I remember being so impressed with the woman featured in a 2014, Forbes article, I cut it out and placed it on my daughter’s desk.
“What a role model,” I marveled “What a hard-charging, inspirational genius.”
Turns out I wasn’t the only one impressed with Elizabeth Holmes, the young woman at the helm of Theranos, a Palo Alto start-up, with a valuation in the billions. Her team had created a machine capable of performing hundreds of diagnostic tests on a single drop of blood retrieved from a pin prick. It was revolutionary, a miracle, a true tech blessing!
Problem was, it was as real as a time machine.
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, by John Carreyrou is the true story of the rise and fall of both Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. It is an absolutely breath taking account of how a Stanford drop-out in her early twenties was able to dupe a long list of highly respected investors, corporations, business leaders and others into believing the unbelievable and unproven. It is Silicon Valley’s version of the Emperor’s New clothes, only in this telling it’s all about the young Empress.
My husband and I listened to the audiobook on a recent road trip; it was very well read and completely compelling. Rest-stops were ‘NASCAR-tire-change fast’ so we could hop right back on I-95 and pick up this jaw-dropping, true story where we left off.
Bad Blood should be required reading for every single college student in business school.
Highly recommended!
this does sound like such an interesting book
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I will be thinking about the life- lessons in this story for many months to come. So many intelligent, high powered people fell for this scam..their willingness to believe/support/invest with no proof was just shocking…and her ability to maintain the lie and wiggle out of tough spots..absolutely amazing..she just cast a spell on people I guess.
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Sounds like a great audio book. I will keep it in mind.
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Not cheap..but we had a LONG drive to our daughter’s graduation a few states away and it was well worth it. This story is dismaying and scary and infuriating and frankly almost unbelievable.. and it’s true…we kept having to remind ourselves of that. I am sure you’d love it. Have a great day!! 👍
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