The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of Theranos, the multibillion-dollar biotech startup, by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end, despite pressure from its charismatic CEO and threats by her lawyers.

In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup 'unicorn' promised to revolutionise the medical industry with a machine that would make blood testing significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at more than $9 billion, putting Holmes' worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: the technology didn't work.

In Bad Blood, John Carreyrou tells the riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a tale of ambition and hubris set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley.

Listening Length

11 hours and 36 minutes
Author

John Carreyrou
Narrator

Will Damron
Audible release date

31 May 2018
Language

English
Publisher

Macmillan Digital Audio
ASIN

B07CXY65VV
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	11 hours and 36 minutes
Author	John Carreyrou
Narrator	Will Damron
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com.au Release Date	31 May 2018
Publisher	Macmillan Digital Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B07CXY65VV
Best Sellers Rank	726 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 1 in Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology Industry 2 in Biotechnology (Books) 3 in White Collar Crime Accounts

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Top reviews from Australia

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garymq

The Rise and Fall of Theranos

Reviewed in Australia on 5 November 2018

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This book is hard to believe. I don't mean that I don't believe the story - I mean it's just so, so difficult to believe that so many smart people were fooled by a product that simply never worked.
This is the story of the spectacular rise and fall of a silicon valley startup that was going to change the world. Theranos was the brainchild of Elizabeth Holmes a twenty-something wunderkind. Its main product was going to revolutionize blood testing by doing away with nasty big needles and use a tiny drop of blood to perform hundreds of medical tests. It's a great idea - a shame it never got close to working.
With her wide blue eyes and unexpectedly deep voice, she bamboozled everyone. Carreyyou tells the long sordid tale, interviewing scared Theranos workers, doctors trying to use their products, and even distraught patients. But there is very little analysis. At the end of the book we still don't know how board members like George Schulz and Henry Kissinger (both previous US secretarys of state, successful business men and diplomats), and top investor Rupert Murdoch (super smart media mogul), and many other similarly accomplished men all invested literally hundreds of millions of dollars into this enterprise - without ever seeing anything remotely like a properly working machine. Entire boards of huge companies (such as Walgreens and Safeway) totally supported her project, and started the roll-out of defective devices in their stores. On top of all that, many doctors quickly saw that the results of the Theranos tests were wrong. But the caravan continued to roll on... people continued to invest vast amounts of money... business institutions continued to heap praise and awards on Ms Holmes. It is just crazy...It's not enough to just say Holmes had charisma and charm. There must be more to it than that. People really wanted it all to be true.
The book's release is somewhat premature. At the time of publication, Theranos was still a working company, although its workforce has been reduced from a spectacular 800 to a mere couple of dozen, and the law suites and investigations have a long way to go. We still don't know what penalties are going to be handed out to Holmes (and her shady co-conspirator, Sunny Balwani), if any, for their monstrous fraud.
The story is told in competent, if somewhat pedestrian style. The facts are there, but the person at the centre of the book, Elizabeth Holmes, remains a mystery. Was she just an extraordinarily gifted charlatan? Or a psychopath, having no empathy at all with the thousands of people she was harming? Even after her company has collapsed, she seems to show no contrition or even understanding of what she has done. Perhaps it will take another book to explain the psychology behind Holmes and those who fell under her spell.

2 people found this helpful

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Laurie

Riveting reading

Reviewed in Australia on 18 April 2022

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After watching The Dropout this book caught my eye. With even more depth and details in this extremely well written book it is amazing how this grand deception went on for so long. It is a study of the dangers of the cult of greed, ambition and almost celebrity style marketing and how it can blind people to truth. I read this in almost one sitting and couldn’t put it down. Would love a follow up story once all the legal battles are finished by this accomplished author.

