Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

How to Build and Lose a $9 Billion Corporation While Endangering People’s Lives in 30 Easy Steps

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

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CBR12 BINGO: Money Be a near-genius-level Stanford dropout with a revolutionary idea. (Say, performing dozens of different types of blood tests on a drop of blood on a machine that can fit into people’s homes.) Impress the hell out of potential investors with your charisma, intelligence, and salesmanship. Recruit your staff from the best tech firms Silicon Valley has to offer. Give your company a snappy, tech-sounding name. Pack your board with illustrious individuals, including former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of State […]

The Firm

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

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That Elizabeth Holmes was able to dupe such noted luminaries as Joe Biden, the Clintons, Rupert Murdoch, James Mattis, George Shultz, and Henry Kissinger should cure you and anyone else who suffers from imposter syndrome. Bad Blood is one of those books I’ve seen lauded in every corner of literatti space. For months, stacks of them were available at local stores. I probably wouldn’t have had interest in the story otherwise but since it’s been everywhere, I decided finally to pull it from my local library. […]

Thanks to all the Cannonballers who reviewed this. I picked it up way sooner because of that than I would have otherwise.

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

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You guys gotta read this shit. I listened to the audiobook version, and I kept looking for reasons to listen, it was so compelling. Just really solid investigative journalism into a story that seems unbelievable when you string it all together. By now, not many people haven’t heard of Elizabeth Holmes and her sham Silicon Valley start-up company, Theranos, but just in case you haven’t, Holmes started Theranos in 2003 just after dropping out of Stanford. Her dream was to produce a medical device that […]

Idylls of the Queen

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

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I think by now most of us have heard at least the outline of the story told in Bad Blood: Elizabeth Holmes, the youngest self-made female billionaire (and founder of Theranos) who somehow misled and deceived investors and board members into believing she had revolutionized blood testing and was able to test for literally hundreds of conditions using a single drop of blood. If it were true, it would have changed the world, but, of course, it wasn’t true. Holmes is set to go on […]

Bandaids don’t fix bullet holes

Bad Blood by John Carreyrou

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I enjoyed this book immensely, and appreciated the factual and as unbiased as possible approach the author took, as his investigation of Elizabeth Holmes and her company Theranos eventually made him a part of the story once Holmes began to view the journalist as a threat.  Carreyrou’s level headed reporting was a necessity given Holmes’ view of him as someone with a vendetta against her personally, and he admirably sticks to what can be factually confirmed, making allowances any time he draws a conclusion that […]

Snake Oil in Silicon Valley

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

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Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carr Finished Feb. 5, 2019, took nine  days to read 5 Stars on Goodreads, but I would rate 4.5 Genre: Non-Fiction Rating 2/5 for 2019 overall, 1/1 for Non- Fiction This is the true story of the rise and fall of Elizabeth Holmes, founder of the “health care” company Theranos. I put health care in quotes because as we all know now, Theranos was basically a company built on false hopes and lies. Sure […]



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