"Bad Blood" by John Carreyrou

Bad Blood traces the infamous story of Elizabeth Holmes and her blood-testing company, Theranos. By now, almost everyone knows at least the basics: young Holmes' superstar rise; her ability to raise millions from prominent investors; her company's utter failure to deliver on any of its promises--and the fraud in which she and the company engaged to hide their failings.

Carreyrou is a reporter who was essential in bringing to light the company's fraud, and Bad Blood faithfully does its journalistic duty. Carreyrou recounts the endless string of employees who were hired full of enthusiasm only to be fired once they voiced concerns about the company's lies. Carreyrou recounts the endless string of enthusiastic investors who were taken in by Holmes' charisma and a fear of missing out on the next tech giant. Carreyrou does all of this recounting well, with precision and detail, though there's so many people covered it's impossible to remember more than a couple clearly.

Still, the book was a disappointment, primarily because Carreyrou assumes the role of a traditional reporter, and the novel is written simply as an incredibly long newspaper article. There's detail and accuracy, but there's no feeling or analysis or depth. 

Most startlingly, we learn almost nothing about Holmes herself. Sure, she understandably refused to grant an interview, but you'd think there'd be some attempt to plumb her intentions, thought-process and motivations. What drove her? Did she intentionally and knowingly lie, or did she truly believe her own hype? Carreyrou notes a number of times that she wanted to emulate tech icons like Steve Jobs, but that's just a statement--not any real understanding. Furthermore, while we're repeatedly told how charismatic Holmes is, we get little real evidence for it or a feel for her personality. She persuaded millionaires and top-level government officials, but how?

We also get only a surface-level understanding of the cultural processes that allowed Holmes and Theranos to get as far as they did. Carreyrou notes two important phenomenon:

1. After the success of companies like Apple and Facebook, many investors had intense FOMO and were almost more afraid of missing out on the next big success than losing money.
2. Investors were eager to see success in someone other than a white man, and were overly willing to embrace a story of a young woman's meteoric rise.

Again, while Carreyrou acknowledges these factors, he gives them little discussion or depth. Consider, for example, why #2 is true--it's far easier to latch on to an exceptional story (a female Steve Jobs!) than consider the systemic issues that made icons on white men--but not women or people of color. But this is never discussed.

Or, even deeper, consider the longstanding myth in American society, the one that serves as the bedrock for the American Dream: if you believe it, you can achieve it. It's been the line behind motivational posters, Instagram memes, and self-help nonsense books like The Secret. If we believe this myth--and there's a lot to suggest many people in America do believe this myth--then everything Holmes did was justified. She didn't accept "no" for an answer. She believed she could solve her company's problems by striving ahead, undaunted. She had thought of an idea, and thus the idea was possible--it just required grit and effort. It's no surprise that such an attitude inherently leads to self-delusion, and it's not hard for self-delusion to justify fraud. 

But, instead, despite some acknowledgment of the culture in which Holmes and Theranos operated, Carreyrou treats Holmes as an individual fraudster, not a natural result of her environment. I don't mean to excuse Holmes misdoings, which are many, but rather to emphasize that no one succeeds like this in a vacuum.

I understand that Carreyrou is not an anthropologist or cultural historian. Still, it seems a waste to tell a story like this without an in-depth probing or why and how it happened.