ARRT Book Club Study: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in A Silicon Valley Startup

Last month I participated in the ARRT Book Club Study Discussion of Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou. Here is the Goodreads summary:

The full inside story of the breathtaking rise and shocking collapse of a multibillion-dollar startup, by the prize-winning journalist who first broke the story and pursued it to the end in the face of pressure and threats from the CEO and her lawyers. 

In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose startup "unicorn" promised to revolutionize the medical industry with a machine that would make blood tests significantly faster and easier. Backed by investors such as Larry Ellison and Tim Draper, Theranos sold shares in a fundraising round that valued the company at $9 billion, putting Holmes's worth at an estimated $4.7 billion. There was just one problem: The technology didn't work. 

For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, FDA officials, and her own employees. When Carreyrou, working at The Wall Street Journal, got a tip from a former Theranos employee and started asking questions, both Carreyrou and the Journal were threatened with lawsuits. Undaunted, the newspaper ran the first of dozens of Theranos articles in late 2015. By early 2017, the company's value was zero and Holmes faced potential legal action from the government and her investors. Here is the riveting story of the biggest corporate fraud since Enron, a disturbing cautionary tale set amid the bold promises and gold-rush frenzy of Silicon Valley.

Below are the links from the ARRT Book Club Study Archive page which will lead you to the notes of both the discussion and the leadership topic:

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou

• Discussion 
• Leadership Training on discussing Non-Fiction

Here are my three words to describe this book: Fast Paced, Engrossing, Terrifying

We had a great and lively discussion. I would highly recommend this book for all book clubs. Again, click here to read the notes from our conversation.

If you do host a book club and are looking for ideas of proven winners, please make sure to visit the ARRT Book Club Study homepage and especially the "Archive" where ARRT offers the notes from their past discussions to any and all. You have to be a member to attend the live discussion meeting, but ARRT shares the notes after the fact, freely, as a resource for you, the book discussion leader, to "test drive" an actual discussion of the title.

Click here for a full alphabetical list of the titles for which we have notes.

Our next discussion is The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller on Wednesday, May 20th, 2-4 p.m. Downers Grove Public Library. I plan to be there.