I don’t read a lot of page turners. I often find myself unable to put a book down—but they’re not the kinds of books that would keep most people glued to their chairs. Still, I recently found myself reading a book so compelling that I couldn’t turn away.Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou details the rise and fall of Theranos. If you aren’t familiar with the Theranos story, here’s the short version: the company promised to quickly give you a complete picture...

Fascinating accounting of the Theranos scam and I do mean SCAM. Exhaustively reported. I do wish there had been more analysis of how a scam of this magnitude was made possible and enabled. This girl dropped out of college and convinced Henry Kissinger, George Schulz, Rupert Murdoch and a bunch of other famous and/or incredibly talented people to give her money or work with her even though there was no there, there. WHAT? There are so many incredible WTF moments. Just wow. Privilege is a hell of

"The resignations infuriated Elizabeth and Sunny. The following day, they summoned the staff for an all-hands meeting in the cafeteria. Copies of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho had been placed on every chair. Elizabeth told the gathered employees that she was building a religion. If there was anyone not prepared to show complete devotion and unmitigated loyalty to the company they should “get the fuck out.”The Steve Jobs SyndromeI have covered Silicon Valley as a journalist and author for three d...

Last night when I finished this I just wanted to write a review that was haha repeated like four hundred times. I've gotten some sleep since then and calmed down though. This was really good, like I stayed up until 3 am reading because I didn't want to put it down good. Most I'm just befuddled that this happened at all and at the fact that most of the people implicated in this are just probably never going to face any repercussions. I don't even necessarily mean legal repercussions but like just...

Tips on how to make an unicorn:- Be a sociopath- Excel at sales&marketing- Get some cool people on your BoardTips to how to fake it till you make it?- Hire a lot of lawyers- Intimidate all your employees- Pretend that you are a vocal proponent of a cause that you are actually againstHow to make it as a woman in the tech world?- Baritone- Intese staringWhat can fuck up your amazing future as a tech billionaire?- Facts and data :( I love any story that shows how sales&marketing can change the worl...

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou is a 2018 Knopf Publishing Group publication. ‘Super high turnover rate means you’re never bored at work. Also good if you’re an introvert because each shift is short-staffed. Especially if you’re swing or graveyard. You essentially don’t exist to the company.Why be bothered with lab coats and safety goggles? You don’t need to use PPE at all. Who cares if you catch something like HIV or Syphilis? This company sure doesn’t!...

This was fucking BANANAS.

Early in my career I worked at a next-generation sequencing startup with Theranos-level ambitions. In fact, it went further. The founders’ mission was to cure aging. Literally, the goal was immortality.There were other similarities: The company was founded by wunderkinds, they won the attention and support of a prominent professor in the field, they dropped out and raised millions of dollars from non-hard tech investors off the back of a concept, then tens of millions of dollars off the back of

The True Cost of IdealismI have been guilty of the grave fault of idealism in much of my professional life. Consequently I cringe when I read of the young Elizabeth Holmes and her idealistic trajectory from the thrilling emotionally-laden launch of Theranos, which promised a breakthrough in medical technology, to its ignominious destruction as a fraudulent scam. In her I see myself - not in her level of talent or her self-confidence but in her profound self-delusion. It is this self-delusion whi...

Lessons learned:1. Elizabeth Holmes speaks in an unusually deep voice.2. What matters is who you know. If you look good and have the right connections, you can get millions of dollars for your imaginary device, particularly if you model it on the iPhone and dress like Steve Jobs.3. Even very rich people can be stupid with money.4. Sometimes the people that aren’t stupid are only supporting you for the money.Rather outside my normal genres of mystery, sci-fi and fantasy, Bad Blood intrigued me bo...

HOLY COW. I followed the Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos story slightly but this book does such a fantastic job of showing how completely banana pants this situation was. This was also great on audio, and so addictive that I started making up chores I could do just so I could keep listening.Watch me discuss this book in my July wrap up: https://youtu.be/8kaQcaNn9uw

“Bad Blood” details the fascinating journey of a brilliant, soulless, young entrepreneur in pursuit of riches and fame. The story has heroes and villains, twisting and turning subplots, political intrigue and -even while we know the eventual outcome- plenty of surprises. It has all the elements of a good fictional thriller, but what makes this story most shocking and intriguing -- is the fact that it really happened. The details in this book will leave you shaking in your boots when you realize

How does a woman who was once lauded as the youngest self-made female billionaire find herself now broke and charged with fraud? Her face was on the cover of many financial magazines as the golden girl of Silicon Valley, the female Steve Jobs. In her black turtlenecks, she even dressed like Jobs. Elizabeth Holmes had an idea for a medical device that used breakthrough technology that could provide lab results from a simple finger prick and a minuscule drop of blood, and thereby revolutionize the...

4.5 Stars Elizabeth told the gathered employees that she was building a religion. If there were any among them who didn’t believe, they should leave. Wow! What a powerful story. I'm a fan of financial stories and I personally work in the tech industry so when I heard about this book I knew I had to read it. If you like shows like Shark Tank, I think you will find this story interesting.Elizabeth Holmes is 19 and an incredibly smart girl. She decides to dropout of Stanford because she has an id...

(Throwback review) If you are working in the Health care or the Engineering sector, or if you are interested in Business, start-ups, or Tech firms, or if you love page-turners, this is one of the best books you can read. CEOs like Elizabeth Holmes, who were manipulative and lacked empathy, should never come to the Health care, which will put millions of innocent people's lives in jeopardy just like what Theranos did by giving false Medical reports.

