companies, who gets to be a Cassandra, and what happens when they’re believed.
Those who don’t learn from their history are doomed to repeat it, and things are doomed enough already. Enjoy this soundtrack to this week’s #5SmartReads.
Interview: Cynthia Cooper, Sherron Watkins, Coleen Rowley (TIME)
You may not recognize these names, but you may (and will) recognize the places where they used to work - the FBI, WorldCom, and Enron.
“Used to” is the kicker. Rowley, a former FBI agent, who exposed the FBI’s failures in the weeks leading to the 9/11 attacks. Cooper and Watkins were the whistleblowers that exposed massive fraud at WorldCom and Enron, respectively.
All of them would do what they did again. But this quote shows how little has changed in the 23 years since this interview was published:
“…what I really failed to grasp was the seriousness of the emperor-has-no-clothes phenomenon. I thought leaders were made in moments of crisis, and I naively thought that I would be handing [Enron chairman] Ken Lay his leadership moment. I honestly thought people would step up. But I said he was naked, and when he turned to the ministers around him, they said they were sure he was clothed.”
Simply doing the right thing feels like the bare minimum - and even that is too high a standard for so many leaders and their enablers…
…especially today, as a handful of billionaires’ wealth and power grow - by design.
I have seen my friend Amy Nelson (an entrepreneur and former lawyer) battle Amazon and their outsized influence at the Department of Justice - and win.
Amy and Carl’s story is harrowing, and it’s impossible to synthesize it better than this article does. In short, Carl was accused of crimes he never committed against Amazon (wire fraud, honest services fraud, money laundering, breach of contract).
The government seized their savings (both Carl and Amy’s), forcing them to sell their home and cars, liquidate their savings, and lived with family as they continued to fight civil lawsuits filed by the Department of Justice and Amazon, in the Eastern District Court of Virginia.
The government eventually returned the Nelsons’ funds and closed their criminal investigation with no charges. U.S. District Judge Rossie D. Alston Jr. dismissed Amazon’s federal civil claims before trial (leaving two state law claims in dispute), a move which Amazon has appealed.
This is the kind of story you’d expect to see dominate the headlines. And you likely haven’t, nor have Amy and Carl’s old friends and colleagues in Seattle shown any support since the allegations were made (even though DOJ never found enough evidence to even bring charges).
Whatever reporting that has been published is the result of Amy’s relentless storytelling on social media (namely on TikTok), and accepting interviews with Tucker Carlson and Glenn Beck (after being a major fundraiser for Democrats almost two decades earlier, and her calls unanswered by her old network).
Amy has become a relentless advocate in abolishing civil forfeiture and has long been warning about the danger of American oligarchs.
Imagine how many Amys - without the legal knowledge or the resources to fight - have had to watch their lives destroyed by false charges, and to see their accusers become richer and more powerful?
Whistleblowing while Black: How truth-telling changes the careers of Black women in tech (The 19th*)
Who gets to be a Cassandra in modern America, and survive?
Evidence shows that it’s white women.
Anika Collier Navaroli, a former senior policy official at Twitter, warned the company’s executives about intensifying posts in December 2020, and recommended adopting a rule to ban posts inciting violence on January 6th. When Congress subpoenaed her to testify in 2022 (over a year after she left Twitter), she did so under a pseudonym and with her voice digitally altered. She later went public and testified again that year, and received a torrent of threats and racist and sexist messages.
Navaroli isn’t alone. Timrit Gebru and Bunny Greenhouse were fired and demoted and purposefully injured, respectively, at Google and the Army Corps of Engineers. Meanwhile, their white counterparts - Frances Haugen from Meta, Chelsey Glasson at Google, and Susan Fowler at Uber - were honored by presidents and received major book deals to document their bravery.
Speaking out comes with its risks, but it has also had some financial upside for whistleblowers who are white women. For Navaroli, the opposite is true.
“I was doing just fine for myself,” she said. “And I gave all of that up. I gave all of that up to now work for a literal fraction of what I used to make. That’s a decision that I’m having to live with every day. Just because you blow the whistle doesn’t mean the bills stop.”
Rosemarie Aquilina was the judge most sexual assault victims wish they had in court (NBC News)
What happens when a Cassandra is not just believed, but heard and acted on?
It’s rare. But the best example is Judge Rosemarie Aquilina in the trial of Dr. Larry Nassar, from how she handled the courtroom to her delivery of justice (which directly changed how USA Gymnastics is run, to protect its athletes).
All of this is rooted in one simple truth - she believed the women who spoke out against Nassar, and she demonstrated that belief throughout the trial with compassion and control.
She also focused on the organizations that enabled Nassar, shining a light on the cruel reality of how organizations act to protect the abusers over the safety and security of the abused.
Aquilina’s handling has faced some criticism (some felt her statements to Nassar were unfitting for a judge and more suited for a victim advocate), but the same has never been said of other abuse rulings, where the organizations that enabled and protected the abusers remain largely intact.
The case is a flicker of hope for what happens when we believe women. It’s one I very much need.
What if women had also been the tellers of the tales? (Bonds Magazine)
I’ve had Cassandra Speaks on my bookshelf for years now. This piece was partly inspired by the book’s subtitle (When Women Are the Storytellers, The Human Story Changes) and offers us a new path to listen to the Cassandras, heed their warnings, and build a better future.
It starts with us. And that’s what Elizabeth Lesser presents after unpacking the enduring myths of women who were born second, but sinned first (and the power structures that were built on history’s longest false narrative).
I’m adopting Lesser’s practice and philosophy of “do no harm but take no shit.” And I’m going to carve out some time this weekend to spend with this brilliant book.
If you made it here, I want to thank you for your readership and support of my work (especially the #5SmartReads in this new format).
I want to close with a quick reflection of the past, and my deepest wish for the future.
When we stop limiting ourselves to the way things have always been (the leaders, the systems, and their protections), we can build a future where everyone can flourish.
Those with power know this. And they use their power to prevent this from happening.
Don’t let them.