By John Carreyrou

The story of the Theranos blood testing scam. It is an intoxicating look inside the absurdity that can be Silicon Valley, where otherwise sane, sensible people will jump on a tremendously flawed bandwagon out of paranoia of missing the “next big thing”. For those not familiar, Elizabeth Holmes created this sham of a device and managed to convince the world it was the most revolutionary new medical testing machine. Basically, she sold a diorama box with blinking lights. An Easy-Bake Oven accomplishes more than her Edison machine. Frankly, a major part of this story not widely discussed but quite accurate among its myriad problems is the cult-like obsession that this “amazing start-up” was founded by a woman. Seriously, all these rich, powerful men were more enamored with the fact she was a 19-year-old woman than the equally obvious fact that she had zero results to back up her outrageous claims. There is no doubt a man of any age (with no STEM education beyond entry level bio and certainly no medical knowledge, btw) standing before these investors making such claims would have been expected to actually prove the damn thing. Imagine that! Before I give you a billion dollars, does it work…or even kind of, sort of work? Holmes never once showed any proof of any claim, and yet these moronic men couldn’t hand her money fast enough. Truly, when you read it you will be all, “Are you kidding me? How can you be that stupid?” It was a massive case of wanting this storybook fantasy to be true so badly, they refused to see the countless glaring warnings. And I am not implying a founding female CEO at an innovative medical tech company is “fantasy”. I am actually pointing out the irony that in a place of so many brilliant women, this one, a massive fraud, managed to gain such traction while others are ignored. An example of exactly that is Phyllis Gardner, the primary voice of sanity and challenge from the start and a genuinely brilliant, accomplished scientist whose warnings were utterly ignored by these men. Ridiculous pandering and mindless infatuation are just an insult to women. Demand the same high bar of facts and data one would of some stereotypical, techy, nerdy man. No good comes from bars and standards and expectations and goalposts constantly moving depending on who is being evaluated. It reads like a fast-paced novel and is excellently researched. I highly recommend it!