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Meredith's Reviews > Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
by
by
This is one of the best longform pieces of journalism I've read in a while. It's not Obermayer and Obermaier's Panama Papers, but it's up there with Andy Greenberg's Sandworm, and David Hoffman's Oligarchs.
I first watched the HBO documentary 'The Inventor', which briefly sketches the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes and her Silicon Valley blood-testing company Theranos, and the fraud committed along the way. Then I picked up the Bad Blood audiobook after my boyfriend convinced me that it goes into a lot more compelling detail. He was right. Not only did I get a firm grasp of the facts and circumstances in the Theranos case as told by the whistleblowers, but I armed myself with the best modern example of why lying is not good for business. I feel a sense of justice knowing that Truth won in this case, even though the people who worked to bring it to light suffered (one even developed clinical depression and committed suicide), and despite the number of immensely powerful people Holmes had on her side.
At the end of the book, John Carreyrou, the WSJ journalist who published the front-page article that started Theranos's unraveling, writes: “A sociopath is often described as someone with little or no conscience. I’ll leave it to the psychologists to decide whether Holmes fits the clinical profile, but there’s no question that her moral compass was badly askew. I’m fairly certain she didn’t initially set out to defraud investors and put patients in harm’s way when she dropped out of Stanford fifteen years ago. By all accounts, she had a vision that she genuinely believed in and threw herself into realizing. But in her all-consuming quest to be the second coming of Steve Jobs amid the gold rush of the 'unicorn' boom, there came a point when she stopped listening to sound advice and began to cut corners. Her ambition was voracious and it brooked no interference. If there was collateral damage on her way to riches and fame, so be it.”
Indeed. I'm looking forward to following the criminal trial of Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani starting on 27 October 2020.
I first watched the HBO documentary 'The Inventor', which briefly sketches the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes and her Silicon Valley blood-testing company Theranos, and the fraud committed along the way. Then I picked up the Bad Blood audiobook after my boyfriend convinced me that it goes into a lot more compelling detail. He was right. Not only did I get a firm grasp of the facts and circumstances in the Theranos case as told by the whistleblowers, but I armed myself with the best modern example of why lying is not good for business. I feel a sense of justice knowing that Truth won in this case, even though the people who worked to bring it to light suffered (one even developed clinical depression and committed suicide), and despite the number of immensely powerful people Holmes had on her side.
At the end of the book, John Carreyrou, the WSJ journalist who published the front-page article that started Theranos's unraveling, writes: “A sociopath is often described as someone with little or no conscience. I’ll leave it to the psychologists to decide whether Holmes fits the clinical profile, but there’s no question that her moral compass was badly askew. I’m fairly certain she didn’t initially set out to defraud investors and put patients in harm’s way when she dropped out of Stanford fifteen years ago. By all accounts, she had a vision that she genuinely believed in and threw herself into realizing. But in her all-consuming quest to be the second coming of Steve Jobs amid the gold rush of the 'unicorn' boom, there came a point when she stopped listening to sound advice and began to cut corners. Her ambition was voracious and it brooked no interference. If there was collateral damage on her way to riches and fame, so be it.”
Indeed. I'm looking forward to following the criminal trial of Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani starting on 27 October 2020.
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Reading Progress
July 24, 2020
–
Started Reading
July 24, 2020
– Shelved
July 24, 2020
–
5.0%
"tl;dr:
Elizabeth Holmes was raised to view success as the achievement of world-changing ideas--and to pursue it at all costs. She was great at synthesizing concepts into such ideas and convincing others of her vision. However, she had neither managerial flexibility--useful for adapting when her ideas met technical limitations--nor the scientific skill to push the borders of technology to where her vision led."
Elizabeth Holmes was raised to view success as the achievement of world-changing ideas--and to pursue it at all costs. She was great at synthesizing concepts into such ideas and convincing others of her vision. However, she had neither managerial flexibility--useful for adapting when her ideas met technical limitations--nor the scientific skill to push the borders of technology to where her vision led."
August 9, 2020
–
50.0%
August 10, 2020
–
60.0%
"Someone needs to put this woman in detention and make her carve "I must not tell lies" into the back of her hand over and over again."
August 12, 2020
–
80.0%
August 12, 2020
– Shelved as:
business
August 12, 2020
– Shelved as:
non-fiction
August 12, 2020
– Shelved as:
science
August 12, 2020
–
Finished Reading
