Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

by John Carreyrou

But given that Ana would be leaving behind fifteen thousand Apple shares if she joined Theranos, she wanted to get her wife Corrine’s opinion. She arranged to meet Elizabeth again in Palo Alto, this time with Corrine present. Any hesitations she had were put to rest when Elizabeth made a big impression on Corrine too.

All of this might not have been enough to ignite the new boom, however, if it hadn’t been for another key ingredient: rock-bottom interest rates. To rescue the economy, the Federal Reserve had slashed rates to close to zero, making traditional investments like bonds unattractive and sending investors searching for higher returns elsewhere. One of the places they turned to was Silicon Valley.

With time, some employees grew less afraid of him and devised ways to manage him, as it dawned on them that they were dealing with an erratic man-child of limited intellect and an even more limited attention span.

Those who the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

Mattis went out of his way to praise her integrity. “She has probably one of the most mature and well-honed sense of ethics—personal ethics, managerial ethics, business ethics, medical ethics that I’ve ever heard articulated,” the retired general gushed.

He summed up what was going on at the company with an analogy: “The way Theranos is operating is like trying to build a bus while you’re driving the bus. Someone is going to get killed.”

Unlike venous blood drawn from the arm, capillary blood was polluted by fluids from tissues and cells that interfered with tests and made measurements less accurate. “I’d be less surprised if they told us they were time travelers who came back from the twenty-seventh century than if they told us they cracked that nut,” he said.

During the visit, she’d raised my story, telling him the information I had gathered was false and would do great damage to Theranos if it was published. Murdoch had demurred, saying he trusted the paper’s editors to handle the matter fairly.

in the Journal’s newsroom was just three floors below, but I had no idea she was on the premises. She brought up my story with renewed urgency, hoping Murdoch would offer to kill it. Once again, despite the substantial investment he had at stake, he declined to intervene.

Why had Holmes always been so secretive about her technology? Why had she never recruited a board member with even basic knowledge of blood science? And why hadn’t a single venture capital firm with expertise in health care put money into the company?

Theranos had issued a second press release that morning that amounted to what we in the news business call a “nondenial denial.” “We are disappointed to see that The Wall Street Journal still can’t get its facts straight,” it began, before going on to admit that the company had “temporarily” withdrawn its little blood tubes in what it portrayed as a proactive move to seek FDA clearance for their use.

Like her idol Steve Jobs, she emitted a reality distortion field that forced people to momentarily suspend disbelief.

Hyping your product to get funding while concealing your true progress and hoping that reality will eventually catch up to the hype continues to be tolerated in the tech industry.

(Mattis’s entanglement with Theranos proved no obstacle to his being confirmed as President Donald Trump’s secretary of defense).

Three days before the start of jury selection, Judge Davila had unsealed court filings showing that Holmes planned to accuse Sunny Balwani of psychological, emotional, and sexual abuse. It was what was known in legal circles as a Svengali defense.

The allegations had forced Judge Davila to sever Holmes and Balwani’s cases, the traditional course of action when defendants who are charged together turn against each other.