Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
Ratings466
Average rating4.4
An entertaining recount of the rise and fall of a good idea. A dissection of a bad executed plan for good-willing goal.
The story of Theranos told in excruciating detail... maybe a little too excruciating.
This renews my faith that the world is capable of exposing frauds and corruption.
If only they had the same willingness to investigate politicians...
This is definitely out of my comfort zone as a thriller and horror reader, but oh my god, this is so good.
It's so easy to forget that this is a real story involving real people, because it's so well written.
It's completely respectful to everyone involved, and invoked a sense of massive empathy within me for everyone harmed by this scam, and the message this puts across that the lives of patients comes first and then comes business is so relevant.
I loved this.
Unexpectedly engrossing, superbly paced, and extremely interesting.
Started listening to this on audio just because I felt like having something on while working on chores. I didn't expect it to keep my interest since I'd already known nearly everything from this ‘scandal' albeit in not as much detail.
Ended up binging the whole thing over two days.
Even if you're already familiar with this story I'd recommend reading this book anyway. I picked up a lot of detail I wasn't aware of and it was just plain and simple fun to read.
Everyone heard about this case; Elizabeth Holmes started this insanely innovative health start up, to bring us a technology that would make healthcare faster, more effective, more convenient and cheaper.
She had investors throwing money at her left and right.
Then it turned out she lied. Her revolutionary blood testing system never even worked and SHE KNEW IT ALL ALONG.
As of now, she got a sentence of 11 years in prison.
The amount of fucked up things this company called Theranos did is off the charts. They lied to investors and users (doctors and patients) of the product alike. Holmes and her boyfriend, Sunny Balwani abused workers so much one man, Ian Gibbons actually killed himself. Other people, like Tyler Schultz had their families fall apart. They terrorised their critics with threatening to sue them, having them follower, possibly for years, by private investigators.
Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani are both insane, dangerous criminals who did things that are inexcusable.
Once shit hit the fan, they tried everything to stop it, from falsifying tests that ensure the quality of lab work, to terrorising people, to then Elizabeth Holmes claiming she only did her crazy shit because she was raped in college. Because that excuses faking medical tests that are crucial for people to not die of preventable illnesses. That excuses having a previous employee followed and threatened with “we know where you live” messages until she wanted to move to China.
They diagnosed people with illnesses they didn't have (surprise! you are not dying after all, sorry for you being in total panic) and most probably said people were clear when they weren't. By the way, they claimed they could run hundreds of tests, from testicular cancer to AIDS.
Now about this as a book.
It took me a long time to get into it, because especially at the beginning, it has a lot of names. Now of course it's a thing because of the insane turnover rates of this hellhole of a company. But really, it wasn't always super easy to follow who did what.
In the later part, it became much better, I felt like it all got more focused.
I'm not sure how good of an idea it was to publish this book when the court case wasn't done yet. That's another part of the story I would have liked to hear more about.
Perfect book to snap a reading slump. It kept getting more and more implausible that people kept believing in this charlatan. Important people! I went into this almost completely cold. I only had vague notions that Theranos did something with blood draws. This was well explained without being pedantic, didn't overly repeat itself, and walked a great line between helping an uninformed reader like myself understand the science and litigation piece without getting too in the weeds.
If you like non-fiction at all I recommend this.
I was vaguely aware of Theranos, but never really looked into it. This book tells the entire story behind it and how Elizabeth Holmes charmed affluent people into board members and, with that, gathered a ton of investments. It's especially interesting reading it after I read a Billion Dollar Loser and watched WeCrashed a couple of months ago. A similar story of charismatic individuals selling bullshit and getting a ton of personal gain in the process.
The big difference, however, is that WeWork didn't directly affect people outside the company/investors, whereas Elizabeth with Theranos played with many people's health and lives. Theranos went to extraordinary lengths to get around quality standards. The industry is highly regulated, and new diagnostics undergo rigorous testing. Move fast and break things does not apply when lives are at stake. No one really cares if a service goes down for a day. But if, as a consequence of your actions, people can die, then you shouldn't do it.