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EQ Expert

Three reasons I liked the book

Reviewed in Australia on 12 August 2018

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This is probably the book of 2018 with apologies to Jordan Peterson.
As a former venture capitalist for 25 years this book is fascinating reading. Most books derived from Silicon Valley are hagiographic biographies of successful founders. This tells the story of an unbelievable failure, namely the rise and fall of Theranos.
The company was founded in 2003 by 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes. It raised more than $700 million and achieved a maximum valuation of $10 billion in 2013. Theranos operated in the blood testing market claimed its technology was revolutionary and that its tests required only about 1/100 to 1/1,000 of the amount of blood that would ordinarily be needed and cost far less than existing tests.
The problem was the technology did not work but this did not Holmes and her Chief Operating Officer, Sunny Balwani, acting dishonestly to raise money from investors and signing contracts with Walgreens and Safeway. Various employees along the journey tried to act as whistle-blowers either about the technology or financial projections. Every time they were accused of not being a team player, summarily dismissed, made to sign non-disclosure agreements, and threatened with lawsuits from the highest profile lawyer in the USA, David Boies.
The turning point was in October 2015, when investigative reporter John Carreyrou of The Wall Street Journal questioned the validity of Theranos' technology. Since then, the company has faced a string of legal and commercial challenges from medical authorities, investors, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), state attorneys general, former business partners, patients, and others. Bad Blood published in May 2018 chronicles the decline. On June 15, 2018, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California announced the indictment of Holmes on wire fraud and conspiracy charges. Balwani was also indicted on the same charges. What amazes me is that Holmes, while no longer CEO, is still the Chairman of Theranos.
My favourite take-aways from the book are three. Firstly Holmes tried every trick to stop Carreyrou publishing his first article. In particular she lobbied Rupert Murdoch, owner of the Wall Street Journal, and who had invested $125 million in Theranos. Rupert, to his credit, said he did not interfere in the editorial side of his businesses and let the article run.
Secondly Carreyrou trying to work out what made Holmes tick suggests she is a sociopath. I disagree, she is a corporate psychopath, totally genetically driven by the desire to make money and if not blessed with a moral compass will unreserved lie and use fraudulent methods to achieve economic success. Holmes is Hustler/GoGetter in my emotional intelligence profiling technology. The giveaway was when she was nine years old and asked what she want to be when she grew up, she replied a billionaire. When she was asked whether she would rather be President, she said no because the President would want to marry her because she had a billion dollars.
Finally, Carreyrou is mystified by the relationship between Holmes and Balwani in that they were in a relationship together. One of great lessons of my emotional intelligence workshops is that we like those who are like ourselves. Balwani was as a much a psychopath as Holmes. He would fake his scientific knowledge causing much humour among his employees but was utterly ruthless in his treatment of them.
One can only have sympathy for the employees of Theranos. Working for one corporate psychopath at the top is bad but working for two psychopaths at the top would be unbearable.

3 people found this helpful

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Truth Devour

Unicorns & FOMO

Reviewed in Australia on 24 July 2019

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What an incredible shame the Theranos start up turned out to be. It's a wonder that it took so long for people to become aware of what had been happening for a very long time. The intimidation tactics, bullying, threats to employees... money is often the justification people use to hide behind their ugly behaviours.

It is a great breakdown of what had occurred. Hindsight is an Equalizer of the should have, would have, could haves that never took place by all those important influencers who were silent unaware contributors. Perhaps some knew and were too deeply financially invested.

What an incredible disappointment the whole situation turned out to be. Kudos to the whistle blowers. When Billions are at stake, being the ones to speak out is no small gesture of bravery.

Highly recommended read.

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sonjabs

Oh My GOODNESS what an eye opener

Reviewed in Australia on 25 March 2019

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This is indeed a sad sad sad book. The tale of how almost one billion $ was wasted over 10 years of lies and deceit. As a female technology business owner I found this recounting of the life and business as both frustrating and fascinating. SO SAD that as humankind we continue to fall for anything that looks glossy and sounds fantastical.

THIS IS A MUST READ and take heed tale.

