• Title: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
• Author: John Carreyrou
• Genre: True Crime, Nonfiction
• Pages: 352
• Publisher: Knopf
• Published: 2018

I’m pretty sure everyone is familiar with Elizabeth Holmes and her fall from grace because of some unethical and questionable practices. I had a phase where I was consuming a lot of true crime content, fraud included. I consumed pretty much all the documentaries about Theranos available to me on all the streaming services and I almost finished the Hulu series, The Dropout. So it was really just a matter of time before I would also consume this book. And consumed I did.

The book read like fiction and I was enamored from the beginning. This was very compellingly written and I found myself glued to my seat or found myself saying “one more chapter” while reading in bed. This book definitely chronicles the ins and outs of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes. From being the darling of Silicon Valley to her downfall. The book exposed how the CEO ignored the many issues the employees raised and focused on her branding and legacy.

“We can change people in and out. The company is all that matters.” I don’t know what shit this girl was smoking back in the day, but I don’t know why she did not realize that the people in the company – the people who were actually working – made the company run. From engineers to lab personnel. These people that she considered replaceable were the talents. The company was also working on a diagnostic technology. However, these talents were not allowed to collaborate with each other. This huge project required heavy collaboration in order to see that the flow was working. Again, what was the CEO smoking?

I am not a stranger to toxic work environments, but Theranos brought it to a whole new level. The employees were micromanaged and overworked. For what? A catered dinner? Give me a break, this reminded me too much about pizza parties. If you appreciated my work, let me see it on my paycheck and we’ll call it even. Also, Elizabeth did not like being said no to. Employees who disagreed with her or voiced a differing opinion got fired or got forced to quit or got demoted. Theranos definitely fostered fear in their employees. I was annoyed reading these parts for sure. Being a people leader, I was aggravated and disgusted by this.

No one on the board has a medical background whatsoever. Let’s just say that they were out of their depths on this one. I won’t touch the white woman blue-eyed charmer and the older white men who basically put her on the pedestal. Regardless, Elizabeth was able to get these men on board in itself was talent in marketing and sales. I mean, Elizabeth was charming and that in itself was a skill. They got sold on a dream, an impossible one at that. And that stupid FOMO (fear of missing out) mentality from these commercial places that Theranos had a contract with was sickening. The leaders in charge of these places were so blinded by this new technology that they were so scared their competitors would pick it up before they did which lead to them ignoring the red flags.

The biggest sin was the fact that this lady stretched the truth about the capability of Theranos’ technology. This resulted in having said service available to the public – to actual patients! Thus endangering them by providing wrong results that could lead to incorrect diagnoses that heavily affect patient treatments. Who in their right mind would do this? Well, I guess someone could. Someone could blatantly ignore patient welfare just for the brand and legacy and oh, to fulfill a dream of being a billionaire.

Honestly though, despite the aggravation I felt reading this book, I was glad that I read it. The author was able to convey a clear picture of what happened in this fiasco of a company. The downfall was the most satisfying part. I mean, that was deserved. Granted it took a while, but I was glad that there were people brave enough to be whistleblowers for this company. This was a good page-turner that kept me engaged starting from the beginning till the end.