The book being written by the investigative journalist who broke the original story is just the cherry on the top.
ok like the reporting here is great and I respect the work Carreyrou (and the brave whistleblowers!) did to bring this fucked up story to light. But I think for me at this point in time, like, this was really more information than I personally required. And the audiobook narrator is...fine, but not really enhancing this.
I think at this point in time I would have been better off watching one of the TV adaptations (somehow I haven't watched any of them yet) and/or just some articles, maybe a podcast. Readers who are more interested in the scientific nitty gritty of how Theranos was supposed to work/why it didn't would likely get more out of this but I was like...whatever, she's a scammer, I get it.
Amazing book! I can't stop reading this book; in every single free time I have, I can't hold myself to opening my kindle and opening this book.
The confusion, the frustration, the anger, the thrill, I can feel all of those feelings when I read this book. In the last 5 chapters, when the point of view changes to a first-person (the author) is really thrilling.
I will definitely recommend this book to my colleagues.
I watched the documentary about Elizabeth Holmes on HBO when it came out and I was astonished by it all. I later got to know about this book but never got the chance to read it before. But I've been on a bit of a binge of non fiction recently and this showed up in my next to read recommendations as soon as I finished Empire of Pain and I thought why not. And this was riveting as hell.
The last investigative reporting book that read like a thriller novel was Ronan Farrow's brilliant Catch and Kill and this one is written very closely in that vein. Similar to Ronan, the author John is the main catalyst behind bringing the truth about Holmes and Theranos in the open and this gives us a deep inside look into the company and the people involved. The author gives us a great account of the kind of person she was growing up and her privileged upbringing, her dream of being an entrepreneur and changing the world, the many brilliant scientists and engineers and executives she managed to recruit for her company and the kind of bullying and revolving door culture that she and her boyfriend Sunny Balwani built at Theranos. It's a thoroughly engaging book, especially the beginning and the last third - the middle can get slightly repetitive because it's about the many employees who arrived at Theranos excited to work on something innovative and ultimately felt disillusioned, couldn't handle the stress of all the lying that they could see happening in all aspects of their work and ultimately left but not without being incessantly bullied and threatened with legal actions for any disclosures - even though their stories are similar and we might be bored reading the same things happening over and over, it clearly shows how many numerous employers could see the scam happening, couldn't continue to be a part of it, but also couldn't speak out because money and lawyers have all the power in corporate America.
I had many different takeaways from this book and it might become a long review but I just feel like venting.
- [ ] Silicon Valley culture is all about talking of innovation and disruption and changing the world but ultimately it's all empty words and everyone is in it for the money, have grandiose ideas about how great they are which are not in touch with reality, and usually give a backseat to ethics and morality because who cares about the means if the end result is a lot of money for the investors. Capitalism has created a world where earnings and profits matter and if people are harmed in the process, it's all acceptable collateral damage.
- [ ] Another point which probably reflects on corporate America's culture, but this whole idea that employees have to be loyal to their companies and be available 24x7 to work because they are changing the world is complete bullsh*t. One can be loyal to the work they do, be honest when talking about it, and have big dreams - but pledging undying loyalty to companies and CEOs who will ensure it forcefully with ironclad non disclosure agreements is just another way that the billionaire and corporate class makes sure that the people who work for them know their place.
- [ ] White privilege really opens doors that are forever closed to many POC aspiring entrepreneurs, even if they have degrees from the Ivies unlike Holmes who is a Stanford dropout. I really can't even dream of a Black or Brown woman ever being able to head a company that was at one time valued at almost $10 billion without ever producing a working end product. If you are a blonde blue eyed charming young woman with an interesting life story and access to an elite network, apparently it's not that hard to convince old white men who happen to be former senators and cabinet secretaries and company CEOs and elite venture capitalists and even someone like General Mattis to believe in you, never ask for proof of what you have developed, be your board members or invest millions. Reading this felt like I was being asked to suspend disbelief even more than any SFF novel. But it's also not that surprising that this is the world we live in.
