Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

I remember hearing about Elizabeth Holmes when I was in my late teens, at that impressionable age when you get hyper-inspired by reading about icons that are going to change the world. There was a profile of her in Wired, with an eye-catching image of her wearing a turtleneck black sweater holding what looked like a test-tube with a tiny amount of blood with a science-y background. I remember it had made quite a distinct impression on my mind, no doubt helped by the fact that the profile had described her as “this Stanford dropout 20-something who was hailed as being a younger version of Einstein, was going to change the world”.

Undoubtedly, as so often happens, I forgot about people who were gonna change the world as I grew up. Then I heard about this book last year, which was getting enormously praised for its exposé of a Silicon Valley firm and was really surprised to find out that the company at the center of the storm was Theranos, the brainchild of Elizabeth Holmes. This book reads like a detective novel, meticulously giving the clues and binding the threads of the deception that Holmes had so carefully and brilliantly constructed and managed to fool the entire world. Read this one if you want to get a lesson in how not to emulate a leader.

This book was so wild. It's amazing how many people Holmes and Theranos swindled! So many people just threw money at her without even stopping to think of her ideas were possible.

Incredibly interesting and engaging read! I had never heard of Theranos before I listened to this, but it is super fascinating to read about how it all went down. I'm not sure there's a lot more to find out about this (except for more from Holmes' perspective) but I'm still interested in watching other media on this subject. Also great to hear that there's apparently a feature movie announced for this!

“Unputdownable”.
An absolute must read.

I knew a little bit about this story before beginning this book, but the absurdity of what these people got away with for so long is fascinating. CEO Elizabeth Holmes and COO Sunny Balwani are cartoonishly evil, constantly intimidating and manipulating people internally while outwardly projecting a completely different persona to stakeholders and the public.

I actually thought it felt a bit too editorialized in their portrayals. There's a little bit here and there about how charming and intelligent seeming Holmes is, but none of it was as specific as the bad things she does, so it was hard for me to understand how she got away with some things without filling in a lot of blanks. Balwani meanwhile seems to have no redeeming qualities besides the fact that Holmes likes him. He comes across as a pure thug.

The accounts of all the goings on in Theranos are crazy though and described in great detail, clearly a lot of research was done and many people consulted. I listened to this via audiobook from the library and the ~12 hours blew by, I listened at any chance I had. I'll be checking out the HBO documentary and maybe the podcast soon as well.

It's insane the amount of fraud that Theranos managed to pull off. Pretty compelling read.

Pop some popcorn and get comfortable - this is irresistible! I'm agog at how these people kept up a fraud for so long, and how many high profile and some otherwise intelligent people got sucked in.

The story is unbelievable and J. Carreyrou obviously demonstrated a very high quality journalism.

What a bleeping train wreck.

Lies; bullying; unending red flags; secrecy, suspicion, mistrust; constant firings for competence and promotion of sycophants; cult of personality. Lives permanently damaged; some destroyed. The great tragedy of con artists is how they bring down otherwise-decent people, sucking them into their sphere to the point where they can't back down: doing so would force them to admit to being fooled, so they hunker down and redouble their devotion. In the process causing irreparable harm to people, relationships, public trust. Perhaps you can think of other examples in recent history.

My friend A. pushed this book on me. I was skeptical that there was enough material in the Theranos story to fill an entire book, but I trust A. so I placed the book high on my to-read list — and was it ever worth it. More than enough material, grippingly presented to boot. The story is riveting, frightening, depressing... and encouraging. A reminder that there are good people out there, ethical, courageous; that corruption is always outed in the end (even if it comes at too high a cost); that it is possible to live with integrity.

It's also a reminder of hope. Perhaps one morning we'll wake up to a news blurb about certain people accidentally falling from thirty thousand feet onto a field of rusty metal spikes (possibly twice for good measure). Perhaps we might recognize some names, and nod quietly and not feel too much grief. I won't hold my breath—but I will go to bed tonight with a small prayer on my lips.

3.5 stars. Fascinating true story, but the book reads like a very long newspaper account of what happened and it quickly becomes repetitive. Theranos does something shady, an employee tries to intervene, Elizabeth Holmes threatens to sue, and the employee backs down. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum, until suddenly the Wall Street Journal gets involved and Holmes' high-powered attorneys can't intimidate a newspaper quite as successfully.

It's amazing how many rich and famous people believed Holmes' claims without asking for a shred of evidence. I wish Carreyrou had tried a little harder to dig into Holmes' psyche to help the reader understand why she acted the way she did, and whether she really thought she was trying to help people or whether she was just trying to amass wealth even if patients died in the process. In the book's epilogue he muses that she might be a sociopath, but doesn't provide much evidence to support that theory. Surely the truth is more complicated than one simple label.

