Bad Blood

**By John Carreyrou**

**Estimated Reading Time:** 45 minutes

**What You'll Learn**

The full anatomy of the most dramatic corporate fraud in Silicon Valley history. How a charismatic founder built a $9 billion company on a technology that never worked. The psychological and cultural forces that allowed the deception to continue for over a decade. The specific tactics Theranos used to fool investors, partners, regulators, and the media. And the courageous individuals who risked everything to expose the truth.

**Who This Book Is For**

Anyone who wants to understand how smart people get caught up in massive deceptions. Entrepreneurs who need to recognize the line between visionary optimism and outright fraud. Investors who want to spot red flags before committing capital. Employees who sense something wrong at their company and need to know how to act. And readers who appreciate a meticulously reported story that reads like a thriller.

In 2003, a nineteen-year-old Stanford dropout named Elizabeth Holmes founded a company with a mission that seemed almost sacred. She promised to revolutionize blood testing by making it faster, cheaper, and nearly painless. Instead of drawing vials of blood from a vein, Theranos would require just a single drop from a fingertip. That tiny sample would flow into a compact machine that could run hundreds of tests and deliver results in minutes. No more anxious waits for lab results. No more terrifying needles for children and the elderly. No more expensive trips to the phlebotomist. The technology would save lives by catching diseases earlier and would democratize healthcare by making testing affordable for everyone. The story was irresistible. Holmes had the right biography: a brilliant young woman disrupting a stodgy industry dominated by old men. She had the right look: the black turtlenecks, the unblinking blue eyes, the deep voice she practiced to sound more authoritative. She had the right supporters: former secretaries of state, retired generals, and legendary venture capitalists filled her board. By 2014, Theranos was valued at $9 billion. Holmes appeared on magazine covers, gave TED talks, and was hailed as the next Steve Jobs. She was the world's youngest self-made female billionaire. There was just one problem. The technology did not work. It never had. The Edison machine, named with characteristic grandiosity, could not perform the tests Theranos claimed. It produced erratic results. It could handle only a handful of simple assays, not the hundreds Holmes advertised. When the company ran demonstration tests for investors and partners, it used rigged results or secretly ran samples on commercial machines made by other companies. When real patients began using Theranos services through Walgreens, they received results that were dangerously wrong: false cancer markers, incorrect hormone levels, misleading cardiac readings. People…