- [ ] As in Ronan's book, this story also brings to light how the rich use their high priced lawyers to intimidate and bully the normal people and employees and journalists to shut them up and cover up their own wrong doing. David Boies is a repeat figure and after the way he threatened and surveilled journalists and victims during the Harvey Weinstein reporting, seeing him use the exact same tactics here made me very angry. It's the constitutional right for everyone to have legal representation but seeing these so-called “prolific” lawyers always take the side of billionaires and oppress the ones who can hardly stand up to them definitely makes them feel reprehensible in my eyes.
I think I've gone on for long, so I'll just stop here. If you want to read a thrilling real life story about a sociopathic narcissistic entrepreneur, her idea of changing the world, the cheating and lies and grand self-delusions that became a part of the company's culture and the brave people who decided to do something to stop the company before lives were destroyed, do checkout this book. Elizabeth Holmes said many times and probably believed that she was creating one of the most important things for humanity and maybe even creating her own religion, and I hope this book is an eye opener and maybe will help people recognize such cult like figures before they go very far.
This book was very interesting from beginning to the end. If you have seen the documentaries or the current miniseries The Drop Out, the book will provide you with a more detailed picture of the fraud committed in Theranos. How big names in politics from both sides of the aisle, high ranked military officers, scientists, professors, attorneys, were duped by this young woman.
Everything that was done without concern for the patients' well- being is criminal not forgetting the threats to whoever tried to come forward to the point of one her employees, a devoted chemist decided that suicide was the only way out of the nightmare he was living. It would be interested to see an in-depth profile of Holmes. Why she couldn't stopped when her house of cards was coming down? what makes her tick?
If someone had written this as a fictional story, readers would have said “this is unrealistic” and “there's no way that could happen.” Unfortunately, this really happened.
I first learned about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos (I will never get over how bad this name is) when my friend Zoey recommended the podcast The Dropout. Compelling and well-research, I listened from the beginning and caught up just as Holmes' trial began. I was absolutely flabbergasted at the depth of Theranos' misdeeds. I almost skipped Bad Blood, thinking that the podcast was adequate. I'm glad I didn't.
Carreyrou is able to get into the real nitty-gritty details of this story. While I still highly recommend The Dropout, particularly the episodes analyzing the trial itself, there were even more unbelievable details in Bad Blood. I dropped a star off this review because I found the first third or so a bit dry, but once things start getting wild, it's almost impossible to put this down. There were literal jaw-dropping moments, and I found myself shaking my head almost every other page. It is truly unbelievable that Holmes thought she could get away with all of this – but it's even more unbelievable that she DID get away with this for so long.
I'll be highly recommending Bad Blood (and The Dropout!) to everyone I meet, whether they already know about Theranos or not.
(audiobook)
Woah! Ciekawe, jak wielu pozornie bystrych ludzi dało się kompletnie zmanipulować, jak mało efektywna była jakakolwiek kontrola. Wartkie, bez lania wody, taki relaksujący quasi-thriller.
The journalistic work that went into this book is A++, but did I like this book? Nope. I read a lot of this book with gritted teeth because it was breaking my brain that there were so many warning signs and yet Elizabeth Holmes had so many enablers, and was able to raise so much money even as her employees were operating in such a toxic environment.
A less coherent review?
Aaaaarrrghhhhhuwgsudusfai
Such a well-researched book by John Carreyrou and incredible how 20% in, you're already wondering how this company has ever made it so far with lies and deceit. Especially pertinent, given that the criminal trial of Elizabeth Holmes just started. Riveting read!
This was wild! And as crazy as it was, the story just keeps on getting wilder with the case against Elizabeth Holmes going on as we speak. She's got a new millionaire boyfriend with their first child born mere months before potentially facing 20 years in jail, a disguised father-in-law hobnobbing with the press and Theranos CEO superfans otherwise known as Holmies. But all this started with author John Carreyrou's front page Wall Street Journal article that pulled the veil from this Silicon Valley health startup darling and its one time 9 billion dollar valuation.