Makes me want to watch the HBO movie based on it; I'm sure television portrayed this much more dramatically.

This is no short of a thriller. Disturbing how CEO played “woman in tech” card to get away with such a big fraud. I am surprised to see she is still not behind the bar, rather founding another company!

One of the best investigative pieces I've ever read - and also, by the nature of the case, horrifying.
This book deals with Theranos, the famous Silicon Valley unicorn (a term coined for a tech startup which is valued at more than $1 billion) and its neurotic founder, Elizabeth Holmes and her equally neurotic boyfriend, Sunny Balwani.
Many people have heard that Theranos has had shady dealings (myself included), but how shady they were is revealed by this book - a treatise on Theranos spanning from its foundation till its demise (of which the author was the main catalyst). The amount of laws and regulations that the startup flouted is staggering in itself. But what is more staggering is that the premise on which Theranos was founded (that hundreds of blood tests could be performed on a tincture of blood nipped from your index finger) and which gave Holmes a personal valuation in excess of $5.5 billion, was all a hoax. How this hoax came about, who all were wittingly (and unwittingly) involved in the hoax, and how the hoax could have led about to hundreds of deaths, forms the basis of the investigative novel.
On reading this book, one can easily understand how Carreyrou has won the Pulitzer Prize twice - his treatment is precise and cutting, and very easy to decipher and absorb - even medical laymen like me will have a ton to draw from the book, as is the book's intention.
TL;DR - roller-coaster work spanning the rise and fall of a Silicon Valley startup that got too ambitious for its own good, and in sight of its goal, flouted everything there was to flout. A dense but fulfilling read.

This is why books are best. This will inevitably be made into a movie, but this level of storytelling can only be created in book form. A fascinating story, expertly told.

I can't imagine how hard it must have been to persist in working on and reporting this story with all the pushback from Theranos. Carreyrou, the Journal, and all of the people who contributed despite the threats and intimidation are amazing. It can be so hard to go against the grain and do the right thing and this story is a testament to that.

I saw the documentary (The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley) and thought this might be a repetitive read. But it was still fascinating. For the Read Harder Challenge categories “a book of nonviolent crime,” and, for double-duty, “a book by a journalist.”

Man, what a story. The gall of this woman... I watched the HBO documentary, The Inventor, a month or so ago and was just amazed, but the book has so much more. Just nuts.

I can't get enough of the Theranos story. I gleefully devoured this trainwreck, only wishing that it was longer and included more about Elizabeth, more about Sunny, more about the pending lawsuits (maybe I wish it had been published after all that had been concluded, but I get why it was now instead). I am obsessed. In fact, as I was reading this, I listened to NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour episode about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, and learned that there is also a documentary and a podcast (neither of which is related to Carreyrou or this book as far as I know), not to mention the Jennifer Lawrence movie about Holmes and the Hulu series in the works. You can bet I will watch/listen/slurp up every single one of those eventually because I must have it alllll give it to me nowwwwww. (On a secondary note, my real question is, why was Yael Grobglas not tapped to play Elizabeth in something? Every time I see the Theranos founder's photo, I see Jane the Virgin's Petra.)

One of my biggest bookish pet peeves is journalists inserting themselves into their stories. Most of the time, it's not necessary and makes me mad, so I was just a liiiiiittle bit torn here – because getting the details of how the story broke and dealing with Theranos' lawyers' harassment is compelling stuff, and I couldn't figure out how Carreyrou could have told that portion of the story without including his own actions. A small dilemma, but how quickly I throw my journalistic principles out the window when it's as juicy as this was!

Still can't wrap my head around how it went on for so long unnoticed... While reading this, I watched countless interviews and god damn it, she really did sound convincing. But I suppose anyone with a little bit of scientific knowledge would have been able to see straight through the lies... It's crazy how far she got with the deception. She's really got some skills. Gotta give her that.
The book is extremely captivating, keeps you glued till the very end.

Fascinating story that is stranger than fiction. It's hard to believe what Holmes and her partner got away with for so long. Amazing the amount of support she managed to get and the lengths she went to in order to perpetuate this fraud.

Despite all the investors she cheated, and the patients that didn't get the proper treatment, my sympathy was strongest for her employees, the ones that she harassed after they quit/got fired.This is no doubt because John Carreyrou focuses mostly on the former employees and those that had the nerve to share the incriminating information with him. It actually puts you on the edge of your seat because Holmes and her partners' harassment techniques include stalking and they were pretty scary.

