Bad Blood
Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
Published on 31. May 2018
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-1-5098-6806-3 (ISBN)
Description
Winner of the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award 2018
"You will not want to put this riveting, masterfully reported book down. No matter how bad you think the Theranos story was, you'll learn that the reality was actually far worse." Bethany McLean, bestselling coauthor of The Smartest Guys in the Room and All the Devils Are Here
A New York Times bestseller to be adapted into a film with Jennifer Lawrence to star.
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 revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests 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 $9 billion, putting Holmes's worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: the technology didn't work.
For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, FDA officials, and her own employees. When Carreyrou, working at the Wall Street Journal, got a tip from a former Theranos employee and started asking questions, both Carreyrou and the Journal were threatened with lawsuits. Undaunted, the newspaper ran the first of dozens of Theranos' articles in late 2015. By early 2017, the company's value was zero and Holmes faced potential legal action from the government and her investors.
In Bad Blood John Carreyrou tells the story of Theranos, and encourages us to consider the possible repercussions of our blind faith in a small group of brilliant individuals.
PRAISE FOR BAD BLOOD
"A dazzling story of deception in Silicon Valley. . .It is a tale of heroic cupidity on a scale that made the very best and the very brightest look like the very, very foolish . . . You will not be able to put this book down." Washington Post
"Chilling . . . Reads like a West Coast version of All the President's Men." New York Times Book Review
"Carreyrou presents the scientific, human, legal and social sides of the story in full. Although some of it was previously reported in his extensive coverage, he unveils many dark secrets of Theranos that have not previously been laid bare." Nature
"His [Carreyrou's] unmasking of Theranos is a tale of David and Goliath." Financial Times
"You will not want to put this riveting, masterfully reported book down. No matter how bad you think the Theranos story was, you'll learn that the reality was actually far worse." Bethany McLean, bestselling coauthor of The Smartest Guys in the Room and All the Devils Are Here
A New York Times bestseller to be adapted into a film with Jennifer Lawrence to star.
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 revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests 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 $9 billion, putting Holmes's worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: the technology didn't work.
For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, FDA officials, and her own employees. When Carreyrou, working at the Wall Street Journal, got a tip from a former Theranos employee and started asking questions, both Carreyrou and the Journal were threatened with lawsuits. Undaunted, the newspaper ran the first of dozens of Theranos' articles in late 2015. By early 2017, the company's value was zero and Holmes faced potential legal action from the government and her investors.
In Bad Blood John Carreyrou tells the story of Theranos, and encourages us to consider the possible repercussions of our blind faith in a small group of brilliant individuals.
PRAISE FOR BAD BLOOD
"A dazzling story of deception in Silicon Valley. . .It is a tale of heroic cupidity on a scale that made the very best and the very brightest look like the very, very foolish . . . You will not be able to put this book down." Washington Post
"Chilling . . . Reads like a West Coast version of All the President's Men." New York Times Book Review
"Carreyrou presents the scientific, human, legal and social sides of the story in full. Although some of it was previously reported in his extensive coverage, he unveils many dark secrets of Theranos that have not previously been laid bare." Nature
"His [Carreyrou's] unmasking of Theranos is a tale of David and Goliath." Financial Times
Reviews / Votes
A dazzling story of deception in Silicon Valley . . . It is a tale of heroic cupidity on a scale that made the very best and the very brightest look like the very, very foolish . . . You will not be able to put this book down. * Washington Post * Riveting . . . a blistering critique of Silicon Valley, a kind of nonfiction corollary to Dave Eggers's The Circle . . . compelling . . . [Carreyrou's] unmasking of Theranos is a tale of David and Goliath . . . The real heroes, though, are his sources: the young scientists who worked at the company and risked their reputations and careers by voicing their concerns. Were it not for their courage, Theranos might still be testing blood today * Financial Times * I couldn't put down this thriller with a tragic ending . . . a book so compelling that I couldn't turn away . . . This book has everything: elaborate scams, corporate intrigue, magazine cover stories, ruined family relationships, and the demise of a company once valued at nearly $10 billion . . . No wonder Hollywood is already planning to turn it into a movie. -- Bill Gates, '5 books I loved in 2018' If you're looking for an engaging non-fiction read, look no further than Bad Blood . . . a pacy, compelling narrative about white-collar crime that's as incredible as any work of fiction. * Irish Times * Carreyrou tells the story virtually to perfection . . . Bad Blood reads like a West Coast version of All the President's Men. * New York Times * In this Silicon Valley drama, he opens his reporter's notebook to deliver a tale of corporate fraud and legal browbeating that reads like a crime thriller. -- The 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2018 * TIME * Gripping . . . It is a parable, with all the usual, delicious ingredients of human folly: greed, pride, vanity, lust, anger. Above all, it is an analysis of the phenomenon of hype. * Daily Telegraph * Simply one of the best books about a startup ever. * Forbes * A beautifully controlled narrative that challenges the gold-rush mentality of Silicon Valley. -- Lionel Barber, 'Books of the Year 2018' * Financial Times * Carreyrou tells the full, gripping tale of how he slayed the "unicorn" in a fascinating look at how buzz and billions can blind people to facts. -- 'Best Books of 2018' * Marie Claire *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Pan Macmillan
Target group
Interest Age: From 18 years
Dimensions
Height: 241 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 35 mm
Weight
590 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5098-6806-3 (9781509868063)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
John Carreyrou is a member of the Wall Street Journal's investigative reporting team. He joined the Journal in 1999 and has been based in Brussels, Paris, and New York for the paper, winning two Pulitzer prizes.
John has covered a number of topics during his career, ranging from Islamist terrorism when he was on assignment in Europe to the pharmaceutical industry and the U.S. healthcare system. His reporting on corruption in the field of spine surgery led to long prison terms for a California hospital owner and a Michigan neurosurgeon. His reporting on Theranos, a blood-testing startup founded by Elizabeth Holmes, was recognized with a George Polk award, and is chronicled in his book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup.
Born in New York and raised in Paris, he currently resides in Brooklyn with his wife and three children.
John has covered a number of topics during his career, ranging from Islamist terrorism when he was on assignment in Europe to the pharmaceutical industry and the U.S. healthcare system. His reporting on corruption in the field of spine surgery led to long prison terms for a California hospital owner and a Michigan neurosurgeon. His reporting on Theranos, a blood-testing startup founded by Elizabeth Holmes, was recognized with a George Polk award, and is chronicled in his book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup.
Born in New York and raised in Paris, he currently resides in Brooklyn with his wife and three children.