2 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Natalia Rice

The best read of the season; the author deserves an award.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 July 2018

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Drop everything you're doing and start reading it. It's an utterly engaging mix of genres - investigative journalism, psychology (at times psychiatry), organisational behaviour, business & science reporting, and a story of worst and best of the humankind. I've cancelled meetings and events, delayed going to bed just to keep reading this book - the story is almost surreal, and it's hard to believe it really happened, and yet it did.
I'd like to compliment the author. The depth of the investigation is extraordinary; but most importantly, the narration is done in this perfect documentary style when even the most chilling events are described with high precision but without falling into emotional judgement.

I also would like to say a big thank you to all the sources and contributors who made this book possible. You're very brave people; I applaud your courage and ethics.

112 people found this helpful

David

If something sounds too good to be true it probably is.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 April 2019

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I missed this book when it launched, but Alex Gibney's excellent 2019 HBO doucmentry 'The Inventor: Out for blood in Silicon Valley' prompted my purchase.
Carryrou's book covers three and a half years of investigation into Theranos, its founder Elizabeth Holmes and her meteoric rise and spectacular fall in the obsessive pursuit of a dream. Its a fascinating read and Carryrou uses his research to tell the story from the beginning. The story of his investigations as a Wall Street Journal reporter follows the cronological order of events and is documented towards the end of the book.

Essentially, Elizabeth Holmes developed a start-up in Silicon Valley where she attempted to develop a device which could provide multiple blood test analyses for a range of conditions and diseases in a box not much larger that a large bread-bin. For the user only a small pinprick of blood was required to complete all these tests.
This would be a game changer. Some day, every home could have one and for a small charge could carry out blood tests and have them analysed almost immediately, providing early warning of developing conditions. What's not to like? Nothing it seemed.
What makes this book so fascinating, as well as the central characters and story, are the themes it explores such as:

Greed and denial
The historty of Silicon Valley start-ups is one where investors always try and get in at the beginning of potentially novel ideas and make a killing. Think Google, Facebook and Uber. Two things drive this. The idea and the confidence/ expertise/drive of those taking it forward. In the case of Theranos Elizabeth Holmes force of personality outweighed any doubts about the concept or the execution. However at the time she started Theranos, she was 19 and a Stanford dropout with no experience in blood testing whatsoever, beyond a grand idea and good connections.
Holmes exerted an almost Svengali like hold of the people in her orbit. This is partly to do with her physical appearance. Tall; striking blue unblinking eyes; dessed in black turtle necks (a la Steve Jobs) and speaking in a baritone voice. Supremely confident in both her idea and herself she managed to persuade and recruit a Board of former ex- Government Cabinet members; a 4 star General (Jim Mattis of Trump fame) and big name investors, who blinded by either the promise of the idea or the money to be made from it, were sufficiently incurous as to seek the detail of how this invention actually worked. People and organisations such as Walgreens were happy to put hundreds of millions of dollars investment into Theranos without demanding independent expert due diligence of the product.
At the time of Theranos's demise it was valued as a private company at $9bn, with Holmes's share of that valuation at $4.5. Up to that point no investor in Theranos had seen the inner working of the product or questioned the fabulous claims made for it. Neither had any member of her company Board.

Secrecy and lies
Holmes and her senior executive partner were secretive to the point of paranoia over their idea. Two reasons for this. First they were genuinely concerned about their ideas being stolen, but as time went on and they could not get their invention to work the secrecy hid a raft of corner cutting, false promises and outright lies as to how the equipment was performing. Only those in Theranos working on the project could see how far from the truth the claimes Holmes made for the product and its readiness to market actually were. Some turned a blind eye while those with professional or ethical concerns were either fired or left, all under rigourous confidentiality clauses.
This secrecy coupled with an agressive management style also stifiled the creative initiative of the Theranos team. Knowledge was power and developers were deliberately siloed to ensure they only worked on their own area so the ability to share thinking across the firm was severly limited.

