Tuesday 26 October 2021

Audiobook: Bad Blood, John Carreyrou



An absolutely thrilling book! Must admit that I had absolutely no idea what it was about, but I saw that Bill Gates found it gripping, so thought, let’s see what this is about…

It’s the story of a tech start up company based in Silicon Valley, Theranos, headed up by Elizabeth Holmes. Young, dynamic and one of the youngest and first female tech start ups. All the marks of an inspirational, success story, only it really isn’t.

She managed to manipulate and dupe many investors and employees. Her idea, incredible. With a pin prick blood sample, the idea was to do a multitude of blood tests on their technology. Ultimately to develop something small enough for people to use at home. The problem was that this is pretty much impossible with just a small blood sample. The other problem was going to market much too soon and not listening to sound advice from the teams that were employed.   

This is a prime example of a leadership team that has gone rogue. What is surprising is that this is a fairly recent story, in fact her court case is on the go at the moment.

How did they manage to swindle so many people? I think it boils down to questionable, or to be more specific, non-existent, governance structures on many levels.

Highly recommendable. 


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