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4.39 AVERAGE
4.39 AVERAGE
This is a well written story about the most extraordinary fraud. Holmes's name deserves to be up there with Ponzi's. But I am also flabbergasted that so few investors conducted due diligence.
informative
slow-paced
4.5/5
This was an excellent look at the Theranos fraud and like the reviews say, really does read like a crime thriller, totally engaging and page-turning. It also has that investigative journalism angle about two-thirds of the way in where the author discusses their involvement in uncovering the story, which is always like catnip to me and done really well in this case. Carreyrou treats his sources with the utmost respect and maybe toots his own horn a little bit but I think it's well-deserved, honestly. He ends by pulling it all together into a critique of the Silicon Valley hype culture, and how bubbles can grow so big they eventually have to burst. It reminds me a bit of the Enron scandal discussed in The Smartest Guys in the Room--the constant need for growth eventually making those running businesses turn to lies to keep it going, and harming innumerable lives over the course of their deceit. My only critique of the main body of the book is that chapters are generally broken up by the sources they came from, and while it's generally done in a linear timeline, it can be a bit hard to follow the story of Theranos from beginning to end, especially the particular products they were developing and using at each point.
The afterword added in 2023 is well worth a read because it discusses Holmes and Balwani's sentencing, although the focus is really on Holmes's trial, with Balwani's being more of an afterthought right at the end. This part gets a little lost in the details for me, possibly because the focus shifts from the harm Theranos was doing to people's health to the fraud they committed to investors (which I think was the less serious crime), but that's not really Carreyrou's fault as that is mainly what she was being charged with. The writing is maybe a little too play-by-play for me but he does pull it into a solid thesis at the end. My main gripe with it is perhaps a small part, but it bothered me nonetheless. While I don't doubt that Holmes was the mastermind (or at least one of them) of the fraud with her own agency, I don't think that her and Balwani texting about their love necessarily disproves that he abused her, as the prosecutors seemed to argue, and Carreyrou didn't really interrogate this at all. Maybe it's just because he works for the right-leaning Wall Street Journal, but it did bother me. Overall, though, this was a satisfying ending to a thrilling read and I'd definitely recommend it for any fans of investigative journalism and scammer stories!
This was an excellent look at the Theranos fraud and like the reviews say, really does read like a crime thriller, totally engaging and page-turning. It also has that investigative journalism angle about two-thirds of the way in where the author discusses their involvement in uncovering the story, which is always like catnip to me and done really well in this case. Carreyrou treats his sources with the utmost respect and maybe toots his own horn a little bit but I think it's well-deserved, honestly. He ends by pulling it all together into a critique of the Silicon Valley hype culture, and how bubbles can grow so big they eventually have to burst. It reminds me a bit of the Enron scandal discussed in The Smartest Guys in the Room--the constant need for growth eventually making those running businesses turn to lies to keep it going, and harming innumerable lives over the course of their deceit. My only critique of the main body of the book is that chapters are generally broken up by the sources they came from, and while it's generally done in a linear timeline, it can be a bit hard to follow the story of Theranos from beginning to end, especially the particular products they were developing and using at each point.
The afterword added in 2023 is well worth a read because it discusses Holmes and Balwani's sentencing, although the focus is really on Holmes's trial, with Balwani's being more of an afterthought right at the end. This part gets a little lost in the details for me, possibly because the focus shifts from the harm Theranos was doing to people's health to the fraud they committed to investors (which I think was the less serious crime), but that's not really Carreyrou's fault as that is mainly what she was being charged with. The writing is maybe a little too play-by-play for me but he does pull it into a solid thesis at the end. My main gripe with it is perhaps a small part, but it bothered me nonetheless. While I don't doubt that Holmes was the mastermind (or at least one of them) of the fraud with her own agency, I don't think that her and Balwani texting about their love necessarily disproves that he abused her, as the prosecutors seemed to argue, and Carreyrou didn't really interrogate this at all. Maybe it's just because he works for the right-leaning Wall Street Journal, but it did bother me. Overall, though, this was a satisfying ending to a thrilling read and I'd definitely recommend it for any fans of investigative journalism and scammer stories!
informative
challenging
dark
informative
tense
fast-paced
4.5 stars
This was a really interesting book about the Theranos scam. Shoutout Sienna for the recommendation. Journalists write super clearly so this book was very easy to follow in terms of all the crimes while also delving into personal anecdotes to help give pathos rather than just blandly list everything that happened.
I think the beginning was a little tough to follow just because it kept jumping around different employees’ accounts but due to the nature of the story some of them weren’t super high ranking employees so they seemed irrelevant. But by the time the author arrives as a narrator around 2/3 of the way through, it becomes clear how important these people were to uncovering the story to the public.
This was a really interesting book about the Theranos scam. Shoutout Sienna for the recommendation. Journalists write super clearly so this book was very easy to follow in terms of all the crimes while also delving into personal anecdotes to help give pathos rather than just blandly list everything that happened.
I think the beginning was a little tough to follow just because it kept jumping around different employees’ accounts but due to the nature of the story some of them weren’t super high ranking employees so they seemed irrelevant. But by the time the author arrives as a narrator around 2/3 of the way through, it becomes clear how important these people were to uncovering the story to the public.
this book was insane, idk how else to describe it. had a bit in the middle that it felt repetitive, but the end was such a whirlwind that made up for it. there's a special place in hell for ms elizabeth holmes.
informative
sad
medium-paced
Good research on a notorious scandal. Many characters and surprising anecdotes.
Well-reported and a crazy story. Three stars only because I personally felt like I "got it" in the first few pages and wasn't surprised throughout. Elizabeth Holmes is an awful CEO and perhaps even worse of a person, and people are willing to believe anything for the prospect of making money.