True story about the medical start-up, Theranos, and a great roadmap on what not to do, management-wise. The top 2 people in the company lacked positive business and management skills or a moral compass. They mis-represented the technology; lied to board members, investors, corporate partners, patients and federal regulatory agencies; they bullied, intimidated, ostracized, spied on and fired any employee who disagreed with them. But, they got caught and that is an equally engaging story. Theranos managment was extreme and egregious in their manner, but what struck me was that many of the poor management, bullying, and imitation situations were reminiscient of some experiences I had when I worked for the Johnson County Library.

In listening to "The Dropout", a podcast about the Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos scandal I was interested in learning even more. The podcast does an excellent job at telling what is essentially the same story that's told in this book but it's an interesting story, deserving of being heard and/or read twice. The fact that Elizabeth Holmes, the "college dropout", was able to win over Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, and James Mattis is compelling. George Schultz in particular, was taken in to such an extent that he believed her over his grandson, creating a family rift that continues at least into the closing chapters of this book. This is an interesting story and one which will become even mores when Ms. Holmes goes on trial in 2020. It'll be of great interest to see how well she spins that appearance.

Just finished the book and can highly recommend it - the writing is accessible and Carryrou does a good job of explaining normal business practices when needed to put Theranos practices in perspective.

I would have liked to see a greater exploration of why so many smart men, literally world leaders, were willing to serve on the board of a medical company without asking to see evidence of its claimed successes and without wondering why there were no medical or laboratory experts sitting among them. I don't think this suspension of disbelief is sufficiently explained by the fact of Elizabeth Holmes being charismatic and persuasive -- these were all men who had spent their careers seeing through dodges, feints, misleading tactics, and outright lies by other world leaders, some of whom also were charismatic and persuasive. In a capitalist society where corporate boards are supposed to be providing oversight on corporation management, the reasons for this failure by the Board deserve more attention.

I was in Athens when I started the book, and I couldn’t put it down for two whole days! A journalist at the Wall Street Journal, Carreyrou has had a streak in revealing secrets behind large industries. In 2015, Carreyrou began a series on Theranos, a company started by Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holmes and boarded by prominent political figures, which claimed to be able to run preventive care lab tests on a single drop of blood. Right before Carreyrou exposed her, Holmes had been appearing on multiple leading news outlets as “the next Steve Jobs” and striking deals with healthcare giants including Walgreens. So imagine the pressure Carreyrou faced as the world put her on pedestals while he investigated and fought off her lawyers!
Bad Blood follows Carreyrou as he collected his information and both his sources and him battled the various powers behind Theranos. It has just the right amount of suspense, darkness and humanity, depicting Theranos and Holmes as products of brilliant marketing and psychological manipulation, so basically a company that had everything except for actual science.
I first saw the book at @chaptersindigo in late 2018, but it was not until I listened to a podcast episode on Inside the Hive with Nick Bilton, in which Bilton, a correspondent at Vanity Fair, had an interview with Carreyrou discussing Holmes’ “sociopathetic tendencies,” that I became interested enough to buy the book. I have not looked back since then, because it is such a wonderful read! .
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I admit, I am a little Elizabeth Holmes obsessed. I watched the HBO documentary "Out for Blood," I listened to the ABC Radio podcast, "The Dropout," and now I've read John Carreyrou's fantastically written "Bad Blood," which has finally sated my curiosity about this absolutely insane story. A total page-turner, I devoured this book in just a few days.

Truly a nail biting page turner, you won't be able to put it down. While I think this story is getting more attention because the villain is female, I have no doubt she is a sociopath and belongs in prison. Like the dozens of other con-people who have lied, cheated and have no morality.

Elizabeth Holmes drank too much of Steve Job's Kool Aid by her 1984 managerial style & her halo effect.
Shuttered that her vaporware company could have done more damage.

Fans of John Carreyrou's Bad Blood will definitely want to read Nick Bilton's follow up story in Vanity Fair (April 2019). If it is possible to see Elizabeth Holmes as even more troubled than Carreyrou presents, Bolton has done so in this compelling piece. The saga continues.

This is a crazy story. A classic example of truth being stranger than fiction. It is shocking what Elizabeth Holmes got away with. This is a high interest read with a good pace.

When you finish reading this book, you will be mad. Mad that a young woman (Elizabeth Holmes) who had a brilliant idea - simplify blood testing - could never make it work and continuously lied to investors and merchants who wanted to jump in. Mad that the woman was an absolute control freak who tried to steer the conversation in her direction. Mad that any employee would deign to try to improve the machine, or even take up independent projects not related to the business, was seen as disloyal. Mad that otherwise smart people were lied to, including Bill Clinton and Jim Cramer. And mad that a million blood tests had to be nullified because the machine gave incorrect readings, often false negatives to the ill, but even worse false positives to people who were perfectly healthy.

When the scam was finally exposed in a series of articles in the "Wall Street Journal" written by the author of the book in 2015, many well meaning people lost billions, not the least of whom was Rupert Murdoch, who just happened to own the newspaper that ran the stories. As the book went to print, the SEC had charged the company (now officially defunct), and Holmes was facing charges as an individual. A documentary has been done on HBO and a film version is in the works (as I write this). The lesson is a well worn one - if it's too good to be true, it usually is. If people had just done their due diligence, Holmes would have been exposed as a fraud almost from the get-go. This is a story of a terrible scam that stretched out for 15 years and endangered people's lives. It should be mandatory reading for any business or law ethics course.