A review by sea_tea_books
Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

informative tense

4.5

Suggested alternate title: "Theranos: The Cult of Elizabeth Holmes." Several times the book mentioned Elizabeth tried to emulate (or maybe become?) her idol Steve Jobs, and that she rounded up her employees, telling them to blindly obey her as she was building a religion. Yikes.

"Theranos operated under a culture of secrecy and fear." Secrets make us sick.

Another case where capitalism overthrows science and critical thinking.

Unbelievable how many
enablers Elizabeth was able to surround herself with. That may have been the key as to how she was able to get so far in her farce, waste so much money, and harm so many people without being stopped. Any skeptics or whistleblowers were promptly squashed with fear mongering, squeezed with non-disclosure agreements, or stuck in litigation limbo. Even Elizabeth's supposed right hand man Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani wasn't safe from her wrath when she scapegoated and dumped him as the company sank deeper into legal trouble. Nepotism and wealthy "old boy" men permitted her illegal behavior – while turning a blind eye to common sense and scientific evidence – in return for a chance at increasing their personal wealth. American capitalism (read: selfishness and greed) at its finest. 

Don't get me wrong, Elizabeth Holmes deserves the blame. She is guilty, not only of crimes punishable by prison time, but also of being a deceptive, manipulative, scarily harmful saleswoman who can never be trusted again. She does not appear to show remorse for any of her behavior, nor does she accept any blame for her wrongdoing. The magnitude of her denial is bewildering. Let's put it this way, Dr. Ramani Durvasula could have a field day assessing Elizabeth Holmes. Dr. Ramani often says she doesn't trust charismatic people; how relevant in this case.


An interesting part of this book was
that it told the story of how someone as callous, manipulative, and ruthless as Elizabeth Holmes could continue her reign of terror for so long in this country, nestled comfortably among the wealthy zealots willing to overlook glaring problems, bypass due diligence, and deftly skirt consequences.
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