Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup Book by John Carreyrou

Elizabeth Holmes is a Stanford Engineering dropout with a hare brain idea of a product that was touted to save the world. Though the theory of the blood test machine was flimsy, Theranos and the mini blood tester ignited the imagination of venture capitalists. Together with Balawi, her partner, she  cheated billions of dollars off billions in the product that was not. Theranos, the unicorn and Apple in healthcare, could neither take off and was rotten in business practices to the core.

Holmes promise of many tests based on a pin prick sized blood did not materialized and she used commercial testers to do the job. The results were   passed   off as results from her miniLab. Many false positives in many diseases caused much harm to patients and Walmart's venture into healthcare a pipedream. 

Why would a company whose board of directors are not from the industry or discipline able to be the unicorn in Simi Valley? The rich and powerful executive board attracted the VCs like bees to honey and the usual ritual of doing due diligence was thrown into the wind. Holmes managed to keep at her lying game because of connections and high powered lawyers.

It took a couple of young people with ideals for healthcare and work ethics to break down Holmes deception at much personal expense. By then, many brilliant lives were destroyed and disillusioned because of the  greed of the pair. 

Holmes and Balawi were supposed to be on trial in April 2020. But the CoVid pandemic pushed the trial to Oct 2020. At this time of the review, Theranos is declared insolvent but the wicked pair, now gone separate ways, are still going around scot free until Oct.

On the side note, Warren Buffet said he would not invest in Theranos because it is run by people not in the business.  Much wisdom for anyone wanting to plonk their money in any business ventures.