It is a turtlenecked cult of personality that managed to hoodwink an impressive and ever growing list of board members and investors that included former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, and George Schultz, former secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, former secretary of Defense James Mattis, heirs to the Walmart fortune and Rupert Murdoch who would all subsequently sink $900 million in the blood testing company.
It's also about some dogged journalism facing off against a massive corporation with millions to ward off inquisitive minds and billions to lose. A pitbull lawyer relying on surveillance, NDAs, massive lawsuits and heavy-handed tactics to shut down would-be whistleblowers. Walgreens ready to roll out an untested and unreliable blood testing device nationwide for fear of missing out, unable to hear dissenting voices.
Behind it all is a CEO with delusions of grandeur, escorted everywhere with a phalanx of bodyguards who referred to her as Eagle 1, flying off in private jets to deliver TedTalks and press junkets with Vice-Presidents. All the while lying to investors, firing dissenting voices, hiding the truth and speaking at an affected lower vocal register for some reason.
It's the power of connections in this world, the pervasive tech mantra of “fake it till you make it” and the success at all costs mentality we've so readily adopted. In hindsight it seems inevitable that Theranos was destined to come crashing down, but the book feels like a blueprint to countless other VC backed unicorns that are moving fast and breaking things with valuations based more on hype than high performance.
A testament to how morally broken much of the valley's compass is. This book talks us through the history of Theranos - a medical startup turn shitshow led by a couple of sociopaths. We have a great testament of how vision of becoming a symbol (here S. Jobs is that symbol) become more important than the product you are working on. The question i have after reading this is how widespread such behavior really is...
A real page turner, describing the ethics of entrepreneurship and how one lie can lead to another. A cautionary tale in someways of an obviously talented individual marred by an obsession with an ungrounded vision.
Every lie starts a partial truth, Elizabeth Holmes was a master at weaving lies and truth to end up as a billionaire. A lone journalist working on tip brought down her empire valued at $9 billion. It is amazing how she was able to fool investors, CEOs, generals, professors and statemen for 10 years. She joins the rank of Charles Ponzi, Bernie Madoff.
Makes a great read during a pandemic to understand the lab testing business.
Compulsively readable. You know water cooler gossip that's super juicy and trashy? This was like that. About a water cooler I knew nothing about: Theranos and their hyped-up vaporware of magical one-drop blood tests. Others have noted that it's amazing everything got as far as it did.
Briefly: young, blonde, blue-eyed Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford in her second year to pursue an idea to make blood testing cheap, scalable, and democratized. A blood test in every home! The vision of tech “disruption”, she founded a company, got a bunch of illustrious elites on her board (James Mattis! Henry Kissinger!), enlisted her much-older, bullying and brutish boyfriend, Sunny, to be her second in command, and generally kept making giant promises that never materialized. At its best, it seems that Theranos - instead of inventing a new way to test blood using only a single drop from a finger prick - just gerrymandered other companies's machines and engaged in super complicated sleight of hand (fake error screens, fake results).
I was reminded, oddly, a LOT about Kim Philby, the British Cold War double-agent. Philby managed a 30-year-long con of his British colleagues, all the while feeding information to the Soviets. Holmes did something similar (on a much shorter, but not that much shorter (!), timescale - 10ish years?). Many powerful, supposedly intelligent Wise Elders (old white men) fell into her thrall. And I think, like Philby's case, it speaks to the power of our innate ape social hierarchies: if you LOOK the part, you can get very, very far. And once you get sucked into the scam, it's easier (psychologically) to double down rather than admit error.
Anyway, a lot of fun. Reads like a soap opera. SO MUCH DRAMA.
Cohesive and thorough description of the events leading to the scandal surrounding Theranos.
The author has managed to weave the multiple participans and seemingly dry facts into a compelling story. Once i started it, I couldn't put it down.
All in all, a great read.