Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

Carreyrou interviewed over 150 people, including 60 Theranos employees, in preparing Bad Blood. A few spoke under pseudonyms for privacy and safety. All quoted conversations derive either from documents, emails, or interviewee’s recollections. 

In November 2006, a team from medical equipment startup Theranos, led by founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes, met in Europe with pharmaceutical corporation Novartis to demonstrate Theranos’ “cutting-edge blood-testing system" (3). Elizabeth announced that the meeting went perfectly, but chief financial officer Henry Mosley heard opposing rumors.

Theranos’ management team included several high-powered, experienced executives, such as Mosley. The company’s big product was a toaster-sized machine that could supposedly read and analyze a drop of blood in moments, greatly speeding up blood testing during drug trials. Team members returning from Europe, however, confessed to Mosley that the machines didn't always work, so they’d filmed a session when it did work and played that during demonstrations, pretending it was a live result. Investors, deceived, were signing up.

Mosley met with Elizabeth, whose piercing blue eyes, deep voice, and intense optimism he found “almost hypnotic.” They discussed the just-completed third round of funding for Theranos, which was then valued at $165 million.