Bad Blood

This book is captivating.  Being a medical technologist who works in a hospital laboratory, I can't fathom the things she was able to do.  The depth she would go just to get the funding.   The things she was letting her laboratory personnel do and the deceit were unthinkable especially since her company deals with lives.  How her company lasted as long as it did was unimaginable.  Although, I already know what happened in the end and there were times when she would irritate me, I still can't stop reading the book to the end.

If you want to know about Theranos, a Silicon Valley startup, a company poised to change the medical laboratory world,  how it started, rise and fall.  This is a very good book that will keep you turning the pages.

Elizabeth Holmes was a young Stanford dropout with a great vision.  She is very charismatic and very well connected.  She was able to hire great minds from great schools and recruit people from big companies to come work for her.  Not only that, she was able to raise funds in the hundreds of millions from reputable investors.  She was on her path to become the next Steve Jobs.

People who heard her vision just poured in money after hearing her speeches.   She ran her company in deep secrecy and fear.  Different departments were not allowed to collaborate.  Obviously without teamwork and open communication within the company the goal was not met.  If you work in the healthcare laboratory field, you know the vision is just too good to be true.  But she was a great speaker who made people believe her even without visible reliable proof of anything.  

Big kudos to the writer/journalist John Carreyrou and those who helped him get the truth out.   Carreyrou did not waver and relentlessly pursue his investigation into the company against all the charming tactics, threats and lawyers Elizabeth Holmes sent his way.