Weaponising the law
What I found perhaps most shocking of all is the way the agressive use of the threat of litigation is used to force compliance, especially against those who cannot financially afford to fight their corner. The lawyers who command the most fees are the legal pit bulls of the industry. Holmes spares no expense in protecting her secrets and covering her lies with the determined use of agressive legal firms and the threats of legal action to force whistleblowers to keep silent. This extends to Carryrou as well. Of the $900m raised by Holmes in her third funding round, $300m went on lawyers fees!

Regulatory incuriousity
The FDA and other regulators seemed broadly incurious about the claims for this machine and remained so until things started to go badly wrong when what was essentially an idea at prototype stage went live to the public. The degree to which private companies can avoid such scrutiny is alarming.

The debate is still ongoing as to whether Holmes deliberately misled or had sociopathic tendencies. The story is not over. She is now charged with alleged Federal and SEC crimes which carry up to 20 years in prison.

I highly recommend this book, which I think will become a textbook on leadership, governance failure and greed.I also recommend Gibney's HBO documentary which brings to life the people and events in the book, not least Elizabeth Holmes herself. It also adds visual detail on the development of the blood testing device in the way Carryrou's book can not.

Hope this is helpful.

23 people found this helpful

CJP

One of the best written books I have read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 July 2018

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This has to be one of the best written books I have read, the style of writing is clear and concise, not overly complex or long winded as often happens with such complex business story. The flow of the writing and story telling is also excellent, it’s an extremely comfortable and enjoyable read. Given how we’ll this book is written I possibly would have enjoyed it even if it had not covered such a interesting topic.

This story is fascinating, having worked in the software and technology industry for many year, this book rings true, its always shocking to see how unwilling people are to ask the hard question and speak up, even when its clear something is clear wrong within a company.

It’s a modern day emperor's new clothes, where even big name software and investment entrepreneur can’t see the woods for the trees.

24 people found this helpful

Denise L

The author deserves a gazillion awards

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 August 2018

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At a time when trust in media is at an all time low in the US, this book reminds us why investigative journalism is still needed to help ordinary people cut through the bullsh*t and see things for what they actually are. This book, which is not only well written and gripping from chapter to chapter, does a brilliant job of showing rather than telling. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to avoid being bewitched by shiny things and big promises. What a great read. Now that I'm done, everything else seems to pale in comparison!

20 people found this helpful

Djilly L.

Page turner

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 June 2019

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The core of this tragic story is quite straight forward, and has sadly been witnessed in many variants in financial markets over time. Yet there is such an ridiculousness about some events in this story that you wouldn’t be able to make it up as fiction.

If you weren’t aware you’ll see how Silicon Valley provides the perfect breeding ground for a combination of hubris, absence of ethics and a gold-rush-blindness. It’s about a start-up company and its rock–star founder/CEO that has developed supposedly easier and faster blood tests, potentially revolutionizing the medical world. Well-known, high-profile investors lined up to back the company and helped to secure a market cap of $9 bln at its IPO. . If you are not familiar with the actual events, I will try not to spoil the story. But there was an issue with the entire proposition, a big one.. And it’s fascinating how the CEO, with her Steve Jobs-Syndrome, manged to pull rational and experienced people into her cult.

So ultimately it’s another disturbing case about how regulators, investors, staff and sadly patients were all misled through bogus claims and plain fraud with quality standards. The latter part of the book deals with the subsequent threats, lawsuits after the author, a Wall Street Journal journalist that obviously portrays himself in clever light, exposed all this.

As a professional investor it’s the type of book that will entertain you on a not-too lengthy flight. But it also serves as a reminder not to close your eyes to the pitfalls and red flags when investing in companies. A lack of oversight and serious governance issues lie at the heart of this drama; the well-respected board of the company included no-one with experience the medical field to properly assess what the company was actually trying to achieve..