There was one thing that really killed me about Elizabeth Holmes, although all things considered it was rather minor. There were multiple mentions in the book of how Holmes would flirt and use her charms on older men to get their support, investment money, etc. When she finds out what Carreyrou is writing about her, she accuses him of bias against her because she's a woman. No way, Holmes. You can't use your femininity in your favor and then turn around and accuse someone else of using it against you.

But all things considered, this is the least outrageous thing that Holmes did or said.

I had no idea what Theranos was until my friend read this book, explained the horrible, absolutely effed nature of this company and its founder. This book was so well written. I listened to it as an audiobook and I felt that it was paced well and it covered a lot of information without feeling info-dumpy or heavy. I was frustrated at many points reading this book because so many people knew what was going on and just shrugged it off or remained silent because it was easier. All I have to say is that Elizabeth and Sonny deserve to be in jail and I truly hope they're convicted.

The first half is dull, describing in excruciating detail a shitty work environment. But then the author (and LOTS of lawyers) gets personally involved, and I found myself caring again. I wouldn't recommend this book, but I also wouldn't slap it out of a stranger's hands if I saw them reading it.

Whiteness is amazing.

I had never been as engrossed in a non-fiction book as I was with this one; there were so many jaw-dropping passages within the book.

This is the story of Theranos, founded by Elizabeth Holmes, who was heralded as the next (female) Steve Jobs / Bill Gates for ‘revolutionising' the blood-testing industry by inventing (or attempting to invent) a device that could run “hundreds of tests” with a small pin-prick of blood. Despite the regulations governing the industry, and the usual demand for peer-reviewed studies and scientific data, Elizabeth Holmes, with the help of her partner-boyfriend, the much older Sunny Balwani, managed to dupe CEOs (including of Safeway and Walgreens), investors (Rupert Murdoch among them), the government (high-ranking military officers included), politicians (she rubbed shoulders with the Clintons and even attended Obama's events), and highly respected older individuals (former Secretary of State George Schultz comes prominently to mind), for a dozen years on the viability of her (non-viable) products through a combination of charm and charisma (Elizabeth's), legal bullying (mostly of staff who were made to comply with harsh confidentiality clauses), inspection blind-siding (inspectors were only allowed into certain sections of the laboratories), and (eventually) damaging shortcuts (the labs did not follow proper procedures, and patient results were often inaccurate).

It's also a telling tale of how easily we can be duped by the media (Forbes and Fortune helped catapulted her image, because the editors themselves fell into her “reality-distortion-field”) and by the endorsement of people who are generally held in high esteem by the society we live in (George Schultz, for example, believed in her until right up to the end, even estranging his own grandson in his beliefs).

Elizabeth Holmes remains a fascinating character. It's tempting to believe she started out with truly noble intentions, but then got snared herself in her own hype and ambition (she saw herself as the next Wunderkind and, growing up upper middle class, wanted to be rich), and that of her product's potential (how does that quote go? if you repeat a lie over and over, people will believe you?). I'm pretty sure Silicon Valley hasn't seen the last of her, and the world certainly hasn't seen the last of people like her, who weave such a compelling smoke-screen around themselves, that very few people are able to see through the tales. We are human, and we all want to believe the Wizard of Oz is real.

The story itself is well-laid out, taking us step by step on Theranos's incredible journey from being just another start-up to what was considered the darling of the tech world (at its highest point, Theranos's stock was valued at US$10 billion). There's plenty of end-notes, for the diligent reader who likes to follow the trail of breadcrumbs, but this also means the main narrative doesn't get bogged down with too much facts and technical details.

Want to be pissed for 300 pages?
Want to feel never-ending waves of righteous anger?
Want to feel like you could scream and throw a book across a room?
Then READ THIS BOOK.

Holy hell, I had no idea the length and depth of the fraud behind this company. I heard the story when it blew up, like we all did, but I didn't know that there was over 10 years of fraud, lies, blackmail, arrogance, intimidation, career destruction, and patient endangerment behind it. It begins on page one and has you screaming “WHY WHY WHY NO NO NO” nonstop for 300 pages. The story is so well reported and laid out by Carreyou, he does a great job of guiding you through the details of medical testing procedures, ethics, and regulations and how they relate to this insane story of a sociopath flouting them at every turn because she is so caught up in her own mythos and web of lies.

Whew. I need a break. Maybe something light and uplifting after this.

Great investigation work. Real, fascinating story about a very costly fraud in the biotech industry. I applaud the courage and the moral sense of the reporter and all the people who also found their inner moral voice to help him write this book, despite all the threats they were facing. I feel regret for the fact that Elizabeth missed her chance to be a revolutionary woman in 2 industries at once - medical and technological.