Bad Blood
A review of

Bad Blood

Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

John Carreyrou • Knopf • 2018

How Theranos Bled Out

Theranos founder and fraudster Elizabeth Holmes raised millions to sell her tiny blood-testing machine.

Elizabeth Holmes wanted to be a billionaire.

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes announced that she wanted to become a billionaire when she was only nine. Pulitzer Prize winning, Wall Street Journal investigative reporter John Carreyrou uses this story to indicate her ambition. 

After graduating from Stanford, Holmes opened a company she named Theranos, combining “therapy” and “diagnosis.” A CEO at age 19, she said her firm’s new blood testing device would draw blood, test it and release the right dose of medicine. On that promise, she raised almost $16 million.

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