Book: Bad Blood

This book – Bad Blood – is an exhaustingly reported account of how Theranos lied and deceived hundreds of people, from employees and investors to the patients. The lies not only cost investors millions of dollars, but also put the patients at potential threats.

I was shocked and amazed by the lack of due diligence some companies showed in doing business with Theranos. Despite all the warning signs and delays, they kept going full force ahead with Elizabeth Theranos. Even more amazing was the list of high profile and experienced individuals such as Rupert Murdoch, Henry Kissinger, Jim Mattis, just to name a few, who bought into the lies and deception by Theranos.

I was really angry when reading about an employee taking his own life because of stress from work and another who had several years of his life, a family relationship and hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted by Theranos. In the end, I felt glad and relieved that the fraud of Theranos was put to an end.

I am highly appreciative of this kind of reporting by the author. Theranos resorted to aggressive intimidation and legal bullying to bury every threat that might expose the company in public. Yet, the author was dogged and exhaustive in his reporting. I am glad his editor and Murdoch, who had a financial interest in Theranos at the time and owned the parent company of Wall Street Journal, let the author follow the lead to the very end. In the times of relentless attacks to the press (some is justified, to be fair), this kind of reporting is much needed.

There has been a lot of pushback regarding the impact from regulations on business. Admittedly, there is certainly a lot of unnecessary red tape. However, if you read the book, without regulations, Theranos would have done a much bigger damage. Too many regulations is obviously bad and so is too fewer regulations. Don’t take the extreme. Seek for reasonable regulations.

Final thought is that don’t be evil. Theranos resorted to Non-Disclosure Agreements, top notch lawyers, surveillance, bullying and intimidation to keep quiet those who wished to reveal information on it. Nonetheless, the truth finally came out. In this age and day, access to information is frictionless and so is scrutiny. If you do something bad, it’s just a matter of time when it is revealed.

Easy read. The first half of the book may be a little bit dull, but stick with it. Around 50-60% of the book, the author switched to his investigation of Theranos. It is then more dramatic. If you are looking for a book to read and have no other prioritized books, take this one.