Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies In A silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

We’re mostly a YA and contemporary blog, anyone that has been following us for more than a month will most likely be aware of that. However, myself and Sophie in our older years bonded massively over true crime. We both love learning about true crime, gritty stuff anything out of the ordinary. I’d never read a true crime book before, until now.

One of my friends (TrueCrimeBunkerReads on Instagram) is very invested in true crime reads, and after sharing my interests, i borrowed a couple of books from them. Bad Blood came highly recommended, and honestly wasn’t anything i’d taken a huge interest in before, in honesty, the entire thing passed right over me.

Bad Blood is the true story of Elizabeth Holmes and her health technology company, Theranos. Founded in 2003, Theranos aimed to provide each and every home with their own blood testing machine, with the twist that the blood could be tested with a single drop from a finger prick. Seems good right? This Silicon Valley startup didn’t exactly go completely to plan, as the company disolved in 2018.

This was one of the first true crime books i’ve read, and one that doesn’t involve murder of some kind if i’m honest. The book is the story of how Elizabeth rose to fame (literal fame), made connections and created one of the biggest companies in the world all before she was thirty. As i said, the idea of Theranos is that blood tests can be made cheaper and easier than ever before, which sounds like a great plan if you actually know how to do it.

Elizabeth herself, whereas studious, did not have any background that was medical. She dropped out of Standford College to start her business and hired technicians from some of the most prolific companies in Silicon Valley, including Apple. She hoped this team she built would carry her towards her goal, of having every single household equipt with a Theranos machine. That clearly didn’t happen.

Bad Blood tells the story of the crash of Theranos, the legalities and the intimate stories of some of the workers. It’s incredibly interesting to hear from people who worked with Elizabeth, their interpretations of her and what it was like to work on effectively a sinking ship.

Bad Blood is as much a story of what happened, as much as it is a thought process behind Elizabeth’s actions and her personality. If you’re interested in analysing personality and figuring people out, this book might be for you. It’s incredibly interesting and whether you’re interested for the science, medical or drama, there’s something to keep you entertained.

I ended up enjoying Bad Blood far more than i thought i would to be honest. I didn’t know what to expect, i’m interested in science but struggle to read about it, but the general idea and story was incredibly easy to follow. My rating is slightly marked down due to the fact some of the people were very easily confused, and i think that’s a flaw in the writing style more than the story. I struggled at times to keep up with who was who and what they did.

That being said, it didn’t take away from the story and i ended up learning a whole bunch more about Silicon Valley than i ever thought i would.