Elizabeth Holmes -- What a fraud. This is investigative journalism at its best. Very well-written, a clear, and concise explanation of the Theranos scandal.

What blew me away was the strong support of Elizabeth Holmes, by some of the biggest names in the US -- former Sec of State George Schultz, Gen. James Matthis, and Henry Kissinger to name a few, who bought into a web of lies, deceit, and some very illegal business practices. ( )

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 just supporting you for the grift.

Rather outside my normal genres of mystery, sci-fi and fantasy, Bad Blood intrigued me both because of its medical focus and because I heard it was a particularly well-done story. Although I will once again offer up a more appropriate title: Bad Blood Tech, because the blood itself here is perfectly fine. Absolutely normal, in fact. Perfectly healthy blood that’s put into a nefarious machine, sold by a flim-flam operator of the highest level.

The storytelling is very straight-forward, generally devoid of literary flourishes and with only minor asides. In fact, at times the writing seems simplistic. On reflection, I think Carreyrou had to keep his sentences as factual as possible, knowing that Holmes’ lawyers would go over every word looking to dispute it. As such, it reads quickly.

Until, that is, you you develop Toxic Exposure Syndrome, the experience of immersing yourself in the world of unrepentant and awful people. I found I had to take a break, and once stopped, was reluctant to pick it up. I solved my little dilemma by reading backwards, and was relieved to discover that the narrative eventually switches from the meteoric ‘rise’ of Thantos to the development of the Wall Street Journal‘s expose. That’s when the crazy took an actively evil direction with Thantos harassing former employees, potential sources, and anyone who might speak to Carreyrou about Thantos.

What surprised me the most about this story is how many people Elizabeth Holmes was able to convince to part with their money. Sure, it seems she genuinely believed in her product and its potential. But the goal was a product used to test blood for diagnostic purposes. Even the most simple nurse (cough-cough) could tell you that there’s certification involved. This isn’t a Kickstarter for your new book, or a new design for luggage, or even an up-and-coming app that will tell you if the concert you are at will burst your eardrums (this is a thing). Tests almost always have to be run past the FDA. And Holmes never showed anyone proof of such things.

Essentially, thanks to an impressive amount of seed money through family connections, she was able to keep her pyramid scam going by finding new people and just enough opportunities to parlay small successes into looking like big ones. Until they turned to outright lies. I will note that many of the scientists and engineers she hired did ultimately quit after sharing their (ethical) concerns with their boss, whose response seems to have been, 'don't worry about it.'

I do have to thank Carreyrou, though. We were sitting around work in the break room the other day, in our fifteen by fifteen space shared by roughly twenty people a shift, and someone was commiserating on how awful our jobs were right now. “Well,” I said, “at least we have our souls.”

Three stars, through no fault of the Author. I just didn't enjoy reading about a rampant narcissist and her team of parasitic lawyers. ( )

The hype is real, read this book. It is bonkers. ( )

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 nothing about Elizabeth Homes or Theranos but this was an interesting and detailed account about of her amazing rise to fame and her demise and how one reporter uncovered a massive fraud.

I think what shocked me most about this book was the gullibility of people in power and how the wealthiest are held in such high esteem that a fraud of this nature could go unnoticed for so long.

There are a lot of employees names, medical and legal jargon to get through in this story and it was by times quite repetitive but I do understand it was necessary to the story, however I felt it dragged the story down and hence my 3 star rating.

Having said that what an eye opener of a story that has to be read to be believed.

There are photos included in the book but I did a little googling after I had finished as I just had to hear “ the voice of Elizabeth Holmes” ( )

A few sayings ran through my mind as I read Bad Blood: “Truth can be stranger than fiction”; “Money is the root of all evil”; and “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Bad Blood is exhaustively researched and captivating. I loved every page. Journalist John Carreyrou chronicled the Theranos scam from its birth to its dramatic demise. It’s an admirable achievement, and I applaud Carreyrou for persisting in reporting this scandal in the face of unremitting threats from Theranos’s aggressive lawyers.

Theranos was founded by Elizabeth Holmes, a ruthless young woman who dropped out of Stanford after her freshman year and shortly thereafter claimed to have developed an astonishing blood-testing machine. She said the small machine (dubbed “miniLab”) could run hundreds of tests on just a few drops of blood from a finger prick. It would revolutionize medicine. Holmes had no scientific or medical experience, but that didn’t matter to countless big-name investors, who were charmed by her charisma and passionate persuasive skills. She became Silicon Valley’s first female billionaire tech founder and was likened to Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and even Einstein.

I enjoyed Bad Blood much more than I thought I would. I’d originally dismissed it thinking it was a “tech-y” book I wouldn’t understand or find interesting, but it’s an accessible read that’s now my newest favorite. Carreyrou explained in simple terms not only how the miniLab worked but also how traditional blood testing works. I was fascinated from beginning to end, partially because I was incredulous over Holmes’s audacity and partially because the tale unfolds like the most bizarre fictional drama.

Bad Blood is also about Holmes herself. This strange woman refused to be interviewed for any of Carreyrou’s Wall Street Journal articles exposing the scam or for this book, but he researched her and her background extensively. In these pages is a peek inside her childhood, details about her parents (their rivalries and friendships), and even facts about her ancestry. (Her paternal great-grandfather was the founder of Fleischmann’s Yeast.) The only thing missing is the “why” behind her deception. She showed signs of insatiable greed starting as a little girl, and on the very last page Carreyrou speculated that she could be a white-collar (aka “high-functioning”) psychopath, but he went no further. Holmes hasn’t been officially diagnosed, and Carreyrou is too conscientious a journalist to play armchair psychiatrist.

Also included are the stories of several former Theranos employees. When it became clear the miniLab was a scam that would endanger lives, countless workers left. No matter how desperately Holmes wanted to be the next Steve Jobs, only magic could make her machine work, and her employees weren't magicians. These people, once so excited to be part of cutting-edge, life-changing technology, were now furious, exhausted, disillusioned—and crucially, muzzled by non-disclosure agreements they’d been bullied into signing.

It’s common for Silicon Valley start-ups to hype their products, but what happened with Theranos was a different animal, as Carreyrou said:

Hyping your product to get funding while concealing your true progress and hoping that reality will eventually catch up to the hype continues to be tolerated in the tech industry. But it’s crucial to bear in mind that Theranos wasn’t a tech company in the traditional sense. It was first and foremost a health-care company. Its product wasn’t software but a medical device that analyzed people’s blood. As Holmes herself liked to point out in media interviews and public appearances at the height of her fame, doctors base 70 percent of their treatment decisions on lab results. They rely on lab equipment to work as advertised. Otherwise, patient health is jeopardized.

For the founder of a medical-device company, Holmes has an especially dangerous mix of traits. She’s mesmerizing when speaking before an audience of any size and unabashedly greedy and dishonest.

Bad Blood repeatedly drives home how Holmes’s machine was about gambling with people’s lives, yet despite Holmes’s repeated claims to the contrary, this was never a concern of hers. However, in no way is Bad Blood sensationalized or pulpy. It’s the facts, and they speak for themselves. If there’s any moral to Bad Blood it’s to question what sounds impossible and to be alert to people like Holmes. Otherwise it’s simply a compelling true-crime read. ( )