I don’t read a lot of nonfiction books. I love the imagination of fiction. When I heard about this book from a television show, it sounded unbelievable. The fact that this was a true story that seemed stranger than fiction, I had to give it a read. I’m really glad I did because this was really good. This story is about the youngest woman, to become a self-made billionaire, and the giant fraud she committed on Silicon Valley. Elizabeth Holmes, was a Stanford drop-out that used her knowledge and f...

Mesmerising. Unbelievable. Compulsively readable. I cannot recommend this highly enough. I sped through this audiobook in a few days because I just could not stop listening to it. There were so many unbelievable things in this true account of the Theranos scam that my mouth dropped open in a way I wouldn't have thought happens in real life.John Carreyrou traces the story of Elizabeth Holmes and her medical start-up Theranos from the beginning with the help of countless interviews and other insig...

Fascinating! Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup is a detailed account of the (perceived) rise and demise of Theranos, a blood testing startup once valued at nearly $9B. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and barely wanted to put it down. It was baffling to read about the scams, stunts and lies this company pulled, led by founder Elizabeth Holmes and her former boyfriend, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. The red flags surrounding Theranos were rampant, and Carreyrou does an excellent job

Moved to gwern.net.

A Sanford dropout with no extensive engineering or medical or science or business knowledge 'created' an idea for a product and company that required all of those things. It not only ultimately failed but also put untold numbers of people at risk and harm? You don't say. One thing, for me, that was truly surprising in this story is that the dropout in question wasn't a white male, instead it was a woman, Elizabeth Holmes. Elizabeth Holmes had on the surface a brilliant idea - what if just a coup...

From an early age Elizabeth Holmes, wanted to become an entrepreneur, maker her own fortune. Going to Standford, she revered Steve Jobs, and wanted to succeed in a life changing invention of her own. She dropped out of Standford and started her own company. She would Implement, invent and sell a small machine that would only take a pin prick of blood, getting instantaneous results that would allow doctors to make medication changes, much more quickly. Sounds good, many thought so, she raised mil...

Money isn't the root of all evil. GREED is..... A Fascinating story, a tale of corporate fraud and a Journalist who uncovers the biggest corporate fraud since Enron. An intriguing story about a college dropout by the name of Elizabeth Holmes who becomes by the age of twenty nine, CEO of a company called Theranos and Silicon Valley’s first ever female billionaire entrepreneur but by 2018 was facing federal charges of massive fraud which could see her facing up to 20 years in prison. I knew no

When we get our blood tested, we naturally assume the results that come back are trustworthy. High LDL cholesterol levels? We're either going to change our diet (whole food plant based is the way to go!), start exercising more, or decide to take statins (tip: WFPB diet and exercise are much better for your overall health than statins). Same thing if our blood work comes back saying we're diabetic. Or any other number of disorders. One thing is certain, when our blood work comes back saying there...

Well, friends, by now I’ve read this here book, I’ve listened to The Dropout podcast, and I’ve watched that crazy ole HBO documentary where Elizabeth Holmes stared at me with those creepy, unblinking eyes in front of a white background. I think I’ve covered the story from every angle, consumed it in three different ways, and now I’m wondering how I missed this story when it was a thing. Before all the books and documentaries and stuff. Oh well. It’s always good to read a book directly from the s...

What an audacious fraud! Elizabeth Holmes must be the Queen of self-hype to get so many powerful (and allegedly smart) men to support this scheme (Jim Mattis! Henry Kissinger!). I would enjoy seeing both her and Sunny Balwani in jail, for what they'd done not only to their customers, but their employees.Although I am not a fan of Wall Street Journal and the baloney they peddle in their opinion pieces, I was impressed by how their investigative department stood up against legal pressures from The...

I loved (and was disturbed by) every second of this. It's the exact kind of investigative story that I find fascinating filled with strange figures, secrecy, and moments that will make you say "how is that possible?!" Not only an incredible story, but Carreyrou does an absolutely wonderful job in telling it. Though some of the science is fairly complex, he's able to explain it clearly enough to show you just how critical Theranos' missteps were and the impact it had on real people's lives. I pow...

Just when I thought all reporters ever did anymore was see what was trending on social media and write stories with titles like "You'll cheer how this mom clapped-back at her body-shamers on Twitter," this book gives me hope that old-fashioned investigative journalism is alive and well and doing exactly what it's supposed to: shine an unflinching hot light on those who abuse their power and privilege. Here, it's aimed at the bizarre cult of Elizabeth Holmes and her "disruptive" "game changing" c...

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.Con-Artist: "Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup" by John CarreyrouThis story is fascinating. Yes, how was she able to rationalize lying and endangering so many -- investors, Walgreens, and especially the general public? It was good this book went into her family of origin. Holmes' father expected her to do something that would change the world. Did Elizabeth feel pressure to be some sort of genius influencer? She h...

A captivating, interesting, and (almost) unbelievable story. I had heard of Therano's downfall in the news, but the way this author investigated and narrated the events was absolutely remarkable.The book details the rise and fall of Theranos, a Silicon-Valley company that aimed to provide fast, blood test results with a single drop of blood. Elizabeth Holmes was the founder and CEO, her goal was to revolutionize the healthcare industry and, at some point, she was compared to the likes of Steve J...

3 "important and brave work but underwhelming telling" stars !!!Third Most Disappointing Read of 2020 Award There are so many reviews of this that I am going to keep this very short-courageous and admirable work in unearthing a huge medical scam that could have put thousands of patients at risk-a good sequenced telling of events as they unravelled at Theranos labs-very little on the developmental histories of Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani that may have deepened understanding of what occured...